Overview

• 40 hours of training on a full cycle of research paper and advocacy.

• Developing an advocacy campaign.

• Understanding 5 crucial areas of public policies.

• Engaging participants with state officials to implement their advocacy campaigns.

• Drafting and publishing policy paper, mentored by policy experts.

Earned skills

• Authoring and publishing skills in general, and specifically policy papers.

• Preparing, implementing, and evaluating advocacy campaigning skills.

• Networking with peers, experts, and governmental officials.

• Promoting your skills and academic output through the program’s website and publications. 

Our approach

The program is based on the “4E Approach” which is as follows:

• Equip: Help participants acquire essential tools and skills to develop and advocate policies.

• Expose: Identify five crucial areas of public policies in terms of stakeholders, structures, processes, and implementation, as well as, debates surrounding each policy.

• Engage: Train participants on developing advocacy campaigns and facilitate meetings with state officials to initiate first steps towards implementing their own campaigns.

• Enrich: mentor participants to produce policy papers on a major policy issue to enrich debates and nurture policy alternatives that might help policy makers in addressing challenging issues.

Program activities

Below is a detailed description of the program:

• Intensive Induction Week: Participants commence this project with 40 hours of intensive training from 12-21 of September, 2020 at 5-9 p.m. to become familiar with conducting empirical research. This encompasses the full timeline of activities involved in a project from refining the research question, to evaluating the best methodology to have impact on the policy problem, engaging in research, and drafting written research outputs ready for publication.Participants will also be trained in developing advocacy campaigns.

• Discussion Seminars: Participants will participate in five seminars about important policy debates in Iraq: financial and economic reforms, public sector reforms, anti-corruption reforms, electoral reforms and citizen participation, and minorities & women rights from 26-30 September at 5-9 p.m.

• Advocacy Campaign: Participants will have eight hours of training from 3-15 of October, 2020 on developing advocacy campaigns and will be divided into five groups, where each group is mentored to develop an advocacy campaign in one of the above-mentioned policy areas; and engage with state officials to discuss the policy issue in question. The meetings will take place from 17 October to 14 November, 2020.

• Capstone Project: Enrich debates on institutional reforms by having fellows prepare policy papers on public sector reform, mentored by a policy expert, detailing institutional framework, mapping stakeholders, highlighting opportunities and obstacles, and recommending feasible and desirable policy alternatives, where the deadline of submitting the project will be by 28 November, 2020.