Lesya Ilchenko-Syuyva, Associate Professor, Economic Policy Department, National Academy of Public Administration, Office of the President of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine
E-mail: lesya@rocketmail.com
Call for Papers 2012
Significant efforts to improve decision-making within the
public sector by developing capacity in policy analysis have been made in CEE,
Central Asia and Caucasus counties. Unfortunately, these efforts are still in
their early stages in many of these countries, and heavily reliant on donor
assistance. There continues to be issues, both on the demand side (how much
governments genuinely want evidence-based policy advice), and on the supply
side (e.g. skilled policy analysts, teaching institutions, think tanks).
Given the importance of the field, a Working Group on Policy Analysis Development Issues was established in 2010 emanating from a relatively small Panel Session organised in the framework of the 2008 NISPAcee Annual Conference. The wide variety of papers and the large number of participants were evidence of the strong interest in policy analysis in the regions.
In
its third year, the Working Group will narrow its focus and become a vehicle for
discussion and debate around capacity
challenges to professional policy analysis and concrete remedies for those challenges. These are especially
important in the regions embraced by NISPAcee. First, policy analysis has
developed unevenly in different countries, academic training is often weak, and
professional capacity in governments is sometimes severely limited. Second, the Working Group wishes to go beyond
a diagnosis and encourage discussion on the ways forward.
Accordingly, the Working Group is extending this call for papers in order to organise several panels at the upcoming 20th NISPAcee Annual Conference in Ohrid, Macedonia in May 2012 around the theme of Public Policy Analysis in CEE, Caucasus, and Central Asia: Evidence of Implementation and Future Challenges.
Papers should provide both evidence-based analysis of the current state of
policy analysis issues in a country and potential remedies for possible future
weak points. This might lead to emergent strategies across the regions. More
specifically, papers may focus on:
1.Specific weaknesses (or strengths) of policy analysis in a single country or selection of countries, either generally or in specific sectors (either policy areas such as health or institutions such as think tanks);
2.Case studies of the application of techniques (e.g. regulatory impact assessment, ex ante impact assessment, evaluation);
3.Analysis of instances where capacity-building is being attempted;
4.Comparative analysis of similar challenges faced by a variety of countries.