CSOs' Capacity to Influence Policy Making

The indicator assesses the extent to which the target CSOs are able to formulate and officially submit their suggestions on the changes in the existing policies or inputs for the formulation of new policies.

Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:

1) Define what types of “policies” can be considered. For example, will you only consider the government’s national policies? Alternatively, will you also consider the policies that are formulated at the regional / level?

2) Define how the proposed changes/ inputs need to be submitted in order to be considered “officially proposed”. For example, is it enough just to mention them during a meeting with a relevant policy-maker or do they need to be submitted in a written form? To whom do they need to be submitted?

3) Conduct interviews with the target CSO representatives, assessing 1) the number of proposals for changing existing policies / designing new policies; and 2) the way these proposals were submitted. If a CSO submitted several different suggestions related to the same policy, they should all be counted as one proposal (i.e. the focus is on how many policies the given CSO tried to influence).

4) Verify the provided information by reviewing the content of the submitted proposals; possibly also by interviewing the policy-makers who were supposed to receive them.

5) Per each CSO, count the number of proposals that met the criteria pre-defined in points one and two (type of policies + submission process). To calculate the indicator’s value, sum up the number of such “eligible” proposals.

1) If you want to assess CSOs’ influence on policymaking, use the same methodology but also measure the number of proposed updates/ inputs that were used - formally accepted and incorporated in the policies.