Monitoring government policies: A toolkit for civil society organisations in Africa

This toolkit from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development  (CAFOD), Christian Aid and Trócaire is aimed at providing the tools necessary to gather evidence about government policies in order to press for change.  The tools are arranged under five categories of evidence that can be gathered about government policies.  The final section of the toolkit provides advice on using the evidence to advocate for change.  

Contents

  • Getting started
    • Core concepts in policy monitoring 5
    • Identifying problems, causes and solutions 8
    • Beginning to develop a monitoring approach 10
  • Choosing policies and collecting information
    • Different kinds of policies 15
    • Which policies to monitor 18
    • Access to policy information 22
    • Collecting policy documents 24
  • Identifying policy stakeholders
    • Stakeholders of government policies 29
    • Target audiences and partners 31
    • Monitoring by a network of stakeholders 34
  • Looking into a policy and setting your focus
    • Analysing the content of a policy 39
    • Defining your monitoring objectives 42
    • What kind of evidence do you need? 44
    • Choosing indicators 47
    • Establishing a baseline 50
  • Analysing policy budgets
    • Budget basics 55
    • Resources for policy implementation 59
    • Budget analysis 61
  • Gathering evidence on policy implementation
    • Interviews 69
    • Surveys 72
    • Analysing survey data and other coded information 77
    • Workshops, focus group discussions and observation 84Using policy evidence to advocate for change
  • Using policy evidence to advocate for change 98

Sources

Catholic Agency for Overseas Development  (CAFOD)Christian Aid and Trócaire (n.d.). Monitoring government policies: A toolkit for civil society organisations in Africa. Retrieved from: http://commdev.org/files/1818_file_monitoringgovernmentpolicies.pdf

'Monitoring government policies: A toolkit for civil society organisations in Africa' is referenced in: