Food Policy Process Index: Measuring the Effectiveness

of the Food Policy Process in Developing Countries

Suresh BabuWorkshop on Approaches and Methods

for Policy Process Research

November 20, 2013

Introduction

Index: Combination of measures of various elements of a system to gauge the performance of the system

Purpose of an index

Descriptive (What’s going on? Is there a problem? Cross-section or longitudinal comparisons)

Prescriptive (Wherein lies the problem/constraining/ bottlenecked element?)

Viewpoint of capacity strengthening: Indexes facilitate the identification of problem areas or weak spots -> helps in prioritization of capacity strengthening needs

Context: Food policymaking—FP research can have maximum impact if the policy process has first been measured and its capacity strengthened to absorb research evidence

IndicatorsThree elements of Capacity

System Capacity

Organization Capacity

Individual Capacity

•Formal and informal institutions•Enabling environment•Governance, transparency, accountability, cooperation, coordination, participation, corruption, rule of law

•Leadership, management, resource allocation

•Financial management and budget•Goal orientation and level of success•HR, incentives, salaries•Hierarchy structures

•Local issue specific knowledge•Technical capabilities and skills•Communication skills (writing, speaking, networking, lobbying, collaborating)

•Attitude and personal motivation

Examples of Indicators

System-level (enabling environment): Worldwide Governance Indicators (World Bank); Ease of Doing Business; Corruption Perceptions Index (Transparency International); Democracy Index (Economist Intelligence Unit)

Organization-level: Budget; Rate of turnover of employees; Output/input rate; Internet access; electricity stability; number of positions filled per allocated

Individual-level: Educational attainment (general and subject/level specific); Job satisfaction tests; Outputs (eg. Publications:FPRCI)

Food Policy Process Index (FPPI)

Challenges

Obtaining data on qualitative measures (eg. informal institutions, measuring organizational effectiveness, attitude/personal drive

Identifying all relevant elements (and stages) of policy process; understanding substitutability and complementarity of elements

Formation that reflect multi-dimensional relationships of elements

First Steps

Collecting data for FPRCI (published in GFPR)

Identifying existing, relevant measures (indicators and indexes)

Value of FPPI

CAADP implementation: How can policy process strengthened to reach goals?

ReSAKSS: How can ReSAKSS support policy process development?

IFPRI: How and where can IFPRI strengthen capacity in order to increase uptake of its research?

Donors: Where can donors invest to yield system-wide improvements in food policy processes and hence outcomes?

Moving Forward

Policy Process Discussion: Necessary and sufficient elements of a food policy process

Relationship between said elements

Construction that is theoretically justified, simply constructed, empirically meaningful, and practically useful