Collective Assessment Phase

The Collective assessment phase aims to map the political context in the target country in order to validate – or change – the policy area initially selected by the donor.

Once the pertinence and opportunity of launching a dialogue process are confirmed, the Dialogue Host needs to map out the possible issues of conflict and the power relations amongst the stakeholders who can influence policy-making and/or will be affected by the policy change.

To this end, the phase is built around a series of focus groups, collective mappings and participatory assessments of both the policy landscape and the policy players that have either a say or a stake in the policy area under discussion. Each new round of collective mapping brings more clarity about the challenges and opportunities for policy reform, as it allows the stakeholders to jointly validate the key issues and to assess whether there is a window of opportunity for achieving consensus on what needs to change.

The quality of the collective assessment will guide the full dialogue process, as it defines the way the stakeholders work together and relate to each other in achieving shared commitments.

Throughout this crucial phase, the Hosting Structure must work to lay the foundation for the dialogue to be inclusive and allow for real participation. Right from the onset, it must ensure that no key stakeholder is left aside, while working actively so that those taking part in the dialogue recognise each other as legitimate interlocutors.

Mutual recognition is intricately and intrinsically linked to trust. Indeed, starting the dialogue process with a participatory assessment that requires from participants to jointly define the main needs and priorities to be tackled, as well as the ways of working together for the remainder of the process, is likely to create an environment conducive to trust among participants and to increase their ownership over what may result from it.

The phase ends when the stakeholders reach a first agreement in the form of three outcomes that lay the foundations of the ensuing Consensus Building phase. Simply put, these outcomes refer to the ‘what’ (participatory policy assessment), the ‘who’ (list of participants) and the ‘how’ (programming document and rules of the game)

1. Participatory Policy Assessment
2. Stakeholders' Mapping
3. Participatory Programming and Timeframe setting
1. Participatory Policy Assessment

The first document will contain an overall policy assessment contextualising the ensuing dialogue process within a concrete policy landscape and stating the areas of contention and the conflicts that need to be addressed to achieve consensus.

This document includes a set of policy indicators jointly elaborated, through which the dialogue participants, the Hosting Structure and the donor(s) can measure the state and evolution of the policy at stake.

Basing the discussions on concrete and reliable data stems not only from a belief in the importance of promoting a more rigorous approach towards policy-making but also from the assumption that promoting a culture of dialogue requires in the first place to overcome the sort of partisan dialectics that tend to neglect facts when they contradict a given ideological position

2. Stakeholders' Mapping

The second will consist of a list of organisations and individuals invited to the dialogue process, including a follow-up mechanism to keep track of their involvement along with the Consensus Building phase.

3. Participatory Programming and Timeframe setting

The third outcome will be a participatory programming document in which the stakeholders establish what goals they want to achieve and how.

This document will be indicative and subject to modification, but it remains crucial when it comes to providing a framework that allows the stakeholders to foresee the direction in which they are heading and the type of activities and funding that is needed.