Preface

When we started to develop the INSPIRED method almost a decade ago, our initial objective was to develop an operational toolkit that the EU and its Member States could use to implement the 2009 Council Conclusions on Democracy Support[1]. In hindsight, the set of common values, norms and central principles then agreed by the EU Member States –resulting in a new strategy for supporting democracy by means of a country-specific approach, dialogue and partnership, EU coherence and coordination, mainstreaming, international cooperation, and visibility - has turned out to be a true milestone for the EU cooperation system, not only because it brought democracy to the forefront of the Union’s efforts to eradicate poverty and build a fairer world, but also because it implicitly acknowledged that much of this work is inherently political and, whether we like it or not, development interventions have an impact in the political landscape of the countries in which they unfold. Aware of this fact, the core notion underlying the INSPIRED method is that any development interventions sponsored by democratic donors should equally strive to strengthen democratic institutions and practices. One way of pursuing such an overarching goal is the promotion of a culture of dialogue, a crucial but often lacking element in many young democracies, where the competing dynamics introduced by elections are often having strong negative side-effects, from chronic distrust to citizen political alienation and an ever-increasing polarisation that feeds on confrontation and promotes a winner-takes-all attitude towards decision-making[2].

‌Faced with the challenge of translating such abstract principles and broad areas of action as the ones contained in the Council Conclusions into an actionable method for EU democracy support actors, we opted for developing a sort of beta version of what would later become the INSPIRED Operating Model, or method, presented in this handbook, and for testing it in five countries from quite disparate regions and different political traditions: Ghana, considered a rather stable democracy in West Africa; Kyrgyzstan, the only democracy in Central Asia albeit being periodically rocked by mass protests and ethnic clashes; Morocco and Tunisia, which were at the time in the midst of the Arab Spring; and Moldova, our small and landlocked Eastern neighbour. Despite their many differences, a common feature of all these countries was their growing awareness of the implications of interdependence in a globalised world and their willingness to keep good relations with the EU, which, for most of them, is a crucial partner in terms of trade and foreign investment. This kind of leverage allowed an EU funded project like ours to reach out and engage key domestic stakeholders in locally-led dialogue processes that were to focus on the issues identified by our partner organisations based in each of the five countries, from women political participation in Ghana to the rights of ethnic minorities in Kyrgyzstan or the resilience of the Moldovan economy ahead of the entry into force of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU.

‌With such a broad range of topics, our efforts to systematise what was happening in the field only started to yield fruits when we started to look at things through a “policy lens”. Indeed, the most relevant insight that we got from implementation was the key role that inclusive and participatory policy-making could play in consolidating democracy. Besides promoting mutual understanding across political camps, inclusive policy dialogue contributes to building a culture of evidence-based policy-making, as it promotes discussions and deliberations that are informed by facts instead of beliefs. In doing so, it also builds working bonds among policy professionals from diverse backgrounds and institutions, thus strengthening accountability through the joint development of cooperation mechanisms. When carried out in an open and participatory manner, policy work – it’s design, implementation and evaluation - becomes an effective means of brokering consensus on concrete policy problems as well as possible solutions to those problems, as it forces the policy-makers and stakeholders to put their cards on the table and engage with each other in a rational, evidence-based discussion. So much for the theory. In reality, even the best designed policy dialogue can derail or get stuck due to a wide range of potential challenges. Of course, the policy arena is not free from partisan politics and electoral calculations. In effect, politics is an integral component of policy-making and thus needs to be integrated into any method for promoting inclusive and participatory policy dialogue that wants to stand a chance of achieving real impact.

‌These are just some of the lessons that we’ve learned in the process of designing, implementing and evaluating INSPIRED dialogue processes in many different countries, from Paraguay and Bolivia to Cabo Verde, Armenia, Mongolia or Pakistan. In many ways we didn’t know where we were heading when we developed the initial Operating Model, and we have come to realise that we made the road by walking and that this attitude of openness and flexibility is what ensured the relevance of the method in the eyes of our local teams and partner organisations who, after all, are closest to the policy arena and therefore best situated to assess the usefulness of our method, a method that they helped us to shape to a great extent. Hence we strive to keep it that way, leaving the INSPIRED model open to new inputs, revisions, adaptations and further learning, and according our “hosting structures” –or implementing partners– the necessary room for manoeuvre that they need to make an impact on how policies are made in their respective countries, while we continue to integrate their insight into our continuously updated method and toolbox.

‌Therefore, the objective of this guide is to provide practitioners from across the world with first-hand insight on what may work when conducting and facilitating multi-stakeholder policy dialogue, including how to structure such dialogue processes and capture their intended and unintended outcomes. Indeed, our joint work with the domestic partners in charge of implementation has made us well aware that excessive planning and preordained procedures can easily turn into operational straightjackets. Therefore, we invite every reader to take all that is hereby said with a pinch of salt and to always keep in mind that these pages can only serve as “inspiration”, if only because at the end of the day each dialogue process is a road that can only be made by walking.

‌Ten years ago we couldn’t expect that the INSPIRED method would end up taking a life of its own, being on the one hand embraced by local organisations who are adopting and adapting it to the circumstances of their own political contexts, while on the other hand raising so much interest among donor organisations –mainly the EU– by providing them with a means to foster and structure civil society engagement in policy dialogue. In a global context of democratic backsliding and shrinking democratic space, we truly believe that learning to see things through a policy lens and taking collective decisions in a more participatory and inclusive way is key for consolidating public debate and mediating between citizens and the state. After all, the terms “policy” and “dialogue” stem from the Greek “politeia” and “dialogos”, the two features at the core of democracy that can mitigate the agonistic and confrontational dynamics fostered by another key ingredient of democracy: elections.

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