Policy design and planning often utilizes specific frameworks: SWOT, PESTLE, Theory of Change mapping out inputs for outcomes, Logical Framework Approach, Foresight frameworks (horizon scanning, wind tunnelling, driver mapping), and so on. As our work comes from a different perspective, we have found that the frameworks that work best for these goals are different. We believe that for policy-focused organizations doing similar work, there might be value to be found in our planning frameworks closer to the context in which these organizations may operate.

The common frameworks mentioned earlier are often used in, for example, workshops with government policymakers to design programs they have the ability to themselves implement, organization heads to plan out their own funding disbursements and programs, or corporations to plan their own business operations. Aspects of these frameworks are less suitable for organizations where a significant part of our intended outcomes would rely on others – government agencies, political parties, commissions, etc – successfully implementing recommendations or proposals. To reflect this, we built planning tools with a detailed real-world implementability and political-economy lens.

Broad strategic goals and specific planned actions or programs can foresee which bodies would need to implement these goals. For example, changing internal party rules, amending government regulations, improvements to electoral process, operations of Ministries, etc. These plans analyse those goals and plans from the point of view of convincing those with policymaking power to carry them out, having the institution be able to actually implement it, and keeping those improvements in place.

The below table outlines the specific frameworks we have developed for use in policy and program planning and design, based on information gathered through interviews with experts and experienced policymakers about the practical factors affecting policy and program implementation in real life. These help develop policy with a focus on implementability from the start, anticipating possible obstacles that derail in practice what might be good policy or program plans in theory. Our broad frameworks for policy and program planning are CIVIC-SCOPE framework and the Policy Scaffolding approach based on our own research, and the Four Is adapting a model used by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. A complementary framework we use is the WANT framework, which focuses on buy-in and support that policies and programs often need for implementation and survival, giving them the best chance of happening in the first place and the best chance of remaining once they have been put in place. We use the WANT framework in planning to develop profiles for key stakeholders, supporters, champions, donors or funders, and other relevant institutions that give us the best chances to achieve our intended outcomes.

Model Details

CIVIC

SCOPE

For a broad framework in program and policy design, we look at:

  • Context: The current conditions around the issue, including political, legal, institutional, social, and resource conditions, as well as broader societal views and norms.

  • Interests: Those who have a stake in the issue and in its success or failure, including stakeholders, supportive interests, likely opposing interests, and conflicts of interest.

  • Vision: The desired end-state in concrete terms - what success would look like and what best-case outcome we are aiming for.

  • Incentives: What drives behaviour of implementing organizations we would work with, including formal and informal incentives, direct wins and losses, misalignments between program success and individual success (career, reputation, financial interests), perceived electoral impacts, potential perverse incentives or cobra effects, and risk of policy/regulatory capture.

  • Challenges: What might constrain the achievement of a goal or outcome. When success depends on others, a program designed to survive real-world constraints may outperform a best-case design that assumes ideal implementation.

From this perspective, we would also map out the expected type of challenges we summarized as SCOPE:

  • Structural: Legal and regulatory barriers, mandates and jurisdiction, and entrenched conflicts of interest that are built into systems.

  • Capacity: Whether partners and implementing organisations have sufficient staff numbers, skills, and functional systems to deliver the intended outcomes.

  • Operational: Logistics, coordination (what needs just one department to implement versus what needs several agencies to work together), priority drift with new programs or staff turnover, and day-to-day execution headaches of getting things done on the ground.

  • Political: Partners’ willingness to spend political capital, concerns about electoral consequences, risk tolerance, and the ability to secure and maintain stakeholder buy-in.

  • Economic: Budget and cost constraints, including tight funding envelopes and competing demands on limited resources.
Four Is

This extends the Three Is approach used by Banerjee and Duflo to diagnose recurring problems in lasting policy implementation and success.

  • Ideology: Existing beliefs about how the world works or how it should work. Trying to fit implementation to how they feel things should be, missing actual constraints and behaviour.

  • Information: Lack of detailed knowledge about how people live and systems are used on the frontlines and in the field, far from where plans are designed and decisions made (same concept is described as ‘ignorance’ in Banerjee & Duflo).

  • Inertia: Even if a poorly designed policy or a system that creates discretionary opportunities for corruption is in place, it can be challenging to roll them back through bureaucratic inertia.

  • Incentives: How the design of policies, formal or informal rewards and potential gains or losses create positive or negative incentives; misalignments of incentives between the goal of a program, goal of the implementing institution, personal goals of individuals within the institutions, and goals of stakeholders or supporting bodies.
WANT

Strategic approaches include not just what but how, who, and when. The best-case outcomes may be hard to sell, so planning for outcomes includes planning to capitalize on the best opportunities by being convincing to those that need to be convinced, at the time where they are most likely to be convinced and able to act quickly while that conviction lasts. For this we have a WANT approach.

  • Wins: Being able to show the win-win by showcasing a clear win or success that the decision-maker or organization can claim, especially when asking them to expend any political capital or take risks.

  • Angle: Framing that resonates most strongly with intended audience stakeholders by linking that outcome to positive impacts on their field or priorities.

  • Narrative: The story that makes the policy compelling, memorable, persuasive, and defensible - one that's easy for enthusiastic supporters to correctly tell others about it and pass it along.

  • Timing: Policy windows and opportune moments where those changes are likeliest to be adopted (close to budget cycles, when a topic is in the news, certain holidays, before major events, need for good PR, around elections, etc).
Scaffolding

Approach to design programs that are easy to adopt, graft, and transfer across organisations or donor arrangements while retaining resilience and portability. The model explicitly considers staff turnover, priority drift, and the need for plans to withstand leadership changes.

It also incorporates thinking about the "voltage effect" as described by John List by planning for upside scenarios where our work is more successful than expected and needs to scale rapidly. This ensures that risks are not only defined in negative terms but also as missed opportunities to capitalize on success.