UN DESA | DPAD | Development Policy Analysis Division
Capacity Development and Advisory Services
Policy Coherence
The Policy Coherence project:
Adapts policy recommendations made in DESA's annual flagship publication, the World Economic and Social Survey (WESS) to specific local and regional conditions
Brings the latest economic research directly into policy debates at the regional and national level
Builds domestic capacity through country dialogues and regional workshops
The project will focus on issues analyzed in the WESS, such as capital market management techniques, financial market and macro-prudential regulations, trade, and climate change policies. The project will also develop 'policy toolkits', which lay out the benefits and costs of alternative policy prescriptions on each topic.
Capacity building project for Strengthening Coherence and Coordination of Development Policies (2011–2013)
- Objectives
- Activities
- Countries
- Outputs
- Partners
The project was conceived as a means of making important policy proposals in the WESS more context specific; to convey these ideas directly to policy-makers in developing countries, and enhance policy dialogues.
By participating in intra-regional workshops and national dialogues, Government officials and other stakeholders will be exposed to current economic thinking as formulated in recent World Economic and Social Surveys (WESS) and other important policy research, and they will learn from other countries' experiences. Outcome documents and 'policy toolkits' will serve as useful reference points for policymakers.
- 23–24 August 2011—A two-day regional workshop was held to discuss issues of capital account management, financial market regulation, and the design of macro-prudential regulations to enact counter-cyclical policies in developing countries. Attendants included senior policy-makers and experts from Latin America, Asia and Africa. (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
- Workshop participants, with necessary support from UN-DESA staff and consultants, will put together policy 'toolkits' through online discussion to provide countries with a comprehensive 'catalogue' of alternative policies and their impacts on particular topics.
- National dialogues will introduce the 'toolkits' to countries to address context-specific questions, conditional on need, interest and commitment of recipients.
A regional workshop covering issues relating to capital account management, financial market regulation and macroeconomics was held in Brazil in August 2011, with participants from Latin America, Asia and Africa. National dialogues centred on these and other topics will take place in a few countries, with potential candidates including Ethiopia, South Africa, and Peru.
- Workshop policy-oriented synthesis report to form a basis for national development policy design
- 'Policy toolkits' that lay out alternative policy positions for particular topics, alongside the associated impacts, risks and country-level experiences
- Country dialogue outcome documents to serve as case studies for other countries
The project is executed by UN-DESA in collaboration with other UN entities (ECLAC, ECA and UNDP) and external organizations (the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) at Columbia University and IPEA in Brazil).