The Policy Template of the Global Study was piloted in two countries: Bolivia and Malawi. Last week, both pilot countries put together some suggestions for how to carry out a successful study.
In both pilot countries, the most important asset was a capable, knowledgable, diverse team of experts who are personally qualified in areas relevant to the Study.
BOLIVIA
1.Tener estrecha relación con las políticas que están siendo desarrolladas actualmente en cada país, pues algunos programas de otras gestiones podrían haber sido descartados por la actual gestión de gobierno.
English translation:
1. Build strong understanding of the policies that are actually being developed in each country, since some programs that were developed in the past might have been dropped by the current government.
2. Identificar personas clave en la generación de la información sobre gasto social, en especial que tengan conocimiento sobre programas relacionados con niñez.
English Translation:
2. Identify key people who will generate information on Social Expenditure, especially that will have knowledge on programms related to children.
3.Tener un equipo de trabajo, en el cual se tengan expertos sectoriales en salud, educación, pobreza, gasto social quienes deben guiar en el llenado de formulario, pero sobre todo, que tengan la capacidad de sintetizar las experiencias de sus respectivos sectores.
English Translation:
3. Have a working team of experts in the areas of Health, Education, Poverty and social Expenditure, who should guide in the filling of the template, but especially, who have the capacity of synthesizing their experiences in each respective sector.
4. Llenar los formularios en el idioma del país, pues algunos entrevistados no saben inglés a la perfección. Luego se debe traducir o recurrir a alguien para que traduzca a inglés los formularios. Para esto, los encargados (sectorialistas) de cada equipo deben saber leer y escribir
en inglés.
English Translation:
4. Fill in the template in the language of the country, since some of the interviewees do not have perfect English. Then, it is necessary to find someone to translate the template into English. Each expert/head of team should be able to read and write in English.
5. Para algunos datos, se debe recurrir a datos oficiales, puesto que algunos documentos sugeridos que están en Internet, no están actualizados o difieren del valor que es utilizado a nivel nacional.
English Translation:
5. For certain data, it is necessary to resort to the official data, because some of the suggested documents on the internet are not updated or differ from what is used at the national level.
MALAWI
1. Data on children from the responsible Ministry may not be complete and not of high quality; the Team should anticipate this and be ready with alternate data sources, or coping mechanisms.
2. Obtaining recent data can be a challenge; in Malawi the team had difficulties to obtain the most recent data on nutrition.
3. If there are many programmes in the country like health, HIV/AIDS/social protection where children are not specifically in highlighted or emphasized, focusing in on children is not always that easy.
4. In Malawi, a multi-sectoral team from government line ministries with some representation from the UN and civil society participated in completing the policy template, led by the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. In general, partners appreciated the experience.
