Policy Briefs

Policy Briefs are designed to inform and facilitate analysis and decision-making at the national level.

Their key purpose is to present information to the target audience: governments, NGO’s and stakeholders, to facilitate policy dialogue and enhance high level decision-making.

Policy briefs are intended to complement the more technical information such as CBA’s, and consequently should be based on non-economic language so that decision makers from any background can easily understand the policy implications of our work.

Key things to remember when writing a policy brief:

Target decision-makers in governments, NGOs and other development agencies. These may have no economics background or knowledge!
Include photos/figures/graphs/tables to convey critical information simply.
Use few words and focus on the key messages. The longer it is the less people will read it, and the idea of a brief is to inform as wide a range of people as possible.
A policy brief should fit onto a maximum of two sides of A3, should have font size of 11 or above, and should be more than 60% pictures, graphs etc.

6 key sections to include:

1) Short introduction to the project, where, when, who undertook the study.

2) Objectives of the project, who it will help, why it matters for the Pacific and the policy issues it hopes to address.

3) Key findings (this is perhaps the only section that might have econ stats such as Net Present values or Cost Benefit Ratios and these measures should be explained in non-economic terms as well).

4) Why these findings are important for policy makers in the Pacific

5) A key part of the brief will then be “Recommended policy actions” which may include “further technical assistance” or study of the phenomena

6) Finish with “further reading” and contact details for those who want to know more.

Examples of SPC policy briefs can be found at: http://www.spc.int/sppu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7&Itemid=54