Policy Solutions Lab

Established in 2017, the Policy Solutions Lab @SDPIPakistan is driven to strengthening evidence-informed policy-making in Pakistan. We inspire to raise the bar in effective governance and decision-making by rethinking policy problems and solutions as they evolve and transform.

Our most recent endeavour involved the development of SDGs prioritization frameworks in Punjab and Balochistan as well as leading cutting-edge discussions on key issues such as exchange rate flexibility, social content in macroeconomic policies and monetary policy governance in Pakistan. The Lab is presently assessing the impact of COVID-19 in South Asia, identifying the policy priorities needed to support sustainable recovery and building back better.

What we do?

Forward-looking in its approach, the Lab delivers innovative and advance research solutions to meet the future policy needs of governments, policy-makers and other key stakeholders within the development sector. To do this, we analyze (draw policy lessons through rigorous research), design (develop key messages and recommendations) and broadcast (share our findings with relevant stakeholders). Our work focuses on:

Economic Policy: We firmly believe that raising the awareness of policy makers, as well as the general public, on matters of economic policy helps shape sounder and more efficient policy design and implementation. Our work mostly relates to monetary policy, fiscal policy and financial policy.
Social Policy: Recognizing the need for social content in macroeconomic policy, we explore areas of financial inclusion, social exclusion and inequality, as well as how macroeconomic policy shapes related outcomes within these concepts. Additionally, the Lab underpins the need for a strong social policy in a post COVID-19 context, given its centrality to inclusive recovery.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Leading the work on SDGs localization and prioritization, we provide data gap analysis down to the third tier of governance: the local governments. We also foster debates on the integration of SDGs into mainstream economic policy.
Evaluating Policy Impact and Feasibility: Utilising the latest advanced methods in data collection and analysis, the Lab provides high-grade assessments on the efficacy and impact of policy interventions across various projects, programmes, reforms and measures – determining the viability of policy actions proposed or presently underway.

Umar Ayaz

Research Associate

Arooj Waheed Dar

Senior Research Associate

Aqsa Naveed

Research Assistant

Abdus Samad Siraj

Research Assistant

Dr. Sajid Amin Javed

Deputy Executive Director Research, D4D Lead

NEWS

BLOGS

The Centre for Learning and Development (CLD) at SDPI is aimed at strengthening the capacities of civil society organizations, private sector organizations, academia, and policy research institutions for sustainable development. The Centre believes in participatory and interactive approaches for mutual learning about institutional capacities, building strategies for transforming human resources, applied research, and good governance to improve systems for durable solutions. Any activity aimed toward mutual learning helps to ensure a combination of knowledge management and action research through reflective learning experiences, which may or may not be successful. This is very important in how institutional leadership transforms learning processes for organizational capacity development to reflect improved results for the desired impacts.

The SDPI Centre for Learning and Development has achieved the unique status of transforming institutional leadership for quality enhancement through multi-dimensional learning methodologies. Effective assimilation techniques are part and parcel of SDPI’s learning and development programs. CLD has achieved another milestone by launching an international training program in collaboration with International Development Research Centre (IDRC), a premier Canadian Government supported Canadian Institute. CLD-SDPI is now an official partner of IDRC for conducting international training workshops on leadership, change management, impact evaluation, quality assurance, governance, and other relevant areas for the world’s top-ranked think tanks working across Southeast Asia and the Pacific Region.

Since its inception, till date, CLD has conducted more than 1500 training workshops, trained more than 15000 professionals in various categories from more than 650 development organizations, academia, research institutions, industry, and the corporate sector. Conducted many of customized workshops on research quality, faculty development, leadership, and team building, organizational performance, community development and change management, research and proposal writing, project management and impact evaluation, and many other relevant areas for research and academic institutions, as well as national, international and UN organizations, including, Fred Hollows Foundation (FHF), Australia, United States Educational Foundation, Pakistan (USEFP), British Council, DFID, USAID, UKAID, USAID, GIZ, UNESCO, UNODC, UNDP, UNICEF, and many other similar organizations. A brief summary of the relevant organization is attached in Annexures.

Vision

To be a centre of excellence in generating and disseminating research based knowledge to strengthen SDPI’s brand and to remain relevant to our beneficiaries.

Mission

To become a quality training organisation through a high performing team to contribute and for the successful attainment of SDPI’s mission.

Objective

To design, conduct and market at least 20 short training courses (generic, research based and specialized) every year by addressing the needs of potential clients.

Policy Solutions Lab

Policy Solutions Lab-SDPI