TWP CoP Activities Update: New publication on PEA and upcoming event on where next with TWP

New publication in collaboration with FCDO

Understanding Political Economy Analysis and Thinking and Working Politically

By Alan Whaites, Laure-Hélène Piron, Alina Rocha Menocal and Graham Teskey

This guide outlines a set of analytical tools that are collectively known as Political Economy Analysis (PEA). The guide aims to equip practitioners to think and work in a politically informed manner, given that foreign policy and development objectives are invariably politically complex, and entail engaging with counterparts’ political incentives and preferences. The guide summarises different types of approaches to undertake PEA – from very light-touch to more in-depth – and provides advice to help foreign affairs and development professionals decide what might be more/less appropriate and feasible in a given context and why, with illustrations based on the experiences of FCDO teams working on these issues. This guide will help practitioners to make use of PEA and to adapt and tailor it to their own specific needs. The first part of the guide offers a general overview of PEA as an analytical approach. The second part provides more specific guidance for those who are tasked with undertaking analysis.

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New TWP CoP Event in our Global Webinar Series

Roundtable: Alina Rocha Menocal in conversation with Heather Marquette, Laure-Hélène Piron, and Verena Fritz

Wednesday 15th March, 15:00-16:30pm GMT

Description:

To mark the 10th anniversary of the Thinking and Working Politically Community of Practice, we are delighted to welcome Heather Marquette, Laure-Hélène Piron and Verena Fritz for a roundtable conversation with Alina Rocha Menocal. Heather, Laure-Hélène, Verena and Alina are all veterans in the thinking and working politically space. Through their work in and with different organisations and partners, they have led and supported a wide variety of efforts to develop a deeper understanding of why things work the way they do – whether it is about serious organised crime and corruption, or democracy and human rights, or the public sector, or climate, or women's empowerment, or prospects to foster more peaceful and inclusive states and societies – how change happens, and what this implies for more effective policy and practice to tackle pressing global challenges and foster reform. Together, they will discuss what some of the most significant innovations around thinking in more politically aware ways and working differently as a result have been over the past decade, what insights and lessons have emerged for them along the way, where they see this agenda getting traction and making a difference, and where it may head next.

The Speakers:

• Alina Rocha Menocal, Director of the Thinking and Working Politically Community of Practice (TWP CoP), and Principal at The Policy Practice

• Heather Marquette, Professor of Development Politics at the University of Birmingham, Director of the Serious Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE) research programme, and Senior Governance Advisor at FCDO

• Laure-Hélène Piron, Director of The Policy Practice

• Verena Fritz, Senior Public Sector Specialist with the World Bank Group’s Governance Global Practice

Please feel free to share this invitation with your networks. We hope to see many of you there!

Best wishes,

Alina

Alina Rocha Menocal
Director, Thinking and Working Politically Community of Practice