EXERCISE 4: Identify which policies, programmes or investment decisions are more likely to be influenced and decide which administrative level to influence

Ultimately, the review process will give the NIPN team an initial idea of the decision makers’ priorities and the corresponding time frame on which the ‘questions-analysis-findings’ cycle should focus.

The initial selection of the priorities will be based on the information pulled together in the policy review, using the previous tips, and on the feedback from stakeholders.

At the same time, the team will need to decide at which administrative level the NIPN cycle is able or intends to strengthen the decision-making process. This will depend on the level of decentralisation of governance, the interests of policy makers at that level and the availability of data at sub-national level. The demand for information is likely to be higher at sub-national level, where capacity to use collected data is often sub-optimal and a feedback loop is often lacking. The sub-national dashboard can support analysis at the decentralised level as long as the process is initiated by decision makers’ interests and question formulation (see section 3.5).