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RESEARCHING YOUR POLICY DIALOGUE
DEFINING THE PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE POLICY DIALOGUE
Clear, focused objectives are crucial. The clearer the objective, the more likely you are to get the right people in the room and to produce a useful outcome. You will want to limit the scope of your Policy Dialogue so that it is manageable given the time you have available, your limited resources and the access you have to different stakeholders. You don’t want to take on a commitment that is impossible to fulfil!
1 | Setting your organising
principles
Organising principles help you to set the tone, mindset and philosophy with which you will develop and conduct the Policy Dialogue process. We encourage you to adopt the organising principles prescribed below, but you maybe choose to add others.
Inclusive: This means ensuring that all voices are heard, even if some of them may be reticent to speak up or may share an opposing view.
Collaborative: This means striving to work together in a cooperative manner. Bringing together a variety of different perspectives and opinions enables the development of more robust and effective solutions.
Respectful: This means showing regard for others’ feelings, desires and rights. It involves being kind and polite towards each other and avoiding behaviour based on prejudice. It also means not speaking over one another during discussions and allowing space for people to listen and be listened to.
Optimistic: It is easy to be overwhelmed by the scale of the problems we face in the global fashion industry. However, having a positive attitude towards them can mean the difference between failure and success. Optimism is infectious, and it is an important part of engaging with your stakeholders. If you believe that you can help address an issue, then those around you will be more likely to feel the same way. Participatory: A participatory approach operates from the belief that those most affected by an issue should be key players in any process that seeks to understand and help address the issue. It means ensuring that marginalised voices are heard and given equal importance.
2 | Choosing the topic of your
Policy Dialogue
In Appendix 1 you will find a list of relevant policy issues at play in the global fashion industry. You may want to choose one as the focus of your Policy Dialogue, or you may want to combine two, or simply use these suggestions as a starting point to develop your own topic for the Policy Dialogue.
The key to a successful Policy Dialogue is in selecting a topic that is focused, simple and relevant to your national or regional context. A project which is too broad or too large may mean you cannot fully explore all the possible information in enough depth nor will you be able to involve all the crucial stakeholders. As a result, you risk creating policy recommendations which are too far-reaching to have an impact. Instead, you should choose a topic which will allow your team to dive fully and practically into the issues and enable you to create focused, meaningful policy recommendations that are easily actionable by a policymaker.
When picking your Policy Dialogue topic, there are a few key things you should consider:
• It is essential to pick a topic which is manageable to complete within your timeframe.
• Do you have any existing strengths/knowledge on particular issues within your team?
• Do you have any existing connections to key stakeholders which could be helpful to get your
Policy Dialogue moving?
• How much research already exists on the topic?
You want to avoid duplication and stakeholder fatigue but also will want to make sure there is enough interest in the research and existing knowledge on the topic.
Although many good policies/regulations may be in place in your country or region, these policies may not always be effectively implemented or enforced. You may alternatively want to consider exploring why a certain policy or set of policies may be failing and how it could be improved. You may want to choose a topic that is focussed on strengthening existing policies rather than creating new ones.
In the book “Blueprint for Revolution” by Srdja Popovic, the student who founded the Optor! movement to establish democracy in Serbia, recommends that you start by addressing basic, simple issues to gain support and then leverage your success as you move on to more important battles. Winning small victories will build coalitions, help keep up momentum and help you prepare for the bigger challenges to come.
Example: Harvey Milk was a pioneering politician who was the first openly gay public official in America. In 1969, Harvey Milk moved to San Francisco to become an early champion for gay rights. However, back then homosexuality was still a taboo subject and his first campaigns were a failure. So he decided to start small and focus on something that all San Franciscans could get behind: dog poo.
Because Milk listened to the people of San Francisco, he learned that dog poo on the soles of their shoes concerned most of the residents of the city. Milk once said, “whoever can solve the dogshit problem [in the city] can be elected mayor of San Francisco, even president of the United States.” And he was right - shortly after, he was elected!
To get Milk elected, it required listening and finding out what people cared about, and fighting those battles, no matter how small they were. Fighting for gay rights in a city where people didn’t care was hard. But cleaning up dog poo was easy.
3 | Conduct a SMART Analysis
Once you have an idea about a few topics you might like to explore, you will want to put each idea through a SMART Analysis process. This will help you determine which exact and focused topic you will choose for your Policy Dialogue. SMART Analysis will help you discover where you are most likely to be able to affect change.
SMART stands for: Specific – Be precise about the issue you would like to address. If it is a huge issue that requires systemic change or requires change outside of the remit of your national policymakers, break it down further into smaller, achievable battles that you can win.
Measurable – A goal should be measurable. How will you know when your goal is accomplished? What sort of policy change or relevant impacts do you hope to achieve? How will you measure your progress towards your goal? We will guide you through setting measurable goals in the SMART analysis template in Worksheet 1 in the appendices.
Achievable – Your objective needs to be realistic and attainable to be successful. It is often better to start small and build momentum from small successes, particularly if this is the first time you have tried to address policy change. Consider what skills, experience and time is needed to achieve your goal.
Relevant – The topic you choose should be timely and should align with goals of the Fashion Revolution movement (e.g. a safer, cleaner, fairer and more transparent global fashion industry).
Questions to consider:
• What is your motivation for choosing this issue?
• Is this a growth area, so likely to see further negative impacts unless policies are put in place?
• Is this an area ripe for innovation which policy change can support in order to ensure the maximum number of people benefit?
• Have abuses or scandals related to this issue been covered in the media over the past year?
• Is this issue topical right now? • For example: The issue of microfibres is in the public eye at the moment so it will be easier to lobby for legislation on this issue than it was a few years ago.
• For example: What changes do you want policymakers to implement in response to the #MeToo movement? Is now a good time to use this zeitgeist as impetus to address policies affecting women throughout the fashion industry, from parental leave and childcare through to discrimination and harassment in the workplace?
Time-bound – Think realistically about the timeframe you have available and what you can achieve in that period. It is useful to set yourself targets along the way in order stay focussed and stay on track.
Please use Worksheet 1: SMART Analysis in the Appendices.
The SMART Analysis exercise is something you may want to use again and again throughout the stages of your Policy Dialogue planning. It will help you to continually define and refine your goals and objectives.
Don’t be afraid to carry out this exercise multiple times across different potential topics in order to find the one you want to address in your Policy Dialogue.
Once you have conducted the SMART Analysis on your various topic ideas, you should be able to narrow it down to one policy issue that best fits the SMART criteria. This will become the chosen topic for your Policy Dialogue going forward.
