Organizational Strengthening for Global Development 10 years of lessons from the Think Tank Initiative
Photo: IDRC / Bartay
Photo: Dominic Chavez/World Bank
Photo: Curt Carnemark / World Bank
Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown
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FOREWORD The Think Tank Initiative (TTI) was a multi-donor program dedicated to strengthening independent policy research organizations - or think tanks - in developing countries, enabling them to better provide high quality research that both informs and influences policy. As part of the efforts to disseminate learning from nearly 10 years of work supporting think tanks in 20 countries, we asked representatives of the donor agencies that supported TTI to document key lessons learned from the program in their own words.
Through 14 interview videos, representatives of the donor organizations answer key programmatic questions including: Why do think tanks matter? What tangible lessons can other funders learn from TTI? Why fund organizations rather than research projects?
This multi-funder collaborative consisted of Canada’s International Development Research Centre, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Department for International Development, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and The Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS).
In this series, funders will learn about such things as:
This series is one of many outputs that captures crucial programmatic perspectives and lessons. We hope that these insights will enable people to understand the critical role think tanks play in global development.
• How to support think tanks in evidence to policy processes • Why local knowledge matters • How to collaborate with other funders as partners • How to provide effective funding to think tanks. Andrew Hurst, Program Leader Think Tank Initiative
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Photo: Sofie Tesson/Taimani Films/World Bank
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Table of Contents 6 What do think tanks do? 8 Why do think tanks matter?
18 What does it mean to pay
10 What is the value of local
funding?
knowledge?
12 What is a knowledge broker? 14 Why do funders support think
tanks?
16 Why support organizations
instead of research projects?
what it costs?
20 How can think tanks get 22 What barriers do think
28 What does the future hold? 30 What drives you as a funder? 32 If you could solve one issue in the
world, what would it be and why?
tanks face to getting funding?
24 When and how should
funders collaborate together?
26 What tangible lessons can funders learn from TTI?
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What do think tanks do? 6
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Why do think tanks matter? 8
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What is the value of local knowledge? 10
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What is a knowledge broker? 12
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Why do funders support think tanks? 14
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Why support organizations instead of research projects? 16
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What does it mean to “pay what it costs”? 18
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How can think tanks get funding? 20
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What barriers do think tanks face to getting funding? 22
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When and how should funders collaborate together? 24
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What tangible lessons can funders learn from TTI? 26
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What does the future hold? 28
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What drives you as a funder? 30
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If you could solve one issue in the world, what would it be and why? 32
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Photo: Morakot Theptarathip/TTI
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Thanks for Watching! 35
Photo: Erin Johnson/Flickr
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From 2009-2019, the Think Tank Initiative (TTI) provided core funding and capacity building support to think tanks in 20 countries across South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. TTI is a multi-funder partnership between Canada's International Development Research Center (IDRC), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and the Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS). To learn more, visit: http://www.thinktankinitiative.org/
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