Policy Beratung

We believe that development research benefits from regular exchange with policy makers and development practitioners, be they from local ministries, aid agencies, international organizations, NGOs or the private sector. Policy advice allows us to feed the results of our research into administrative or political decision making processes, where our academic contributions can have direct relevance to the practice. Moreover, it provides us with the opportunity to focus our research on topics of actual relevance, and to better understand administrative and political constraints. Finally, it helps us make our teaching livelier, drawing from a variety of concrete experiences in a number of countries across the world.

International climate policy is one of the areas we have been most active in with regard to policy advice. We have participated in the preparation of the 4th and 5th Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, bringing key research results to policymakers. Members of our research group have been engaged in the international climate policy process as observers of the UNFCCC negotiations since 1995, and have regularly organized Side Events during the negotiation sessions with the aim to inform negotiators about the latest research results. Since 2006, we have provided expert advice to the UNFCCC’s CDM Executive Board with regard to evaluation of project proposals for emission reductions in developing countries. We use our cutting-edge research activities to advice governments on carbon market mechanisms, climate finance, adaptation to climate change, and technology transfer. Recently we acted as climate policy advicer to the Swiss delegation to the UNFCCC.

Development policy is another area of our policy advice expertise. We have regularly provided policy advices in the area of education in developing countries, e.g., by contributing background studies to different UNESCO Global Monitoring reports, by our membership in the scientific advisory boards of organizations like the Conference of Francophone Education Ministers (CONFEMEN), or by providing specific analysis for aid agencies, foundations. Furthermore, we have contributed to a number of studies related to the assessment of aid effectiveness. Our references include the evaluation of aid programs, the assessment of the evaluation system used in different aid agencies, and the analysis of indicators for monitoring and evaluation of aid programs, e.g., in the context of new forms of donor coordination.

Our policy advice is always related to on-going research projects. For details, see “Research” or consult the "Publications”.