{"id":897,"date":"2014-07-24T20:56:13","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T20:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/?p=897"},"modified":"2016-01-06T18:18:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T18:18:17","slug":"supporting-think-tanks-5-ideas-for-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/supporting-think-tanks-5-ideas-for-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporting think tanks: 5 ideas for action"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Editor\u2019s note: I\u2019ve made some corrections to the introduction related to TTI and reviewed the arguments to clarify that I am in no way offering an assessment of TTI. I have not evaluated the initiative. It\u00a0simply provided inspiration to write about mentoring and think tanks support. This post is a perfect example of how publishing\u00a0something can generate a richer discussion than if the conversation was only had in public.]<\/em><\/p>\n

We need more\u00a0and\u00a0better think tanks in developing countries. I am yet to come across a place\u00a0where one could argue \u2018we have enough\u2019. And where there seem to be too many, well, this is probably because\u00a0too many are not good enough. Otherwise, nobody would complain. [For more on supporting think tanks please go to the\u00a0Supporting Think Tanks Topic Page<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

The challenge<\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve recently had a conversation about approaches to capacity development that I think is important to share. Here is the challenge:<\/p>\n

Mentoring approaches work well but how to scale them up? Scaling necessarily requires a certain degree of management and agency from a third-party (a funder or a consultant, for instance).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or does it?<\/p>\n

This conversation was inspired by the\u00a0Think Tank Initiative<\/a>, but does not pretend to assess the TTI\u2019s capacity development efforts, so it is worth explaining a few things. The TTI has a number of capacity development approaches or mechanisms that mimic efforts by other funders, including:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Entirely think tank led: This involves awarding\u00a0its grantees a programatic grant and the grantees decide what to do with the funds. Some have used them to develop their capacity (involving clear organisational changes) while others have spent most of it in \u2018business as usual\u2019 work. This is entirely up to them.<\/li>\n
  2. Think tank and donor collaboration: The TTI has a matching fund programme. It works, more or less like this. The grantees tend to get together with 1 or 2 other think tanks seeking to work on a similar organisational development issue. They develop a programme together, often involving a consultant or outside help of some kind. Then they allocate their own resources to partly fund the effort and the TTI matches this with additional funds. As in the first case, the think tanks are the clients.<\/li>\n
  3. Mostly donor led: Funders \u00a0also organised a number of workshops, webinars and other interventions managed by them (or by contractors) to provide the grantees with support. These can be described as managed capacity development programmes and are designed by the funders (with varying degrees of involvement from the grantees) and their contractors\u00a0\u00a0(like IDS, R4D, CommsConsult, Practical Action, and others). For a review of such approaches:\u00a0Developing research communication capacity: lessons from recent\u00a0experiences<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Of course there are benefits and costs in all these approaches. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with a donor led (and managed) intervention. And there is nothing that suggests that think tanks will always learn more if they are 100% in charge. The TTI has correctly tried to provide their grantees with as many options as possible.<\/p>\n

    In my view, that is not really the point. All three are valid. There is something else, more important, at play here. Does the approach, whatever this is, encourage agency or does it stifle it? Does it encourage independence or dependence? Does it reward responsibility or irresponsibility?<\/p>\n

    Anyone who reads this blog will know that I am\u00a0an advocate of treating think tanks fairly, not as if they were precious flowers<\/a>\u00a0in need of constant attention. Think tanks and their staffers are no delicate flowers. They are quite savvy. They must be slightly\u00a0Machiavellian<\/em>\u00a0(not necessarily in a bad way) to survive and thrive in a\u00a0context that is certainly\u00a0not the most friendly<\/a>. So they must be doing something right.<\/p>\n

    I therefore always assume that think tanks leaders (and staffers) are quite competent (even if they do not always have all the information that maybe other have access to), responsible, and commited men and women. To me, the directors of a think tank in Ecuador or in Zambia is no less competent, responsible, and committed than the directors of Brookings or Chatham House. I have no reason to assume otherwise.<\/p>\n

    The difference in their think tank outcomes must lie elsewhere: in the resources the organisations have at their disposal, the political and funding contexts, access to qualified staff, software, data, etc. And this blog tries to address this.<\/p>\n

    So when it comes to finding mentors and developing their organisation\u2019s development plans, I think that directors and other think tank leaders\u00a0can and should be able do it themselves (with help, sure, but just that). Just as we would not intervene to appoint a mentor for\u00a0the director of Brookings we should not intervene in the case of a\u00a0director of a think tank in a developing country. Of course we can support and help. I spend a lot of my time putting people in touch -directly or through this blog. And we can certainly\u00a0support their own efforts by providing them\u00a0with information or resources. But there is a big difference between helping and doing, even if the line is between them is difficult to find.<\/p>\n

    If funders do intervene, the way that donor or contractor led approaches sometimes do, by providing them with a predesigned and managed programme, they must do so with great care. They have to be aware that it is possible that the\u00a0message this sends is that, regardless of the\u00a0public discourse, they, in fact, consider think tanks\u2019 leaders to\u00a0be less-than-competent, irresponsible or\/and uncommitted.<\/p>\n

    And if this is what they think (if they truly think that their grantees need to be given such kind of attention), then there is another question they\u00a0ought to be asking: should we be supporting them in the first place?<\/p>\n

    Of course it is quite possible that the think tanks\u00a0themselves\u00a0may consider it appropriate to ask their funders to help them to develop a programme to support them further. This make perfect sense. But there is, again, a difference between being passive recipients of an initiative designed by someone else and being active co-developers or clients of such an initiative.<\/p>\n

    And even here, there is a kind of fourth interpretation: passiveness should not be seen as a sign\u00a0irresponsibility or incompetence, rather lack of interest in what is being offered. The think tanks that do not\u00a0get\u00a0involved in the design of these more donor-led approaches may be the ones that prefer and are satisfied with the first kind of support: entirely think tank led. They know what they want and wish to get on with it.<\/p>\n

    This is why a multiple-approach effort like the TTI\u2019s is a good idea. Not all mechanisms will work for all think tanks.<\/p>\n

    Both the think tank led and the matching fund mechanisms, for example, assumed that think tank leaders are\u00a0competent, responsible and committed. They\u00a0gave think tanks agency to decide what they needed help with, find their right mentors, consultants, etc. and contract out any support they considered appropriate\u00a0themselves. All the responsibility was\u00a0on them.<\/p>\n

    Not all chose mentors, of course. Some preferred to hire new staff to bring in new skills to the organisation; others have hired consultants to address specific issues; and others have partnered with other think tanks to acquire new competences. In other words, the think tanks themselves created new approaches in addition to those designed by the funder. This is a perfect example of how the grantees, with a bit of freedom, were able to contribute to the initiative.<\/p>\n

    On mentors specifically, quite a lot\u00a0has been said lately.\u00a0Mentors cannot be expected to do\u00a0too much. Mentors, in any sector and in our own private lives, will support their mentees\u00a0in their own quests or journeys. They will offer a space and an opportunity to explore options, ideas, tools, etc. They will give them confidence. Mentors may also help to find (but not always do it themselves) the right resources, consultants, etc. that the organisation needs. This is what mentors do.<\/p>\n

    The mentor can\u00a0also help directors and other think tank leaders to find out what aspects of their organisations they\u00a0need to build their capacity on. They may be able to provide the think tanks with examples of needs assessments used by other organisations or simply point at the issues that the mentor recognises, from his or her own experience, to be in need of development. The more the mentor knows the organisations and his or her mentees the easier this will be.<\/p>\n

    It is worth saying that the directors of the top think tanks in the world also have mentors. The CEOs of the largest corporations also have them. Mentoring isn\u2019t something that only poor developing country think tanks need. Everyone can benefit from such a relationship. And mentoring requires specific skills that not everyone has.<\/p>\n

    This kind of support is, in my view, always preferred to having an externally provided needs assessment (often by a contractor hired by the funders). Unlike the contractors, mentors are business-neutral. They do not stand to gain any future work from the think tanks. On the other hand, in my experience, contractors tend to find needs\u00a0in the very same things that they claim to be good at: \u201cThis think tank needs to improve its use of digital tools\u2026 and we can help with that!\u201d (Notice how in the recommendations below I begin with my own ideas.)<\/p>\n

    The challenge still remains: can we scale-up mentoring programmes? I would argue that we do not need to. Mentoring is a personal strategy and choice to be made by the organisations themselves.<\/p>\n

    What can funders do?<\/h2>\n

    Now, even managed capacity building approaches can emerge from think tanks themselves or from their interaction with others.<\/p>\n

    One kind of managed approach involves\u00a0encouraging relationships and collaboration between the think tanks<\/strong>\u00a0themselves:<\/p>\n