The key benefit of providing information and research services in support of “Evidence-based Policy Making” (EbPM) is producing better policies that are effective and forward-looking.  Members need to be able to apply sound evidence to the policy making process rather than respond to short-term pressures so that they address the causes and not just the symptoms of problems.

Evidence for policy has three main components:

• validated data (facts, trends, survey information);
• analytical reasoning that sets the data in context;
• stakeholder opinions on an issue or set of issues.

Through this comprehensive approach policy-makers can ensure that all points of view are considered and the available evidence is applied appropriately.

The topics proposed are meant to:

• provide training materials on topics related to evidence-based policymaking;
• promote the use of applications that support evidence-based policymaking;
• carry out other activities for capacity building in evidence-based policymaking.

Training

A. Training materials will be developed to provide self-study on topics related to evidence-based policymaking. The training materials will consist principally of electronic materials (e-Modules).

The training materials will include:

• basic modules that provide an overview of the topic for those who want only an overview, and an introduction to the topic for those who want to continue with the advanced modules;
• advanced modules that provide detailed coverage of the topic.

B. The topics covered by the training materials will include:

• determining expected impacts of new laws;
• preparing and using a research report;
• tracking and monitoring legislation;
• how to work effectively with a legislative drafter;
• effective public policy management within the parliamentary context;
• effective technical writing;
• intraparliamentary networking and lobbying;
• ensuring legislation is implemented effectively once enacted and monitoring on an ongoing basis the effects of legislation and the extent of compliance with legislation.

C. The training materials will also include training guides and reference manuals that can be used by teachers or trainers who are carrying out training sessions for groups of trainees.

D. As a whole, the training materials should include a complete and thorough package of materials that collectively could be used by a local organisation to provide training in the topic with little if any need for ongoing outside help. However, the producers of the training materials should remain available to provide outside help to users of the training materials.

E. Once developed, the training materials will be made available online.

F. The development and dissemination of the training materials will be done in coordination with other organizations that carry out training and capacity building relating to evidence-based policymaking, to minimize duplication of effort and take advantage of any synergies that are available.

Promotion of Applications

Efforts will be made to promote the use of applications that support evidence-based policymaking. The applications to be supported include:

• Africa News Monitor (ANM)
• Africa Parliamentary Information Exchange (APEX)

Other Activities for Capacity Building in Evidence-Based Policymaking

A. A repository will be established at APKN for resources useful to capacity building in evidence-based policymaking. A particular emphasis will be given to resources developed in Africa and to resources developed specifically for Africa. Resources may include articles and other original documents; indexes and other research tools; directories of experts and other stakeholders; and so on. Through the repository, the resources will be made broadly available.

B. A forum will be established at APKN for researchers, analysts, policymakers, and other stakeholders can interact and exchange information and experiences toward building capacity in evidence-based policymaking in Africa.

Rationale

Public institutions, private companies and NGOs and civil societies increasingly rely on fast and accurate information both to monitor media coverage of policy areas and to respond to unexpected events. Some services and agencies are setting up early warning response systems for crisis management.

Policy monitoring and assessment is helped by gauging public response and the news. Citizens and civil society organisations can better monitor issues of concern and the activities of public institutions with customisable news services. Statistics about news trends provide rapid feedback to anybody who may be concerned with the impact of events, policies etc.

It is more and more important to be able to access information services that rely on an impartial aggregation of sources and are free from commercial, national or political interests.

Data mining techniques now allow automatic extraction of names, places and topics and can identify associations across languages from reports, news, social networks etc. This can provide valuable and unbiased insights, and identify trends.

Africa News Monitor

Africa News Monitor (ANM - anm.apkn.org) is be based on data mining technologies developed by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC). These techniques are currently being deployed in the form of the Europe Media Monitor (EMM, press.jrc.it). As with EMM, the system will gather on-line news reports from news portals world wide, in different languages, analyse and classify the content of the reports, aggregate the information, issue alerts and produce intuitive visual presentations of the information found.

Features

ANM NewsBrief

The ANM NewsBrief will show the hottest topics reported during the last few minutes and hours across multiple news sources from around the world focusing particularly on African sources or Africa related sources. Constantly updated, the site will group related news, show timelines and display the biggest stories first.

It will also be possible to browse news by subject as all news is automatically categorised into hundreds of customer-oriented (and customer defined) subject domains and according to the countries mentioned in the articles. Users will be able to choose to see only news falling into specific subjects or concerning countries of their choice.

Information about people, organisations and countries

All associated information, people and organisations mentioned, and possibly location information will be displayed alongside the articles. The stories themselves can be viewed on a map.

The system will keep track of co-occurrences of people and organisations in the news and use this information to build networks of people than can be explored graphically. The system does take into consideration multilingual spelling variants for the same person so that users can search for information about persons independently of the name spelling. The system will update its list of known entities in the news on a regular basis from a resource provided (and updated) by the JRC. It will also be possible to provide a ‘custom’ list in addition to the main resource.

Linking related news across languages

The perspective on individual issues often differs from one country to the next. Seeing related news coming from different countries or written in different languages next to each other can be very informative. Using unique technology, Africa News Monitor will automatically detects related news clusters across languages and allows users - with one simple click - to access foreign language news about the same subject or event. For languages spoken in more than one country (e.g. English or French), users can additionally opt to read the news produced in only one of these countries.

Detecting trends over time

News clusters will be automatically linked to the related news of previous days and months. Timelines show developments over time and allow users to jump to the origin or to peaks of each story. Separate sections displaying news stories that started in the last week or in the last month allow users to get up to date with recent developments.

To do:

Currently the ANM Portal (anm.apkn.org) news comes from RSS feeds of the demo site developed by JRC of the European Commission. The JRC will soon create a new dedicated server on which we will begin to “Africanise”, This will begin with:

• dividing the news sources in “from Africa”, news sources  and “about Africa” so that it will be possible to monitor both what the news from Africa newspaper and magazines and the news about africa from newspapers and magazines from Europe, Asia, etc;
•  Adding and maintaining sources with specific attention to Africa;
• Adding/changing category definitions with specific attention to Africa agenda and priorities.

Exchanging information among African parliaments has become even more important with the creation of the Pan African Parliament (PAP). Africa Parliamentary Information Exchange (APEX - apex.apkn.org) is meant to improve co-ordination between National Parliaments and the Pan Africa Parliament, to facilitate the flow of information among national parliaments and to expand the information base available to national parliaments with regard to cross-national initiatives, specific PAP and AU issues.

APEX provides a platform for the electronic exchange of Pan African related information between parliaments in Africa.

All national parliaments in Africa may partcipate with the degree of involvement decided upon by each parliament. Each parliament is responsible for informing the other parliaments on its activities concerning cross-national initiatives and the recommendations of the Pan African Parliament.

Objectives

• Function as a portal for information concerning substantial and procedural questions with regard to scrutiny in PAP matters by providing suitable tools for exchanging information;
• Facilitate communication and co-operation between the African parliaments by enabling them to freely exchange information;
• Promote best practices between parliaments. 

To do:

Currently online we have a very preliminary prototype apex.apkn.org where we have only available a Parliamentary Directory that contains contact information of all the African parliaments. The current basic information could be enriched with information about the political and administrative leadership of each institution.

We are have foreseen the possibility to allow each parliament to add information on:

• Parliamentary Directory;
• Bills on floor and their progresses;
• Resolutions presented and debated and the outcome of them;
• Committees activities;
• Inter-parliamentary initiatives;

Each Parliament is free to share documents and information to the extend that better suit them but each parliament is encouraged to inform the other parliaments of its activities and more specifically the ones concerning cross-national initiatives and the resolutions/activities of the Pan African Parliament.

The system will allow to browse information by;

• country;
• topic;
• date;

There will also be the possibility to subscribe to a newsletter or RSS to be updated on the latest additions.