• Aid policy
• Debt Management
• Education
• Financial sector
• Growth and Resources
• Health
• Private Sector
• Poverty and Social Protection
• Public Financial Management
• Public Management and Accountability
• Regional Development and Local Government
• Social Development
• Statistics

Social Development

OPM is building a strong team in Social Development in recognition of this core policy area. Social Development is a transformative process of building capabilities and expanding opportunities for the poor. This translates into a policy focus on building the asset base of individuals and groups and by bringing attention to bear on the institutions, both formal (organisational) and informal (social norms and customs) that govern choice and that determine access to and control over resources. Policy interventions with a social development focus aim to reduce poverty by empowering people in their relationships with the political, economic and social institutions that shape their lives.

OPM’s operational emphasis in social development falls into three areas: Poverty analysis; policy analysis; and participation. OPM brings expertise in analytical frameworks and tools for understanding poverty, drawing on key concepts, including livelihoods, operationalised by donors and international NGOs through variants of the sustainable livelihoods framework, and vulnerability and risk, with its roots in Sen’s pioneering work on entitlements and capabilities. Poverty analysis in turn underpins much of the research into the formulation and execution of public policy for poverty reduction, through national policy framework documents, sector strategies and programme and project design. Through its work on poverty and policy analysis, OPM stresses the complementarity of qualitative methods and quantitative methods in measuring and explaining poverty dynamics and in identifying policy solutions.

A social development approach integrates as far as possible the generation of poverty and policy analysis with the process of including citizens and service users in policy cycles. In recent years, participatory processes have evolved from their roots in community development and micro-project design to become mainstreamed in macro-level policy discussions. OPM’s emphasis is on building participatory governance of the policy process by strengthening civil society oversight and social accountability mechanisms in national and decentralizing public policy design, budget allocation, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

Project Examples

© 2010 Oxford Policy Management  |  Site by Torchbox

Home  |  Site map  |  About us  |  Contact  |  Back to top