Order Description:Most policy makers do not have the time, or the interest, to read a long research report. However, that is not to say that they are not interested in the ideas and key information that comes out of research. A policy brief can provide decision makers with important information and ideas that can be put into action; it is the bridge between in-depth research and practical action.
To be effective a brief must:
• Be written in clear, concise language – no jargon!
• Provide the bare essential background information and no more.
• Be evidence based – do not make assertions that cannot be backed
up with empirical evidence
• Be very clear about having a single most important message.
• Limit the key recommendations to just a few – not dozens.
• Link findings and recommendations to concrete action points that include What should be done and By Whom. This may involve ideas about sequencing – what needs to be done now and what needs to be done in the medium to longer term?
• It should be short. It should also be visually appealing – too much text on a page will turn the reader off.
Your assigned Policy Brief
You are asked to write a policy brief on a given topic based on a full research report that has recently been finished.
You can write to any target policy audience you like as long as it is appropriate. The brief must make sense in terms of being policy relevant to the particular audience concerned, such as a specific ministry in a particular country, a particular institution within the UN.
The brief will be assessed on both content and presentation.
The brief must be internally coherent in its aim of presenting a viable set of recommendations for adoption by the entity concerned – that is, by the audience to which it is addressed. The brief must also be situated within the information contained within the full research report. Recommendations should emerge from the research findings and should signpost the evidence on which they are based.

The brief must be appropriate in language and presentation for its target audience. It must also be attractively laid out and easily accessible both visually and linguistically. The brief’s audience must be explicitly stated at the start of the brief and it should remain implicit in the issues addressed and the angle taken throughout in the sense that it must address issues of real concern to the government ministry, NGO, donor, or UN agency selected. Your recommendations should be clear, explicit and relevant to the target audience. They should be feasibly implementable by this ministry/UN etc. institution.
The brief should not include long stretches of unbroken text. It should be written in such a way that someone in a hurry can read the headings from each section and get a good idea of what the brief is about without reading the details.
Good visuals can be an important component but these must be directly relevant to the recommendations and research.Possible structure
Key Messages
Introduction
Approach/Methods
Key Results/Findings
Implications and Recommendations