When you are working to bring about a policy change you’ll need different skills sets at different times of the getting the law/policy you want.
You’ll also need patience, persistence, and a long time horizon. It takes between 10-15 years from the conception of an idea to it being taken up in law and being mainstreamed. Few organizations or people have this long term time horizon thinking. It means you need the resources at hand for 10-15 years to deliver on your policy goals.
This model comes from thinking about my work for WWF on fisheries. I think the approach is applicable to NGOs and industry.
The real challenge of delivering this is that it requires often impassioned people to hand over their ‘baby’/’project’ to people with different skill sets at different times. The combination of skills of excellent campaigner, lobbyist, expert, lawyer, government official, and industry credibility is unlikely to exist in one person.
I suspect the psychological need for control/ownership in one person – usually the issue expert – throughout the long policy change journey is the main reason that both industry and NGOs deliver so little legislative change.
- A compelling story
- Evidence
- Resources
- A window of Opportunity
- Right allies, at the right time and the right place
- Legislative and policy solutions
- Political support
- Legislative and policy solutions
- Credibility & Trust
- Turnkey solutions
- Peer validation
- Fast-track implementing rules
- Work with the decision-makers to refine any bumps in the road
- Show that opportunity cost of reversal is too high
- Ensure a commercial case for the change