Engagement and impact stories from 2023

To these ends, PEP has adopted a “coproduction approach” whereby the projects are led by teams of local researchers and government representatives or relevant stakeholders. We also require teams to produce a policy paper or context analysis to bolster knowledge translation for decision-making as part of their project.

As a result, the majority of PEP projects inform policymaking and lead to increased visibility and career advancement for local researchers. Find out more about the impact of PEP's support and projects. 

The following accounts, reported by PEP-supported project teams in 2023, testify to the effectiveness and substantial impact of this approach.

PEP researchers in Brazil showed that motherhood is one of the main barriers women face in accessing decent work. They identified two policy options that can mitigate this issue:

1. Extend the operational hours of (existing) public daycare centres to accommodate the full (44-hour) workweek of parents.
2. Modernize current maternity leave policies, moving towards shared parental leave and/or expanding paternity leave rights.

Each of the two stakeholder representatives within the project team used the findings and recommendations to inform policy debates.

One stakeholder representative, Tatiana Vasconcelos, has been very active in policy debates regarding the issue of daycare services. She used the study’s findings to support her arguments through various platforms while working at the Secretariat of Labor. During the PEP project, she was assigned to the Council for Sustainable Social Economic Development (CDESS). She shared the team’s findings to inform the preparatory meetings for the 2nd Plenary of the CDESS. During the 2nd Plenary, the President of Brazil received the recommendation to create an “integrated policy for early childhood”, which includes expanding daycare services. 

During the course of their PEP project looking at the barriers women face in accessing decent work, a team of local researchers in Peru deepened their engagement with well-established agencies and policy advocacy groups. With this strategy they aimed to inform and influence the long-term policy agenda. These engagements included the United Nations Development Programme Lima, International Labour Organization, UNICEF, and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing. As a result, the team was asked to provide inputs to inform an ongoing public campaign to change gender norms.

The country’s political situation prevented the project team from engaging meaningfully with government institutions until they reached the dissemination phase. In December 2023, the newly assigned Director for the Promotion of Employment and Self-Employment at the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion (MTPE) attended the team’s National Policy Conference. During the event, the Director stated that the team’s findings prompted the MTPE to recognize the need to enhance their Wiñay Warmi program—intended to tackle key barriers limiting women’s access to decent work—rather than terminating it. The team had found that the program was under-resourced and under-implemented, leading them to recommend full implementation of Wiñay Warmi as the most strategic policy solution to achieve the desired systems change.

Based on the findings of local PEP researchers in the Philippines, increasing the provision of childcare at the barangay (smallest administrative division) level is vital for improving women's access to decent work. In policy terms, this requires increasing the number of teachers and daycare workers.

Through the team’s stakeholder consultations, they determined that the most strategic legislative channel that could achieve this outcome would be to adjust the “Magna Carta for Daycare Workers” to make it work in conjunction with UNIFAST (Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education Act) scholarships.

During the research project, the team built a relationship with Eduardo Rama, the congressman responsible for filing the House Bill 6883: “Magna Carta for Daycare Workers. Mr. Rama has agreed to work with the team, before the bill gets passed, to discuss ways to enhance its impacts, including utilising the UNIFAST (scholarships) Bill to encourage more people to become daycare workers at local government levels.

As Sri Lanka’s political scene stabilised in 2023—following a political and socioeconomic crisis in 2022—a team of local PEP researchers were able to engage with government representatives. Among them were high-level officials from the Ministry of Labor, including the new Minister of Labor, and his direct advisors, who expressed interest in policy changes and in receiving inputs from the PEP team.

The PEP researchers in Sri Lanka brought their evidence on the barriers that women face in accessing decent work, and how to overcome these through policy, to the Minister of Labour during a consultation meeting. The team highlighted how the focus of the “National Human Resource Development Policy: 2023-2028” should move from “creating jobs” to “creating decent jobs” for women. This consultation provided inputs for the 11-point proposal for labor reforms set forth by the Minister of Labour. Before drafting these labor reforms, the Minister received inputs from various stakeholders, including from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), where the research team is based.

Throughout their project, a team of local PEP researchers in Nigeria consulted with multiple high-level political stakeholders. During these consultations, the team shared the research process as well as their findings on how financial grants for entrepreneurs can increase youth employment in the country. The team also highlighted how inclusivity measures (targeting women and other marginalised groups) must be incorporated into the grant policy to ensure its success.

Through the consultation process, the team received positive responses from the Commissioners of three state Ministries, i.e., those responsible for directing the policies and programs of their Ministry. The team also held a successful national policy conference during which several policy stakeholders said that the team’s evidence and recommendations would be taken up.