In this MENASP’s Policy Innovation Case Study, Chahir Zaki, an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science – Cairo University (Egypt), flags up key problems in policymaking in Arab countries and gives his insights on the concept of ‘policy labs’ using a case study from Egypt.
In the light of the problems that policymaking faces in Arab countries; e.g. lack of coordination, time inconsistency and the dichotomy of policy stances, the objective of this policy innovation case study (PICS) is to examine how the idea of policy labs (Kimbel, 2015) provided a forum for a comprehensive discussion of the design on and implementation of social policies in Egypt during 2019. This comprehensive approach relied on three main components: (1) an inclusive and diversified audience (ministries, parliamentarians, academia, international donors and civil society), (2) an integrated approach (ranging from how to use data for policy decisions to the differences between microeconomic and macroeconomic issues of social policies) and, (3) a gradual and sustainable process (several roundtables leading to a final intensive workshop).