Third day of ESPA Conference: Impact at the ESPA Conference
By Paul van Gardingen
On the third day of the ESPA conference we talked about impact, ways of influencing policy and communication.
In the morning, the new ESPA Impact Strategy described the way that the projects will work with a range of stakeholders and the Directorate to ensure that their research has the opportunity to improve the lives of the poor. The impact discussion was followed by a discussion of Theory of Change by Robbie Gregorowski from ITAD.
The Poverty Framework introduced by Helen Suich was introduced as a way of conceptualising poverty in ESPA projects, whilst another session considered how ESPA’s research interfaces with policy cycles and processes at a range of scales.
In the afternoon, the conference discussed how effective communication activities can be designed to be part of ESPA projects using ESPA’s Communication Strategy in a session led by Liz Carlile, followed by a presentation of the first results of a synthetic analysis of the earliest research from the ESPA programme, through the initial ESPA Situational Analyses.
Today was all about providing the ESPA community with the opportunity of discussing ways to work together to build impact based on the programme’s research. Over the next year, the Directorate will be providing support to projects and their partners to build the programme’s overall impact.
