Crafting effective policy briefs requires tailoring your approach to the specific topic and target audience. While a universal template doesn’t exist, successful briefs share core elements and a similar structure: an executive summary, introduction, research overview, findings analysis, and a conclusion outlining policy recommendations and their implications.
Before diving into writing, familiarize yourself with the components of an effective structure (detailed below). Examples from IDRC’s GrOW policy briefs are included to illustrate layout and content requirements.
Executive Summary
Every policy brief should begin with a concise summary that grabs the reader’s attention and provides a quick understanding of your argument. Typically, this summary is a short paragraph or two, though some writers prefer bullet points. Regardless of format, the executive summary should distill the essence of the brief into a few impactful sentences.
Tips:
- Place the executive summary prominently on the cover or at the top of the first page for immediate visibility.
- Consider writing the executive summary last, as drafting the other sections will clarify its content.
Increasing women’s support for democracy in Africa offers both a written overview and bulleted key results. While not mandatory to include both, each is effective in summarizing the research and highlighting key findings.
Introduction
The introduction sets the stage for the entire document and clearly communicates your central argument. In one or two paragraphs, explain why you are writing the brief and emphasize the urgency and importance of the topic for your audience. A strong introduction provides all relevant information and describes the key questions and conclusions of your analysis, leaving readers with a clear understanding of your research and encouraging them to continue reading.
”What’s at Stake?”, the introduction to Increasing women’s support for democracy in Africa, powerfully presents the issues and relevance of the research concisely. The brief’s goals are summarized, providing a clear roadmap for the reader.
Research Overview
This section is crucial because it explains the rationale behind your policy recommendations. It essentially describes the problem that your recommendations aim to solve.
Summarize the facts to describe the issues, contexts, and research methods. Focus on two key elements: the research approach and the research results.
- Research approach: Explain how the study was conducted, who conducted it, how the data was collected, and any relevant background information.
- Research results: Provide a general overview of the research findings before delving into specifics.
Present the results in a way that supports your analysis and argument, but refrain from interpreting them at this stage. By the end of this section, readers should have a solid understanding of the research and be prepared for your argument. The goal is to guide them toward seeing the facts from your perspective.
Tips:
- Avoid jargon and overly technical language.
- Emphasize the benefits and opportunities arising from the research.
The research overview (entitled “Research approach”) in Reducing child marriage and increasing girls’ schooling in Bangladesh explains the research methodology without overwhelming detail. The author uses simple language and a straightforward overview of the numbers instead of jargon or complex statistics. The research results are discussed in the following section, which is effective for research requiring significant data analysis to contextualize the findings.
Discussion/Analysis of Research Findings
This section should interpret the data in a way that is accessible and clearly linked to your policy advice. Use active language and strong assertions to express your ideas. Aim to be convincing, but ensure that your analysis is balanced and defensible. Clearly and comprehensively explain the findings and limitations of the research. For instance, if the original hypothesis was abandoned, explain the reasons.
Tip:
- Relate research findings to concrete realities (rather than theoretical abstractions) to give the reader a clear understanding of the potential effects of policy initiatives.
The “Key findings” section of How to grow women-owned businesses provides a brief overview of the findings before breaking down the results. Each research finding is presented independently with clear headings. Even if a reader only skims the document, the headings provide a general understanding of the research findings. The graphics in this section quickly convey information and visually break up the text.
Conclusion or Recommendation
This final section should detail the actions recommended by the research findings. Connect the findings to your recommendations, using persuasive language rooted in the evidence produced by the research. Your goal is to convince readers that your advice is the best course of action.
Examine the implications and recommendations produced by the research. Implications are the potential future effects of the research, offering a persuasive way to describe the consequences of particular policies. This is a good opportunity to provide an overview of policy alternatives, presenting the reader with the full range of options.
Follow up the implications with your recommendations. Beyond being descriptive, your recommendations should act as a call to action by stating precise, relevant, credible, and feasible next steps. Strengthen your argument by demonstrating why other policies are less effective than your recommendations.
Tip:
- Think of the conclusion as a mirror to your introduction: you are once again providing an overview of your argument, but this time you are underlining its strength rather than introducing it.
”Lessons for policy and practice”, the conclusion of Unpaid care and women’s empowerment: Lessons from research and practice, presents broad policy recommendations that are clearly linked back to the research. Each recommendation has its own section and heading to make them easy to identify and understand.
