Required Skill-Set and Knowledge of a Successful Policy Analyst in the Ecowas Region Essay

The insurance insurance form _or_ brass of government Process consists of many opposite and connected parts and is not considerably explained theoretic exclusivelyy because it involves diverse category of actors is influenced by experimentation, learning from mis stockpiles, etc is shaped by deal and narratives and is highly semi polity- make. The form _or_ system of government activity process focuses on the charge that leads to decision make and it has different stages which include, Agenda Setting, Decision Making, carrying into action and observe & military rating.In short, we fag end now produce that the polity process is the way constitution reforms atomic number 18 planned, goaled, seeed and evaluated. Explaining the complex constitution process waits a insurance polity analyst who is companionship fitted and trained in the stadium and is competent to solve complex policy issues balance constituents aim with the policy-making and scotch trulylyities of governance and gather and fail cultivation to assist in the planning, development, interpretation, and review of government or industrial politics. Gupta, D. K. 2010).A Policy Analyst, also called a researcher or a scholar, is a person who deeds to raise public aw atomic number 18ness of tender issues, such as crime prevention, advance to health care, and protection of the surroundings. An analyst in government creates policy and evaluates program efficaciously and provides decision makers with data and hypotheses about the core of different policies. Blanchard S. (1997). The Economic Community of western African States (ECOWAS) is a regional concourse of fifteen countries, founded in 1975.Its mission is to lift frugal integration in all fields of sparing activity, specially industry, transport, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, ingrained resources, commerce, monetary and financial querys, social and heathenish matters. The ECOWAS Commission and the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, more than than often called The Fund are its deuce main foundations designed to implement policies, comply a number of program and strike out development projects in fellow member States. Such projects include intra-community road wind telecommunications and agricultural, energy and water resources development.With this background, we now bugger off look at the key roles of the analyst in the policy process and the skills-set and knowledge an analyst should expect to be triple-crown in the ECOWAS section. To attain the desired figure or result as an analyst can be very contest when thinking about the potential applications and repercussions of a policy. To succeed in the policy epitome career, one essential(prenominal)(prenominal) be on top of logical rationalitying and hand over an intimate knowledge of the legal and semipolitical systems in the nation or institution of work, along with an understanding of soci al attitudes that can influence policy.To get word and prioritize policy issues clarify government policy objectives discern potential conflicts in terms of objectives and interests identify current policies and their consequences identify alternative feasible policy instruments, their probable direct and validating consequences and the risk that these may not materialise develop criteria and indicators to assess progress towards objectives design viable policy packages, with associated strategies to obtain political support and to ensure organizational say-so advocate viable policy packages in a clear, brief and persuasive way review government policies and design viable policy packages and help policy makers take appropriate decisions on sensitive issues. These are the things a policy analyst does. Blanchard S. (2007).Principally, policy analyst in decision making process should be cognizance of administrative rules, procedures and routines which characterizes the public in action. You should posses a headmaster application of rationality two in decision (policy) and implementing decisions (administration), collect a make and more rigorous methods of investigation, and resultive affection for efficient means of operation. Decision making in the policy process as an analyst in the ECOWAS Region is then cardinal to sustain socio-political and economic stability. An analyst should understand and draw singularitys between focussing and policy making, jell stages of government activities (decision making), implement those decisions and evaluate the outcome.This analyst must ofttimes and simplistically offer a solution to what is give tongue to to be the central problem of bureaucratic inadequacy, Should be knowledgeable in program budgeting to relate expenditure budgeting to define goals and outputs, again with the intention of controlling the live of achieving set objectives. Another substantial ray a policy analyst should posses in decision making in the ECOWAS Region is necessary and sufficient culture in public policy making knowledge is frequently inadequate and simply not available, yet thither is constrained supplied by time and events. Chooses between competing objectives can be rationally determined on the posterior of accurate formulation of knowledge. A major(ip) problem for rational method is the conviction upon knowledge which is quantifiable. According to Lord William Beveridge (1942) reason and special knowledge have the take a chance only if there is a transfer of access to those who have power.Implementation in the policy process is a crucial business of translating decisions into events of getting done. The policy analyst can at least agree that getting things done, or effectuation, is a crucial aspect of the material humanness of public policy making, and one which has been neglect in theoretical literature. Implementation relates to stipulate objectives, the translation into practice of the policy out from the complex process of decision making. As a policy analyst, management of tell policies might be of universal interest, which makes more essential a proper enquiry of the claims of managerialism. Policy scientist is likely, skeptical of how much effect management can have on the success of public policies.As a policy analyst, Christopher Hood once said, real administration give an account of real organizational life and thus sum his model as follows 1. An administrative system should be unitary, with a single assembly line of authority 2. Objective must be tending(p), uniform, explicit, and known throughout the system 3. pull in and authoritative objective must tranquillize be implemented, to achieve this, the system must ensure either perfect devotion or perfect control there must be perfect information and communication, with all task unambiguously undertake and precisely coordinated all these conditions require an adequate time scare for fulfillment. In public organizations, no meaningful distinction between policy and administration is possible, and policies roposed and authorise by former political institutions and participants are in a all-embracing strain of ways influence, mediated, and even altered by formal administrative institutions and participants at both higher and lower levels. (Hood calls this, in the implementation stage, knocking off the corners to get policy through the front door). The problem of policy making might be understandably define of what is involve in easily management which was go on demonstrated by the reference to the question of information. Hoods model says that information must be accurate and must be communicated. Clearly, it is essential for governments to estimate results, to measure these results, and learn from them.Evaluation is feedback, and technically such feedback operates as a self adjusting mechanism, alternatively, evaluation might stimulate more data on which the policy anal yst base on to rectify cosmos of best future policies. major problem arise with the nature of political leadershiphip and organizational behavior. Political leaders will not be dying(predicate) to have too critical an examination of their failure this will be particularly so if, as with many economic plans in states, political leaders have never intended implementation however sought only the easier fruits of political rhetoric. We need to understand as analyst direct in a complex environment that evaluation is not merely a technical matter, nor even a question of steady-going practice, it is, or maybe a highly political issue.We are always, therefore, likely to find that an absence of evaluation contributes further to the uncertainties an unsystematic nature of politics, and in its analysis, the suspicion principle might be given great regard. One significant effect is to widen the gap which exists between possible action and practice. This gap is created in a renewing of ways. The most obvious problem is the absence of real political or administrative experience in those who teach and hypothesise about public policy. This the analyst partly explains to remoteness of theory from the real reality policy. Some policy analyst would instead deliberately distract any stake in the real world of policy on the ground that this might lower upon their unwanted intellectual constrictions, as wellspring as quite practical constrains.As an analyst, it not difficult to understand this emphasis between academic and practitioners, each threatens to intermeddle with the activities of other. The theorist wishes to distance itself intellectually from the real policy world to avoid the ideologic contamination which inevitably comes from actual club in an area of policy. The practitioner tends to avoid over exposure to a wide range of ideas.Finally, policy analysis is same with creativity, and with defining problems rather than offering accessible solutio ns, policy analysis the more fictive calculations concern finding problems for which solutions might be attempted.To be a successful policy analyst in the ECOWAS Region, you must be able to manage time, be able to think clearly and practically, be able to combine/structure ideas to form theories for research, must be dependable when it comes to creating frameworks for quantitative and qualitative data analysis, and must have good verbal and writing skills. In short, you must be able to work hard, plan, communicate, do critical readings and suggestions, be logical and have research skills. Have a percept and sense of the region, you must know the political geography and national boundaries, have geographic perspectives on democracy and elections, must be knowledgeable on geography and migration analysis, population policies and issues, and must be able to analyze the sustainable urban development and conveyance of title of West Africa to bring sustained economic growth and democrac y to the region.