SPP's Applied Policy Project Clients for 2015-17 are:
Client: The Budapest Institute
The Budapest Institute is a partnership of economists and political scientists producing independent research and analysis to inform policy making, tracking, and evaluation in Hungary and Europe. This student-organized project will research recent changes in the take-up of the main means tested benefit schemes in Central and Eastern European countries and identify the relevant drivers. This will tell our client how many people are not getting social benefits even though they are very poor.
Client: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
EBRD is the leading development bank focused on countries in transition to a market economy. The project will study the role of civil society (if any) in promoting transition resilience in EBRD countries of operations.
Client: European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
ECMI is a government-supported think tank that provides practice and policy-oriented research on minority-majority relations in Europe. The student team will prepare a feasibility study on their possible return to Macedonia, where they have not worked since 2007, and where the general political situation, and inter-communal relations specifically, have deteriorated sharply in recent years.
Client: Health Poverty Action (HPA)
HPA is a London-based organization working in 14 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, strengthening the poorest and most marginalized in their struggle for health. The project will explore the way in which drug policies limit access to controlled, but essential, medicines such as morphine in countries of the global south.
Client: International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
ICTJ is an international NGO that works to help countries in transition from deadly conflict or repression, address the legacy of past abuses and build strong, trusted civic institutions. The project will research the relationship between anti-corruption and transitional justice efforts in three representative countries emerging from violent conflict or authoritarian rule.
Client: International Crisis Group
Crisis Group, a leading, global conflict prevention organization, is sponsoring two projects. A project on Turkey will likely focus on the migrant and refugee community, but is in flux due to the post-coup situation. A project on West Africa will research violent extremism and vigilante groups active in the Greater Sahel and Lake Chad basin region of West Africa.
Client: Liberty's Promise
Liberty's Promise is a Washington, D.C. based non-governmental organization that works to support immigrant youth and help them make good lives for themselves and their families in their new home. A student team will conduct a feasibility study on creating a program of integration and acculturation for communities of migrants settling in up to four European countries with substantial numbers of migrants.
Client: PAX
PAX is a Dutch peace organization whose mission is the protection of civilians against acts of war; an end to armed conflict; and building a just peace. The project, for PAX's Ukraine program, will study policies states have used toward territories trying to break away, with the aim of distilling lessons learned on effects of specific policies and recommending policies for Kiev to apply toward the eastern territories outside of its control.
Client: Red Latinoamericana de Acogimiento Familiar (RELAF, Latin American Foster Care Network)
RELAF is the leading non-profit organization in the field of child care and protection in Latin America. The project team will do an evaluation of RELAF's efforts to drive the policy reform process, with a specific focus on Panama (and perhaps Mexico).
Client: World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
WWF is committed to ending the devastation of the global environment and building a future in which humanity and nature live in harmony. The project will map tools and structures for global sustainability efforts in the supply chain for food. The aim is to provide WWF with a toolkit that can help analyze and help set targets for companies' efforts to reach the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to food.