What are the best ways to make your economic policy advice relevant?

To provide valuable (i.e. actionnable, not theoretical) policy advice it's absolutely necessary to understand the particularities of the 4 Cs of the case at hand: Context, Collective behavior, Cooperative/Conflicting interests (i.e. the structure of interests, with particular attention to vested, underrepresentedand marginalized interests), and Change dynamics (assumptions, changemakers and change saboteurs). Political Economy is not just about theories, calculations and statistics. It's above all about human behavior at the intersection between economics, sociology, political science and history. The only way to identify and is by living the context first. So, everything begins with boots-on-the-ground grasp of reality.

One thing I have found useful is infographics that present the targeted information in a pictorial representation understandable by anyone who sees it.

The advice should be tailored to the needs of the society its intended for. Simply drawing economic conclusions on the basis of comparison with other societies or the successes of same could spell disaster in a lot of cases as societies have unique economic realities. It also also important for the recommendations to reflect the domestic realities of the society, this can only be achieved from intense and prolonged fieldwork, or otherwise an experiential journey.

To make it relevant, make sure it is attributed to research with tangible results. Lobbying is also very important to make sure that the policy goes through the right channel. Finally, when making those policies, one make sure it got some solid and practical recommendations, and directly addresses the specific challenges and goals of the policymaker or the organization one is advising.

Importantly, evidence should not only be gathered to analyse past trends for objective conclusions but also to predict potential behavioural responses to a proposed policy. It's also crucial to leverage data to assess how these responses might impact the policy's outcome and to anticipate any unintended consequences, then establish measures to mitigate them. I think this is one of the many ways will get economic policy wrong in Nigeria. But these things are fundamentals which makes me question the individuals in charge of policy formulation in Nigeria. At times, I encounter policy advice and I wonder 'does this truly rely on data-driven evidence?' But then again, 'where is the data?'

I believe economic policy advice should adopt a preemptive approach. It should offer solutions through a thorough analysis of past policies and a comprehensive study of the current economy. Learning from the shortcomings of previous economic advice is crucial to avoid assuming that solutions for a past economic mismatch can effectively address today's challenges.

Policy announcements can become more adaptive by using non-traditional means to expand the reach of each policy's key benefits/features. This may be through ads (across social media and the internet in general) and bite-sized video snippets. This is more likely to reach the targets and elicit the intended objective - which may be an action, information, etc.

Feedback is typically skewed towards reporting cases where the subject matter has failed to perform as expected. Policymakers should be more proactive and request feedback on what they are doing RIGHT, just as they would be interested in improving the weak aspects of their policy. By engaging this two-sided feedback mechanism, their policymaking activity will be more likely to have the intended impact on the members of the public. For example, creators of mobile apps ask for feedback even when their app is functioning properly. This puts them in the position of discovering opportunities for growth from the user's perspective, which helps to create better apps. This can also be applied to the public sector; the impact will be huge.