Southern Africa Regional
In an innovative regional political party program, IRI provides support and capacity building to political parties in countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to build democratic, effective, responsive, and policy-driven parties.
In IRI’s Strengthening Southern African political party program, IRI works with parties represented in parliaments in Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia – with Malawi soon to be added – to promote regional collaboration and improve these parties’ internal capacities to access and utilize research to develop data-driven policy. Ultimately, the strategy is to support more democratically inclined parties, build a stronger regional multi-party network comprised of various ideologies, and provide opportunities for experience to foster peer-to-peer learning.
IRI works with parties to develop policy-focused platforms and manifestos that are responsive to citizen needs, build research units to improve the capacity to use data and develop data-informed policies, and develop effective strategic messaging campaign around their platforms. Moreover, IRI brings together senior party members and regional experts to discuss policy briefings on issues identified as key interests for citizens and identify solutions that can be incorporated in party platforms. At the same time, IRI collaborates with and solicits data driven input from relevant civil society and academia groups to be shared with political parties, ensuring party platforms are informed by facts and technical expertise.
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