Opening the Doors of Policy Making in Central Asia and South Caucasus

There was no evidence that the project sought to build bridges with academia or the international private sector. University researchers represent an untapped source of expertise in the target countries, yet this project appears to have done little to improve this situation.

The prospects for successful democratic transition in the target countries is more challenging than it ever was in the now-European former Soviet states and Eastern Europe. The lack of domestic financial support will make independent NGOs vulnerable to nationalist criticisms. While it has formed capacity, strengthened institutions, and introduced CSOs into an international network, it is difficult to imagine any of the target NGOs successfully mobilizing substantial international support.

The policy research papers produced by fellows gave the training an “on the job” aspect and guaranteed that at least one significant output would be produced as a result of the training. All policy papers were translated so as to be available both in English and Russian and published on the internet and in a bilingual hard-copy volume that was assigned an ISBN number.

From the institutional point of view, one of the strongest sustainability aspects is that new think tanks undertaking research have been integrated, informally if not yet formally via certification, into a long-established existing think tank network. The project benefited from, a strong internet dissemination strategy.

A key aspect of the project’s success was using host country experience to demonstrate the democratic policy problem being worked on.