98243 July 2015 · Number 6 PRACTICAL LESSONS IN BUILDING A PLATFORM FOR POLICY DIALOGUE: REFLECTIONS ON THE INDONESIA ECONOMIC QUARTERLY* Ahya Ihsan, Ilsa Meidina, Elitza Mileva, Alex years of production of Sienaert and Ashley Taylor1 the Indonesia Economic Quarterly (IEQ). Regular economic development updates can The IEQ aims to support contribute significantly to dialogue and debate improvements in the on key policy issues; this note shares practical quality of evidence-based experience from the World Bank’s production policy-making regarding of one such report, the Indonesia Economic Indonesia's near-term Quarterly (IEQ). economic and medium-term High quality economic updates can be powerful development challenges by platforms for the World Bank to influence, and stimulating, informing, and inform, public policy debates on development influencing the public debate and policymaking challenges that are occurring at a country, on these issues. The IEQ is a cross-sectoral regional or global level. Building a strong product of the Indonesia World Bank country economic update brand can have positive office, led by the MFM team. Production is reputational spillovers and can help to build and supported by Bank budget and as part of the strengthen partnerships with policymakers, work program financed by an Australian local research institutions, development Government-funded Trust Fund on Support for partners, the media and the broader public. Enhanced Macro Economic and Fiscal Policy Measuring the impact of economic updates on Analysis (SEMEFPA). Over recent years the the policy discourse, or reforms, can help to high-quality, topical evidence-based policy build a reinforcing cycle of internal buy-in, and analysis in the IEQ has informed, and external interest, in the product leading to influenced, the public policy debate in Indonesia further interest in contributing to, and on a range of issues, from near-term macro consuming, future releases. This MFM Practice challenges, fiscal reforms in areas such as energy Brief provides some practical examples of the subsidies and capital budget disbursements, strategies and processes which can be used to through to social protection and social security build such updates as platforms for policy programs, education spending and local service dialogue, drawing on the experience of five delivery. 1 Cleared by Shubham Chaudhuri, Practice Manager (GMFDR). 1. Designing a product authorities or other corporate products, at the global or regional level. A product structure to reflect the World Bank’s comparative advantage and value-added: The 2. Building demand for, and the IEQ is structured in 3 main sections: the first is sustainability of, the product an economic and fiscal update, placing developments in a regional and global context There are a number of ways to leverage a regular and providing updated forecasts; the second economic update report so as to grow the focuses on emerging, topical economic or policy demand for and impact of the product. For issues; and the final section focuses on example: Indonesia's longer-term development  Providing input into policy debates: Launch challenges. events provide a convenient, regular forum for engagement with high-level Domestic and international commentary on policymakers, the media and the public on economic developments in Indonesia, as with the key policy issues of the day. other emerging economies, is increasingly  Building relationships: Launch events offer the available but with a mix of analytical quality and opportunity to build relationships with other depth, periodicity and time horizon. However, institutions, such as think tanks or institutes, the World Bank’s balanced, evidence-based by partnering and holding joint events. appraisal of recent economic and policy Launch materials can also be used for developments still adds value, informing and briefings and workshops with select raising awareness in policy debates, including stakeholders including development on important, but potentially politically- partners, government ministries or agencies, sensitive, areas such as energy subsidy reform. and for regional and academic outreach In addition, of particular value added is the efforts. World Bank’s analysis of medium-term  Broader dissemination: Economic update development challenges, its regional and reports also provide a very helpful alternative international perspective, and a focus on dissemination platform for country-specific poverty and social outcomes. or regional analytical work, for example to preview upcoming major reports and to Choosing an appropriate frequency: The choice provide publically accessible précis to of frequency is an important one. The IEQ is facilitate media coverage and penetration. produced every quarter, a choice which reflects the significant volume of available high 3. Production processes frequency data for Indonesia, and the availability of a sufficient volume of analysis to Production planning pays: Regular publication feed into the report. In countries with lower offers the opportunity to “learn by doing” and frequency of data availability, a lower frequency to implement and maintain a systematic release may be more appropriate, and biannual approach to the production process. A first vital economic updates at the country, regional and item is establishing regular and timely global levels are a common choice. Whatever the production processes. This includes scheduling choice of frequency, sticking to a regular the timing of production around key macro data production schedule is important both for releases or government policy announcements internal planning purposes and for building the and putting in place regular fora for discussion external brand of the economic update by of the storyline of the next report. making it a regular and predictable contributor to the flow of publicly available comment and A focus on quality is crucial, including strong analysis. In addition, the choice of frequency forecasting and technical processes with an `and release dates needs to be well-coordinated emphasis on internal consistency: Maintaining with other updates, for example, from a rigorous approach to forecasting is important July 2015 · Number 6·2 given the reputational importance of good 4. Dissemination strategies public forecasts, and to maximize their quality for internal due diligence purposes and other Disseminating the economic update through corporate requirements. A necessary condition multiple channels can help achieve impact for good forecasts is consistency - ensuring that including via the web and social media: macro (growth, inflation and balance of Dissemination is key to achieving the payments), fiscal and poverty projections are development objectives of an economic update. based on the same set of exogenous assumptions The dissemination of the IEQ takes place (e.g. global growth, oil prices). For the IEQ, this through a range of modes, designed and is achieved partly through pre-context setting implemented in collaboration with the World meetings attended by the production team prior Bank communications team. These include a to a broader, more formal internal workshop on public launch event with a moderated topical the storyline for the report. panel discussion to follow the update presentation; press briefings; smaller briefings Developing a pipeline of pieces on topical or and discussions with government counterparts, structural policy issues: For the topical and development partners and private sector medium-term development issues sections, the organizations; email, web and social media challenge is to draw effectively on materials dissemination; regional events; and distribution produced across the World Bank and IFC. To try of hard copies. Panel discussions allow for to formalize this process (and ensure delivery of external participation, often facilitated through such pieces), and also to build country office co-hosting of launches with local think tanks, support for the product, the Indonesia country academia and government agencies. office has convened an editorial board for the Considerable emphasis is also placed on report, chaired by the Country Director. This supporting domestic media penetration and ensures country office-wide buy-in for using the more public awareness through disseminating report as a key dissemination channel, which is the report and undertaking related activities in crucial for there to be sufficient input to and the national language, Bahasa Indonesia. collaboration in the IEQ. External contributions may also be considered, for example from the The uptake of social media is particularly strong Government. This will require assessing the in Indonesia, and has been used to disseminate benefits this can bring (building capacity, the IEQ via Twitter and Facebook. This can providing additional insights and supporting widen the audience, with Twitter feed and re- relationships with the Government) with the tweets from the local “Twitterati” of particular potential impact this can have on control over use in promoting Indonesian language website the timing of delivery and on the content. visits and report downloads. Other options for web dissemination include videos or Recognizing and planning adequate infographics with key messages. resourcing: As the above discussion makes clear, producing a regular, high quality 5. Measuring impact economic update, while conferring many benefits, also requires significant resources. Systematic monitoring and evaluation (M&E) These costs should be acknowledged and of IEQ impact has proved useful including factored into wider time allocation and through surveys and media monitoring and management planning. Without this, there is a influence logging risk that producing such reports places an To assess the quality and the extent to which the unsustainable burden on core team members, IEQ contributes to policy discussion, regular impedes the delivery of other, high priority M&E activities such as readership surveys, output, or that the reports which are produced media tracking and influence logging are add little value. conducted (see Box 1). Such M&E can not only July 2015 · Number 6·3 measure impact but can guide resourcing of distributed during at the event (typical different parts of the updates and stimulate attendance: 200). Brief survey questions are interest in providing analytical contributions or formulated to assess the relevance of the report resourcing. to the audience’s area of work, the quality of the analysis, and the extent to which the reports Box 1: The Indonesia Economic Quarterly’s media impact influence debate and stimulate discussion, as (by Dini Djalal, World Bank Jakarta) well as capturing constructive feedback. Taking place every quarter, the IEQ launch events over the last two years are the World Bank Indonesia’s most regular Media monitoring of printed and online formal engagement with the national media, including importantly publications in Bahasa Indonesia. The newspapers and social media interaction is also reporters who routinely cover the events now anticipate conducted the day after the launch and for the the launches, and routinely cite the data and analysis in the following month. This helps gauge the report for weeks following the launch, thus illustrating that responses of policymakers in Indonesia to the the IEQ ‘brand’ is strong. messages in the report. Influence logging, for In addition, the 24 hour news cycle has translated into example of citations, quotes etc, is undertaken to repeated dissemination of the IEQ’s messages. The understand the channels of influence of the quantity of media coverage is inevitably dependent on report in policy debate and formulation. other events and/or news of the day. There is an ebb and flow to the amount of media coverage, but on average, there are at least two dozen articles citing the IEQ within About the authors: the first 24 hours after the launch. More often than not, the IEQ key messages will be the top headline of the Economy Ahya Ihsan, Economist, World Bank’s Macroeconomics & Fiscal Management and/or Business section of the dailies, if not on the front Global Practice (GMFDR) page. The initial headline then often prompts related Email: aihsan@worldbank.org articles in following days, with the various media asking government counterparts for their ‘reaction’ to the World Ilsa Meidina, Operation analyst, World Bank’s Bank report. IEQ analysis initiates debate and discussion. Macroeconomics & Fiscal Management Global Practice (GMFDR) While positive media coverage from Indonesia’s most Email:imeidina@worldbank.org influential news outlets is important, the influence of social Elitza Mileva, Economist, World Bank’s media should not be under-estimated. A retweet by one Macroeconomics & Fiscal Management Global Twitter account with hundreds of thousands of followers, Practice (GMFDR) can translate into a steep spike in visits to the IEQ web- Email:emileva@worldbank.org page. Hence media coverage by one of the more mainstream online sites such as Detik.com can be very Alex Sienaert, Country Economist, World Bank’s influential, as news from these sites are more likely to be Macroeconomics & Fiscal Management Global retweeted – and retweets translate into a wider discussion Practice (GMFDR) of the report’s key messages. email: asienaert@worldbank.org Ashley Taylor, Senior Economist, World Bank’s Online readership surveys are disseminated Macroeconomics & Fiscal Management Global with each report, and additional surveys have Practice (GMFDR) email: ataylor@worldbank.org also been conducted approximately one month later. Hardcopy survey forms are also ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This note series is intended to summarize good practices and key policy findings on MFM-related topics. The view expressed in the notes are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Bank, its board or its member countries. Copies of these notes series are available on the MFM Web site (http://worldbank.org/macroeconomics) * This note draws on the experience of the past and present wider team responsible for the IEQ, as well as for providing input to regional and global economic update reports. It also draws on review comments and discussions on a range of economic updates across regions. All IEQ reports are available at: http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/indonesia/publication/indonesia-economic-quarterly-reports. July 2015 · Number 6·4