The Seventh Regional Meeting (RM7) of the South Asian Think Tanks (SATTs) was held during 5 to 7 February 2018 at BRAC-CDM Savar in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Organised by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), the theme of this year’s regional meeting was “Remaining Relevant in the Policy World: Sustainability Challenges of Think Tanks.”
More than 100 participants from 18 SATTs based in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar came together at the meet, to exchange ideas and learnings, discuss challenges and opportunities, share successes and most importantly to develop a post-TTI strategy in order to sustain the network as the eight years of TTI support is coming to an end. Besides, donor and private sector representatives, development partners, special guests and other policy stakeholders also attended the meeting.
The three-day long meeting included nine thematic sessions to focus on how the support from International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to the SATTs strengthened their capacities to generate new knowledge and become more effective in policy engagement and how they would continue to pursue their policy engagement in the coming days once TTI withdraws its support to them.
The RM7 ended with the promising vibe from the SATTs in favour of continuation of the network. All the participants unanimously agreed to uphold and maintain the collaboration among the TTI cohorts.
Think Tank Initiative (TTI), a multi-donor programme funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), managed by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), is dedicated to strengthening the capacity of independent policy research institutions in the developing world.