Brazil is approaching a new configuration of the political environment – at the federal and state levels.
To talk about this new stage, Sigalei sought experts in the area of Institutional and Government Relations.
We interviewed them about how they reassess their strategy and what they take into consideration.
In the second part of this interview series, Sigalei heard from the Executive Director of the Question of Science Institute (IQC), Paulo Almeida.
The IQC is the first institute in the country aimed at defending the use of scientific evidence in public policies - concentrating its performance on three fronts: Science Education, Science Journalism, and Science Advocacy.
Check out the summary of the interview:
1. Sigalei – What is the importance, for the Question of Science Institute (IQC), of structuring a strategy in Institutional and Government Relations (IGR)?
Paulo Almeida, Executive Director of the IQC: Our Science and Technology sector has difficulties with articulation. The IQC is a new organization, created in 2019, which does not have a previous history of relationships, which increases our challenge in mediation and articulation. So, what we are starting to do, as an organization, is to supply, in the form of a service, a sectorial deficiency. We are building advocacy from scratch and are still affected by not yet being able to guide the system very efficiently.
2. Sigalei – How does IQC view this transition period in the Legislative and the government? And what are the first moves that should be made?
Paulo Almeida, Executive Director of the IQC: Every change in the Executive and Legislative has a very large impact on the formulation of our strategy. In a scenario of alternation of power, the first thing to be done is mapping the actors - both at the state and federal levels. It is necessary to understand what the priority agendas are in each of the areas (health, technology, education, etc.) and identify the points of connection with the spheres of power.
Right from the start, one of the sensitive points is the budgetary issue. We are concerned with mapping the actors involved in this definition and analyzing how the discussion has been fostered. It is also important to verify how this debate can impact our area and, mainly, to understand who is allocated in key places to monitor each topic. In the budget, Science and Technology is an area that usually remains as a residual, among other stronger pressure groups, and, therefore, we need to think and design strategies, with proactive pressure actions.
In scenarios of sudden government changes, this strategic work is even more intense, both to analyze policies that could be abandoned and those that must be resumed. So, in some macro-policies previously emptied like the Science Without Borders and Quota Policy programs, for example, it is necessary to monitor the discussion. Understand if these policies will be resumed and how, mainly due to the volume of resources they may demand from the public budget and the impact this has on the sector.
3. Sigalei – In this transition period, how to structure practical actions?
Paulo Almeida, Executive Director of the IQC: Whether between elected or re-elected governments, a monitoring of the main decision-making axes is needed. We seek to schedule conversations with specific people from the sectors who could play an important role in the Science and Technology area in the administrations to help us understand the directions things will take. Eventually, these interlocutors can be good points of contact, not only to gather information, but to discuss action plans. So, we seek to hold meetings to see who we identify with and who could be a significant actor.
All this translates into strategies and actions. There are actions that need to be done regardless of who is in power. In the case of other actions, we need to evaluate which ones only served for a specific scenario, that is, were designed for one government.
4. Sigalei – Could you cite an example of actions taken by IQC?
Paulo Almeida, Executive Director of the IQC: A very practical example is what we have done since early 2020, when most of our work was guided by federal government decisions, official or extra-official, mainly on health-related topics. We established an emergency policy and remained highly concentrated on abrupt decisions, so that we could have a capacity to manifest almost immediately for questioning and confrontation.
In this monitoring, very firm and determined, to a certain extent we evaluate what is calibrated in an environment where there is more receptivity for proactive and not so reactive issues. We have to evaluate our methodology based on the panorama of our sector, which is very weak in the professionalization of advocacy.
We still have to evolve in the processes of capturing and assimilating relevant information that leads us to specific paths of action. We also need to improve our transit capacity in our areas of interest, both in Brasília and at state levels, bringing information. This is how we will move from reactive to mount a more classic, rational, and traditional monitoring structure of action.
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*By Sigalei
