Closed consolidated authoritarian regimes are but one of the challenges for opening up the policy making and implementation processes to agents from outside the circles of the government.

It is often assumed but much rarer discussed that in the eight countries of Central Asia and South Caucasus – which are at the focal point of this project – civil society actors generally lack know-how, networking resources and access to the policy-making process and partners among the policy makers in national and local government as well as necessary legal and institutional mechanisms to try overcoming the barriers and engage in the process.

However, we acknowledge that beyond assumptions little is known in fact about the activities of policy analysis or activities which are called
policy analysis in the countries of interest to us.
Hence the goal: to gauge the status quo of policy analysis in the two regions and look into the needs as well as for the most appropriate of approaches to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations, to foster regional networking, and look into the possibilities, often beyond institutions and law, to overcome obstacles to establishing sustained dialogue with policymakers.