Who will participate in setting the priorities?

In most instances, a small group of people will carry out the final process of applying the criteria to prioritise the topics and deciding which policy brief to undertake. Ideally, this group should include: policymakers who have a broad overview of the health system and the policymaking environment; health system researchers with a broad overview of health systems research and familiarity with the policymaking environment; and key stakeholders. These stakeholders may include key non-governmental organisations, donors or international organisations, health workers, and the general public. Sometimes participation may be dictated in part by external or other priority-setting processes that are already in place. (See Guide 8, Informing and engaging stakeholders)

It may often be pragmatic for those responsible for producing policy briefs to take the final decision about which policy briefs to produce. However, there may be several advantages to having a steering or advisory group to do this. This is because they can:

• Ensure the appropriate representation of the perspectives of both the policymakers and stakeholders who are the intended users of the policy briefs, and of the potential beneficiaries of the policies or programmes that might be implemented
• Protect against inappropriate influence on decisions by the interests of those responsible for producing policy briefs, and ultimately
• Help to ensure that policy briefs address important problems and are used to inform decisions

This page was last updated November 2011.