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AGENDA
SEMINAR ON INTRODUCTION OF THE POLICY DEVELOPMENT CYCLE AND GENERAL CONCEPT OF
POLICY PRIORITISATION
Monday, 15 May - Thursday, 18 May , 2017
Garden City Premise - Conference Room, First Floor
2 Latin America, Garden City, Cairo
According to the SIGMA Principles of Public Administration – A Framework for ENP Countries1
,
“it is critical that policy decisions are made in a co-ordinated manner, ensuring that outputs are
consistent, predictable, and in line with the strategic objectives and resources of the state”. For
this reason, the political leadership needs administrative institutions that support the policy-
development and decision-making systems. Policy development and co-ordination need to be
underpinned by arrangements and capacities for policy planning, development, co-ordination,
implementation and monitoring that:
 establish a policy framework that will help to ensure that individual policies are
consistent with national goals and priorities;
 provide the necessary capacity and procedures for advance planning of policy and
legislative outputs;
 provide institutional capacity for overview and co-ordination to ensure horizontal
consistency among policies;
 provide decision makers with advice that is based on clear definitions and good analysis
of issues, and that contains explicit indications of possible inconsistencies and
contradictions;
 include consultative mechanisms to anticipate, detect and resolve policy conflicts early
in the process and improve coherence;
 include procedures to achieve effective reconciliation between policy priorities and
budgetary imperatives;
 include monitoring mechanisms to ensure that policies can be adjusted in the light of
progress, new information and changing circumstances.
(…) Structures should be in place to enable ministries to fulfil their policy and legislative
development functions and to create policies that, when implemented, deliver the objectives
they were designed to achieve. All relevant functions of policy planning and development, and
also legislative drafting, should be in place within responsible state institutions, and there
should be sufficient and capable staff to perform the stated functions. (…)There should be
procedures that set out clear roles, responsibilities and approaches to develop, deliver and
1
http://sigmaweb.org/publications/Principles%20-ENP-Eng.pdf

2
review the effectiveness of policies and legislation and enable effective prioritisation and
sequencing of activities. These procedures need to be followed in practice. Ministries should
have functioning systems and forums to agree on work planning and resourcing.”
During the course of this Seminar, participants will be introduced to the SIGMA Principles, as
well as conceptual and practical knowledge on policy prioritisation, action setting and
monitoring with the aim that the accumulated knowledge will serve as the basis of the future
joint working sessions to embed the theory into the Egyptian practice through piloting.
The Seminar will be held in English, with interpretation.
Time Monday, 15 May 2017
10:00 – 10.30
Registration of participants
10:30 – 10:40
Opening Remarks
Dr. Shereen Elsabagh, Head of Policy and Strategy Unit- Ministry of Trade and
Industry
Dr. Nihal Elmaghrbl, Deputy of the Minister of Planning
10:40 – 10:50
Opening Remarks
Mr. Peter Vagi, Senior Adviser Policy Making, Strategy and Reform, OECD/SIGMA
10:50 – 11:00 Presentation of participants (tour de table)
11:00 – 11:40
Introduction to SIGMA Principles of Public Administration
Mr. Peter Vagi
11:40 – 12:00 Questions and answers
12:00 – 13.00 Lunch
13:00 – 13:45
Overall functioning of the MTI and policy agenda
Dr. Shereen Elsabagh, Head of Policy and Strategy Unit
13:45 – 14:00 Coffee break
14:00 – 14:45
Introduction to overall steps of the Policy Making Cycle – stages and concepts
Mr. Timo Ligi, Senior Adviser, Policy Development and Co-ordination OECD/SIGMA
14:45- 15:30
Main features of a good policy making process (combined with interactive
discussions & input from participants)
Ms. Jolanda Trebicka OECD/SIGMA External Expert
15:30 – 15:50 Questions & Answers
15:50 – 16.00
Closing remarks
Mr. Peter Vagi

3
Time Tuesday, 16 May 2017
10:00 – 10.10
Follow up from the first day
Mr. Peter Vagi
10:10 – 11:00
Identification of problems – Problem Analysis - steps and tools
Mr. Timo Ligi
11:00 – 11:45
General concept of policy prioritization – Setting of Priorities
Mr. Peter Vagi
11:45 – 12:00 Questions and answers
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 13:30
Defining SMART objectives
Ms. Jolanda Trebicka
13:30 – 15:15
Group work on practical exercise on priority setting and defining strategic
objectives
15:15– 15.50
Role of information and data on designing policies – tools and steps
Mr. Timo Ligi
15:50- 16:00
Closing remarks
Mr. Peter Vagi

4
Time Wednesday, 17 May 2017
10:00 – 10.10
Follow up from the second day
Mr. Peter Vagi
10:10 – 10:50
Policy Implementation – Setting actions based on the defined objectives
Mr. Timo Ligi
10:50 – 11:40
Costing of policies - linking the implementation plan with financial resources
Ms. Jolanda Trebicka
11:40 – 12:00 Questions and answers
12:00 – 13.00 Lunch
13:00 – 14:30
Group work on practical example on setting actions and costing of actions and
deliverables
14:30 – 15:15
Monitoring of policies – role of monitoring indicators, institutional and
monitoring framework
Ms. Jolanda Trebicka
15:15 – 15:50 Group work on practical example on defining monitoring indicators
15:50 – 16:00
Closing remarks
Mr. Peter Vagi

5
Time Thursday, 18 May 2017
10:00 – 10.45
Recap of what has been learnt so far
Mr. Peter Vagi
10:45 – 11:30 Agreement on next actions, timing, roles and responsibilities
11:30 – 12:00
Closing remarks and next steps
Mr. Peter Vagi
Dr. Shereen Elsabagh, Head of Policy and Strategy Unit
12:00 – 13.00 Lunch