The Briefing Paper titled System of Policy Forums in UK Conservative and Labour Parties has been commissioned by PILDAT to facilitate informed understanding of the process in place by established political parties in developing policies based on input by citizens. The aim of the paper is to showcase the system for Pakistan’s political parties to explore how a system of internal policy planning and formulation can be developed within Pakistan’s political parties.

Authored by Dr. Umair Javed, currently Assistant Professor of Politics and Sociology at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), the paper is an effort to build the capacities of political parties’ policy wings, members of Women in Politics Support Group (WPSG) and alumni of Young Politicians Fellowship Programme (YPFP) on responding to COVID-19 grassroot policy issues. This paper is meant to facilitate an informed discussion on how, within each political party’s peculiar structure, an effort can be made to evolve a suitable and inclusive system that regularly incorporates views and perspectives from each party’s grassroots support base into regular policy planning by the party. The exercise is especially needed now as the country grapples with managing the coronavirus pandemic and political parties can organise grassroots forums to ascertain citizens’ views on various policy issues emerging from COVID-19 and how citizens expect those to be effectively dealt with. To facilitate this exercise, this Briefing Paper also includes guidelines on how to conduct such policy forums at the grassroots level across Pakistan.

The Briefing Paper has been produced under the project titled Consolidating Democracy in Pakistan under COVID-19.