Introduction to Decision Framework

Introduction to the Decision Framework

Choosing the most suitable strategic actions to support development of organic agriculture and markets from an array of possibilities can represent a dilemma, especially when diverse stakeholders with different interests are involved in the discussion. There are many good ideas and surely there will be limited resources, so there will be a process to prune some of the possible actions and retain the optimal ones in the context of the situation. The full situation will be unique for each country and many factors will be taken into account. However, key factors should always be taken into account. These are:

• The stage of development of organic agriculture and the rest of the organic sector in the country.
• The regulatory context for organic agriculture in the country.
• The culture of government policy intervention for agriculture and markets in the country: what is the prevailing political attitude towards policy intervention?
• The main logic (objectives) of the policy intervention: what main objectives were identified in the strategic planning process?

The toolkit includes a decision aid for taking all of these factors into account. It is meant to assist rather than to dictate the choice of strategic actions.  The decision aid is part of IFOAM – Organic International’s Global Organic Policy Toolkit.  

This is meant to be a general guidance only. Specific circumstances of the country may indicate that a strategic action that is not in the results of the decision aid exercise.  Users are advised to use this guidance with flexibility in mind. 

The deliberation process should also consider having the right balance of “push,” “pull,” and “enabling” strategies and it should also taken into consideration the opportunity to ensure that current policies do not discriminate against organic production and markets.

 How to use the decision aid

Fill out a short questionnaire about the key factors.  For the factors related to stage of development, regulatory context, and culture of government policy intervention (the first three in the questionnaire), select one answer.  For the question about about the main logic (objectives) of policy intervention,  you may select more than one objective.       

To access the Decision Framework, click here