PPI’s inaugural programme document sets a 10-year strategic direction for the Institute. The Institute programming aspires to bridge the gap between government and the citizens in matters of public policy by facilitating a structured mechanism for the citizens to engage with the State at the highest levels of decision-making. PPI’s programming is a shift away from the traditional practices where CSOs have mostly taken an adversarial approach in engaging with the state. The state and CSOs must see each other as partners with shared goals to improve public policy design and delivery. This will further strengthen citizen-state bargaining in the process of making public policies.
The primary problem being addressed by PPI in its inaugural 10 years phase is that ‘civil society and citizens are not participating in and contributing to public policy making, implementation and evaluation. This problem is because of the limited knowledge among civil society public policy actors about how government in Uganda works (regarding public policy making) and the opportunities for policy influence. This is worsened by the lack of opportunities for the policy designing departments of government to interact with citizens in the process of agenda setting, policy design and implementation
PPI is employing its theory of change as its implementation logic model. The choice of the theory of change is to design programmes that are iterative in nature to allow learning and adaptation along way. Based on a set of assumptions and preconditions, PPI’s theory of change is that public policies that respond to the development needs of society shall be realised only if citizens and citizens’ groups are able to influence the design, delivery and evaluation of such policies.