Policymakers face a variety of barriers to getting an issue on the agenda, whether it be limited bandwidth, too few resources, competing demands, urgent requests, political disagreements or outside shocks. Poor agenda management comes with big consequences: critical issues go unaddressed, low-impact issues consume resources, policy windows close before viable solutions have enough evidence and international opportunities go unutilised. This report focuses on the agenda setting and policy adoption phases of the policymaking lifecycle. 

Even when an issue is placed on the agenda and a policy solution successfully adopted, significant obstacles for effective implementation can still arise, often resulting in a gap between the policy adopted and the outcomes achieved. This report examines why some issues are taken up on the agenda and why some policy options are adopted to become new public policies. Understanding these dynamics is essential for making sense of the policymaking process and for improving the likelihood that better policies are successfully adopted and ultimately implemented.

By exploring the evolution of the agenda-setting literature, this analysis provides policymakers with a practical framework for strategic agenda management, highlighting drivers of agenda setting and potential strategies to actively increase the likelihood that policies are adopted. It sets out four strategies available to policymakers to increase the likelihood of success in the agenda-setting and policy adoption phases of the policymaking lifecycle, dependent on the problem, policy and political context at play.