RPAR is committed to the importance of the local.  Policy advocates tend to be pulled upward in social organization towards the national and global levels, where the chance to make policy change appears greatest and where change appears to pack the greatest punch. RPAR resists this pull. It emphasizes the fact that all policies are ultimately enacted (or ignored) in particular places, in particular ways, among particular people. It recognizes that local power is often considerable – it is local leaders and agents who do or do not put policies into practice; that many cities and provinces have considerable formal and real legal autonomy; that local political action may often be more feasible than national change, particularly in the matter of controversial measures that address problems that are not evenly distributed across the country; and that in many instances, a small number of urban areas may actually hold most of the people at risk from HIV or other health threats, so that local policy or practice changes can actually achieve high levels of “coverage” and make national action practically unnecessary. The real test of a policy is how it is put into practice.  RPAR thus offers several useful advantages: 

• It measures how policy made at higher levels is actually being used;
• It takes advantage of local political space and power to change policy or practice without national action;
• it feeds back into national and global policy making key information about how national policies are being implemented.

Last Updated: February 2006