Our approach has been to take on one to three major, high-impact policy projects at a time while concurrently running the Policy Lab programme – publishing research, building tools, and maintaining our community activities. We are working to secure consistent funding that would let us scale up, attract elite talent, take on bigger projects, and devote full staff resources to policy work – the kind of sustained focus that turns individual wins into systemic change.
We have operated on a shoestring budget so far and recognise the importance of scale to have more sustainable impact. Consistent funding would let us attract elite talent, take on bigger and longer-term projects, and devote full capacity to policy work that creates lasting change.
Get in touchPPL serves as lead consultant on this 15-month national initiative addressing the systemic drivers of family instability in the Maldives. The project has multiple integrated components, each of which would typically be scoped as a separate consultancy. The premise is that the Maldives' exceptionally high divorce rate is not inevitable but an addressable issue with identifiable root causes: 38% of child criminal cases come from divorced families, 88% of children of IPV victims witnessed violence, 60% of DV survivors lacked knowledge of support services, and children from divorced families are twice as likely to exhibit fearful-avoidant attachment styles.
Original qualitative ethnographic research centering women's lived experiences. Nineteen in-depth interviews (1.5–3 hours each) in Dhivehi in private settings, plus two focus groups with 70+ participants. Mapped vulnerabilities across four life stages. Six protective factors identified. Draft publication of approximately 90,000 words (~250 pages) with around 50 recommendations.
Standardised, gender-sensitive templates covering financial rights and obligations, education and career pathways, family planning, domestic responsibilities, rights during marriage, and dispute resolution. Built from vulnerability research findings, focus group input, legal department consultations, and historical drafts. Designed as a positive planning tool with multiple versions for general, international, and inter-religion marriages.
A six-course marriage preparation programme with approximately 200 content slides, 37 interactive checkpoints, and 26 video concepts. PPL built a functional working demo of the digital platform with course tracking, interactive quizzes, joint decision checkpoints, certificate generation linked to the Family Court, and bilingual Dhivehi/English delivery. DJA has confirmed support for mandatory digital completion for all islands.
Content designed for school and university integration alongside SHE's thalassemia courses, and public awareness campaigns. Delivered at Grade 10 (last year of compulsory education) and university level. 26 video concepts spanning communication, financial literacy, safety and rights, health and wellbeing, parenting, and community support, designed as 60–90 second acted scenarios in Dhivehi with English subtitles.
A 7-day Training of Trainers intensive targeting 15–20 participants from MSFD, DJA, and the Family Court, followed by cascading 5-day trainings across all 19 atolls targeting 250+ mediators. Child-centric approach, mandatory GBV screening, clear distinction between arbitration, mediation, and reconciliation. Training manual finalised, two rounds of mock sessions completed.
Digitization of Family Court forms, ease-of-use improvements for general public users, standardizing data into formats from which policy-relevant statistics can be extracted, and working toward an integrated Aailaa Portal as the single entry point for marriage, premarital training, and agreement filing.
Standardised procedures across Malé, islands, and international marriages, with a person identity layer with validated demographic fields and audit trails.
Faster payment processing and stronger enforcement mechanisms, with ongoing monitoring and assessment of improvements in coordination with the Family Court. An automated maintenance ledger system with arrears flags replacing previous delays.
PPL is developing KnowHow, a comprehensive searchable knowledge base designed to become MSFD's core policy and knowledge resource. The system solves a specific problem: knowledge relevant to social policy in the Maldives was scattered across agencies, servers, and individual staff members' memories. When staff turned over, the knowledge left with them. When a new policy question arose, officials spent weeks locating sources that should have been immediately accessible. KnowHow centralises all of this into a single, continuously updated platform.
The core is a 15-part social policy encyclopedia covering the full landscape of Maldivian social policy. The four domains the Ministry is directly responsible for each run to book-length depth, totalling over 340,000 words across more than 400 sections. Each domain is paired with sector training materials designed to be adapted into interactive courses for Ministry staff.
Beyond the encyclopedia, the system houses a cross-domain literature review, a statistics compendium, a graphs and charts library, island-level mapping of social service providers, CSO and NGO directories, an expert roster, a legislation timeline, treaty obligations mapping (CRC, CEDAW, CRPD), indexed Dhivehi-language news archives, standardised document templates, and the Ministry's 2025–2028 project portfolio and workplan.
PPL led the research and principal authorship of this study, commissioned by WFD and funded by the British High Commission under the Integrated Security Fund. The project examined how money shapes electoral politics in the Maldives.
The research drew on 22 in-depth interviews with candidates and experts, 6 written questionnaires, and a citizen focus group, carefully sampled across both major parties, independents, Malé and regional constituencies, male and female candidates, youth and experienced campaigners, winners and losers. The study documented campaign economics in granular detail: average budgets of MVR 2–5 million per race, 75–90% allocated to vote-buying, a going rate of approximately MVR 5,000 per vote, primary elections costing MVR 200,000–4 million with no party financial support, and 40–100 SOE positions promised per constituency as campaign currency. The report was co-authored with a team from Align Consultancy LLP, which included a former Attorney General and former Deputy Attorney General.
Pro bono Social Council papers we prepared for the National Library secured approval and a budget allocation of approximately MVR 270 million for a new central library, regional libraries, and a boat library for atolls. Construction set to begin.
Sustained publications and advocacy on the lack of community spaces in Maldivian urban development were reflected in a Cabinet decision in November 2024 to develop a “Third Space Community Centre” in central Malé. The space was subsequently opened in Lily Magu as the Youth Hub.
Following publication of the Cost of Politics in the Maldives study, both major parties incorporated some of the recommendations into public statements.
We have advocated for the introduction of remote work visas as a form of economic diversification through our economy publications. The government has recently announced the planned introduction of remote work visas.
Starting from NYE 2024, we ran small-scale movie screenings at small venues like karaoke rooms and our terrace as a form of third space. Since then, karaoke room based movie screenings following a similar model have popped up across Malé City.