Kivu was invited to provide the lead technical assistance to ZEAP, a programme that aimed to strengthen the capacity of a select group of Zambian research institutes and think tanks so that they were better prepared to conduct effective policy advocacy. Kivu’s role was to (i) identify the partners with most potential and establish strong relations with them; (ii) assess their capacity needs and design a programme of support to strengthen core skills of think tanks and research organisations to carry out politically informed and policy-relevant research and advocate for its implementation; (ii) select policy issues based on an assessment of political opportunity for change and design influencing strategies; (iii) improve the quality and volume of locally-based policy research and (iii) enhance the quality of policy debate in Zambia.