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 six 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.
1. Vulnerability mapping research. Original qualitative ethnographic research centering women's lived experiences. Nineteen in-depth interviews lasting 1.5–3 hours each, conducted in Dhivehi in private settings by a female researcher and local case worker, plus two focus groups with 70+ participants. Mapped vulnerabilities across four life stages – before marriage, during marriage, post-separation, and children's specific vulnerabilities – documenting patterns including financial abuse and economic control, technology-facilitated surveillance (intimate image threats, AI-generated imagery), custody weaponisation, and system failures. Six protective factors identified. The draft publication runs approximately 90,000 words (~250 pages) with around 50 recommendations. Currently in stakeholder validation with the Family Court, DJA, Police, and SHE.
2. Prenuptial agreement templates. Standardised, gender-sensitive prenuptial templates covering financial rights and obligations, education and career pathways, family planning, domestic responsibilities, rights during marriage, and dispute resolution. Built from the vulnerability research findings, focus group input from both financially secure women and elderly community members, legal department consultations, and earlier historical drafts. Designed as a positive planning tool rather than preparation for failure, with multiple versions for general, international, and inter-religion marriages.
3. Premarital training and public awareness. A six-course marriage preparation programme: Foundations of Partnership, Communication and Planning Together, Health and Intimacy, Financial Partnership, Building a Safe Home, and Parenting and Child Well-Being. 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 where both partners answer independently, certificate generation linked to the Family Court, and bilingual Dhivehi/English delivery. Designed for mandatory completion before marriage registration, school integration, and public awareness campaigns. DJA has confirmed support for mandatory digital completion for all islands.
4. National mediator training. 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. Curriculum covers ADR fundamentals and legal framework, mediation and conciliation principles, the 7 stages of mediation with experiential role-play practice, and trainer development. Key principles include a child-centric approach, mandatory GBV screening (no mediation in active violence cases), and clear distinction between arbitration, mediation, and reconciliation. Training manual finalised, two rounds of mock sessions completed.
5. Family Court data standardisation. Situation analysis found court data spread across CMS, Marriage Entity DB, Kaiveni Portal, Finance Portal, Excel registers, scanned attachments, and server folders – with statistics produced by manual counting. Working toward the Kaiveni Portal as an integrated entry point with structured data capture, standardised procedures across Malé, islands, and international marriages, and a person identity layer with validated fields and audit trails.
6. Child support payment enforcement. Faster payment processing and stronger enforcement mechanisms, with ongoing monitoring and assessment of improvements in coordination with the Family Court. Current delays of 30–44 days for maintenance processing being addressed through an automated ledger system with arrears flags.
PPL is developing KnowHow, a comprehensive searchable knowledge management system 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. When the Ministry needed to brief incoming leadership, the baseline exercise started from scratch each time. 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 – Child Protection, Gender and GBV, Disability and Social Protection, and Elderly Care – each run to book-length depth, totalling over 340,000 words across more than 400 sections. These are living documents, continuously updated as new evidence, legislation, and data become available. Each domain is paired with sector training materials designed to be adapted into full interactive courses for Ministry staff – accessible entry points for anyone who needs to come up to speed on a domain without reading the full reference.
Beyond the encyclopedia, the system houses a cross-domain literature review with summaries of all identifiable Maldivian social policy literature, a statistics compendium, a graphs and charts library, island-level mapping of social service providers compiled through fieldwork and direct outreach across all atolls, CSO and NGO directories, an expert roster, a legislation timeline, treaty obligations mapping (CRC, CEDAW, CRPD), indexed Dhivehi-language news archives going back to the late 2000s, standardised document templates for cabinet papers, SOPs, concept notes, and research papers, and the Ministry's 2025–2028 project portfolio and workplan. The system is live, searchable, and designed to serve as the Ministry's reference for policy development, staff onboarding, responding to information requests, and informing programme design.
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 – not only during campaign periods but in the lead-up to and aftermath of elections.
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. Findings were validated in a session with 12 representatives from civil society, government, party leadership, and election bodies. The report was co-authored with a team from Align Consultancy LLP, which included a former Attorney General and former Deputy Attorney General.
After publication, both major parties incorporated aspects of the recommendations into public statements.
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. Focus groups with 70 stakeholders informing the Government's Strategic Action Plan. 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 aspects 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.
Project-based workplan, monitoring, and evaluation tools developed for MSFD are being adopted as the Ministry's standard operational framework, with research on rollout outcomes generating reproducible lessons for public administration.
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.