Governance : All Articles

Moving beyond strategy to implementation: Africa Capacity Indicators Report (ACIR) 2012

13 April 2012

The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) launched the second of its flagship annual reviews on the state of capacity development in Africa on 3rd April. This year's report is devoted to the theme of capacity development in agricultural transformation and food security. One of the highlights is Ghana's upgrading to the 'High' category of the ACI composite index. The composite index measures the policy environment, processes for implementation, development results at country level and capacity development outcomes. In 2011 there were no countries classified under the 'High' category.

Eldis governance assessments CDROM now available: Request your free copy!

23 March 2012

Since 2008 the Eldis project at IDS Knowledge Services has hosted an online resource library, The Eldis Governance Assessments dossier as part of a long-term partnership with the UNDP Global Programme on Democratic Governance Assessments. To mark the end of this collaboration Eldis collated a selection of documents from the library on to a CDROM. The disc contains over 200 resources from a range of different experts, institutions and organisations that work in the field of governance assessments. It is designed to provide detailed, practical information drawing upon evidence about what works, and identifying innovations in approaches, policy and practice. Eldis is trying to identify potential users for the CDROMs by means of a short survey (click here to download). If you would like to receive a copy, or to nominate possible beneficiaries, please fill in the questionnaire and send it by email to Jason Collodi, Eldis Governance Editor (j.collodi@ids.ac.uk).

Islands of integrity: Identifying positive outliers

16 March 2012

Why have some public organizations or sectors seen a reduction in corruption (or a greater reduction than might be expected) while others have not? What explains the differences across or within countries and sectors? What are the political processes that drive corruption reduction and what policy lessons can be learned from studying cases where it has happened? This paper, the first in a series on this topic, is part of a project that seeks to try to answer those questions, and is being undertaken by the Developmental Leadership Program (DLP) in conjunction with Transparency International (TI). The paper outlines the way in which a ‘long list’ of cases has been identified by a careful statistical analysis of TI’s Global Corruption Barometer (GCB)

New APPP Policy Brief: Support to local problem-solving - Lessons from peri-urban Malawi

29 February 2012

Malawi currently faces severe economic and political constraints, placing additional pressure on town and city governments which, even in normal times, are incapable of providing public goods such as health and public security well or consistently. To obtain them at all, people rely on a variety of non-state actors, including ‘town chiefs’ (informal leaders), NGOs, churches and political parties as well as, to some extent, themselves. This policy brief from the UK-based Africa Power and Politics Programme, published in February 2012, explores the major bottlenecks that undermine the provision of public goods to people living in Malawi’s townships.

Strengthening pastoralist voices in Tanzania

14 February 2012

This booklet, and its accompanying DVD, reports on the ‘Strengthening Voices’ project, underway in two districts in northern Tanzania. The project aims to strengthen the capacity of pastoralist communities and local governments to shape strategies for adaptive environmental management and poverty reduction in Tanzania’s drylands. At the core of the project is a training course that explains the economic and ecological processes at the heart of pastoral systems - clarifying the rationale that underpins pastoral livelihood strategies.The course is based on a similar initiative that has been field-tested and run in the Sahel region of West Africa since 2000.

Greening Development: Enhancing Capacity for Environmental Management and Governance

02 February 2012

This new publication from OECD (February 2012) outlines a number of steps to be considered when building capacity for greening national development planning, national budgetary processes and key economic sector strategies. The report identifies the key actors to be engaged in the decision-making processes, outlines possible capacity needs and suggests how these can be addressed.

Supporting improved livelihoods for pastoralists

27 January 2012

Pastoralism is often depicted as an anachronistic system that cannot cope with the demands of modern development. However, practical experience reveals that pastoralism is not only capable of changing with the times, it is often the only viable livelihood option, particularly for communities living in remote, dryland environments. This collection of case studies from SNV Netherlands Development Organisation demonstrates that external support can help to strengthen pastoralists' voice in policymaking, enhance their engagement with markets and improve service provision and natural resource management in some of the most challenging environments in Africa today. 

Capacity building for local NGOs: A guidance manual for good practice

15 January 2012

In the early 1990s, as Somaliland emerged from civil war and conflict, indigenous non-governmental and community-based organisations mushroomed. International organisations began targeting reconstruction and development aid through local organisations and quickly came to realise the need for institutional strengthening and capacity building. To coordinate these efforts, a number of organisations came together to create an international NGO forum known as the Capacity Building Caucus (CBC) in 1999. The aim of the CBC was to ensure learning from best practice, coordinate, capacity-building activities, and eventually to promote sustainability through a ‘training of trainers’ programme for Somali capacity- building officers.

This package of manuals was developed in part as a curriculum for the training of trainers programme, and in part for use by individual local organisations to assist them in the ongoing process of developing their own capacity.

Assessing decentralization and local governance in West Africa

12 January 2012

This document examines a number of initiatives to build the capacity of local stakeholders to monitor and evaluate decentralisation and local governance processes in a participatory way. It includes case studies from Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali and Niger.

SNV Practice Brief: Supporting domestic accountability

25 November 2011

Accountability can be an abstract concept, but it comes alive for ordinary citizens if it involves looking at whether (and how) funding for services is distributed and spent at the local level. This Practice Brief is the first of a new series prepared by practitioners working with the SNV Netherlands Development Organisation. It helps to shed some light on what support organisations can do to amplify the voice of local stakeholders in demanding greater accountability from governments and service providers.

Implementing the Paris Declaration: No end in sight

05 October 2011

The results of the 2011 Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration make for sobering reading, according to the OECD. At the global level, only 1 out of the 13 targets established for 2010 has been met, which makes for a tough agenda as countries prepare to meet in Busan, Korea, for the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.

World Development Report 2012: Gender equality and development

03 October 2011

Policymakers and practitioners still face gaps in knowledge both in how gender equality matters for development and how best to incorporate these links in policy design. The World Development Report 2012 aims to bridge these gaps by building upon the growing body of multidisciplinary theory, evidence, and data on these links while highlighting the knowledge gaps that remain across the world in the context of the development process. The Report argues that closing gender gaps is not only a core development objective in its own right, it is also smart economics.

Interview: Riding the green wave

13 September 2011

Elizabeth Dipuo Peters, Minister of Energy, Republic of South Africa

South Africa’s path to universal energy access

South Africa is on track to achieve near-universal access to energy by 2015, a remarkable achievement given that 15 years ago, only 30% of the population had access to electricity. Minister Elizabeth Dipuo Peters, explains how they did it.

Interview: Caring into the future

12 September 2011

Paul Banda, Director of the Environment Council of Zambia

Enforcing compliance with Zambia’s environment laws

Over the years, the Environmental Council of Zambia (ECZ) has developed its capacity to enforce environmental laws and advise the government on how to manage the country’s environment and natural resources.

Guest Column: Avoid the failure trap

12 September 2011

Peter Malinga, Coordinator of technical services at the Government of Rwanda Public Sector Capacity Building Secretariat (PSCBS)

Not all technical assistance is capacity-development support

Every year, members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) contribute some $25 billion to developing countries, much of which is aimed at delivering what is increasingly being referred to as ‘capacity development’. However, many of these interventions do not demonstrate any clear evidence that they are having the desired impact.

Case study: Mainstreaming gender in local governance processes in Afghanistan

09 September 2011

To minimize gap between the Community Development Councils and Provincial Government Organizations, Afghanistan’s National Area-Based Development Programme (NABDA) started to establish District Development Assemblies (DDAs)  in 2006. This case study describes the process used to mainstream gender in these local governance processes and some of the concrete results achieved so far.
 

Perverse governance: State incapacity by design in Bihar, India

20 August 2011

Poor governance is often attributed to historical and structural factors that are difficult to change: “it is there because it is there, or because of a legacy of pathologies like colonial rule and an unnatural degree of socio-linguistic diversity." IDS Working Paper 366 (May 2011) by Santhosh Mathew and Mick Moore explores the role of individual agency and the incentives and opportunities that powerful political insiders may face to weaken state capacity in their own interests. It focuses on governance practices during the tenure of Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, from 1990 to 2005.

The Capacity Project: final report

18 August 2011

Human resources for health (HRH) first attracted global attention when it became evident that the health workforce in the developing world was facing a crisis, and that this was affecting health service delivery and health outcomes. The Joint Learning Initiative on Human Resources for Health and Development (JLI), a consortium of more than 100 health leaders from around the world, undertook an exploration of the HRH landscape during 2002-2004 and identified three major aspects of an accelerating global HRH crisis: (i) the devastation of HIV/AID; (ii) an accelerated level of out-migration of health professionals from developing countries; and (iii) chronic underinvestment in human resources. The study concluded that “mobilization and strengthening of the health workforce is central to combating health crises in some of the world’s poorest countries and for building sustainable health systems.”

Tracking health workers in Botswana

18 August 2011

In June 2011, Botswana's Ministry of Health began partnering with CapacityPlus to implement iHRIS Manage, a free, open source software (OSS) designed to maintain information on health worker deployment and attrition. CapacityPlus is a USAID-funded global project that focuses on strengthening human resources to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The goal of the Botswana programme is to track all health workers in the country, what districts they work in, and what cadre they belong to, in order to ensure that the right provider is at the right place with the right skills.

Local governance and ICTs in Africa: Case Studies and guidelines for implementation and evaluation

12 August 2011

E-governance has the potential to enable local governments to engage citizens in greater participation, leading to socioeconomic developments at local and national levels. But this potential remains largely unexploited. This book offers studies from nine African countries that explore how ICTs can transform service delivery, tax, financial management, land management, education, local economic development, citizen registration, and political inclusion.

Resisting "vertical programming": The case of Lacor hospital in Northern Uganda

24 June 2011

In Northern Uganda, a region that has been scarred by decades of conflict, there is only one doctor for every 25,000 persons. Before 2003, Lacor Mission Hospital in Gulu was among a handful of health care institutions serving an extremely vast area. The devastating conflict had also forced thousands of local residents - along with hospital staff - to seek shelter within the hospital compound. Dominique Corti, describes how the management struggled to offer a full range of health services at a time when almost all external support was earmarked to combating AIDS.

Micro methods in evaluating governance interventions

18 June 2011

Although billions of dollars have been invested on improving governance in developing countries in the past decade, few of the programmes that have received funding have been subjected to strong and rigorous impact evaluation. The aim of this discussion paper from the German Development Institute (DIE) is to answer three key questions: what are the features of governance interventions that make rigorous impact evaluation difficult and challenging? Second, what aspects of governance have been evaluated by rigorous quantitative methods? And third, what evaluation lessons can we learn from previous experience and what practical implications does it have?

Women's leadership and participation

17 June 2011

Hoare, Joanna and Gell, Fiona, Practical Action Publishing, 2009

Women are often denied the right to participate in decision-making, whether as active citizens, or as leaders. In particular, women living in poverty often have little opportunity to influence decisions and policies that will have a direct impact on the welfare of themselves, their communities, and their livelihoods. This book brings together lessons and experience in building up womens involvement from Oxfam GB and its partners.

SNV Practices - Developing capacities in Rwanda

15 June 2011

The entry point of this collection of experiences by practitioners working with SNV-Netherlands Development Organisation in Rwanda is that to effectively strengthen the capacity of local organisations for economic and social development requires a multi-faceted approach that covers social, psychological, technical, managerial, entrepreneurial, and governance capacity needs. The booklet explores diverse capacity building experiences and interventions covering the agricultural  production,  education, renewable energy, tourism, and the water, sanitation and hygiene sectors.

Case study: Strengthening district health systems in Karamoja

29 May 2011

Inside the district health system

In Karamoja in northern Uganda, many children do not live to see their fifth birthday. In an initiative to improve child survival, Doctors with Africa, Cuamm has formed a partnership with UNICEF to strengthen Karamoja’s district health systems.

Guest column: The forgotten link

28 May 2011

Abdul Ghaffar, Executive director of the World Health Organization Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, Geneva

Why health systems are failing

Both 1978 and 2000 were watershed years for world health. The conference of health leaders in Alma Ata in 1978 and the United Nations Assembly in 2000, where the Millennium Declaration was adopted, stand out as the two international gatherings that threw global health into the spotlight and put it on the development agenda.

Interview: Giving substance to pretty words

28 May 2011

NGO's role in bolstering public health systems

Promoting ‘country ownership’ in aid-dependent countries is central to the debate on aid effectiveness – but global health initiatives have often encouraged the opposite. In 2008 a code of conduct was drafted to address this trend. Capacity.org talked with Wendy Johnson, director of new initiatives with Health Alliance International (HAI), who was one of the architects of the code of conduct.

Case study: Applying the Paris Declaration to Zambia's health sector

28 May 2011

Earmarked and vertical funds are often at odds with commitments to strengthen health systems. Can such funding be tweaked to prevent a negative impact on health systems?

Exploring a diagonal approach

28 May 2011

Integrating antiretroviral treatment into primary health care

Programmes aimed at fighting single diseases have helped many, but they have also weakened public health systems. This does not have to be the case. Individual disease programmes can help to develop the capacity of primary health care systems.

The road to Busan

28 May 2011

Capacity development and aid effectiveness debates

The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness will take place in Busan, South Korea later this year. How will the question of capacity development be addressed in the forthcoming debates?

Strengthening the role of civil society in conflict and post-conflict settings

25 May 2011

Against the backdrop of popular protests across the Middle East and North Africa region, the May 2011 issue of ONTRAC, a newsletter of the International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC), explores the role that civil society can play in promoting social development and bridging divides. Drawing on lessons from diverse contexts, including Kyrgyzstan, Cyprus and Somaliland, the articles analyse how civil society can contribute to building trust and reconciliation, maintaining peace and security, and rebuilding indigenous institutions for sustainable development and more democratic governance.

Strengthening stakeholder ownership for capacity development results: A conceptual framework

19 May 2011

This 48-page paper published by the World Bank Institute (WBI) in May 2011 seeks to deepen understanding of the importance of stakeholder ownership in achieving development goals. It describes the conceptual framework and processes that underpin WBI's approach - the Capacity Development Results Framework -  which aims to bring about development outcomes by supporting institutional change.

Inaugural Africa Capacity Indicators Report published

29 April 2011

The 2011 Africa Capacity Indicators Report (ACIR) is the new flagship publication of the African Capacity Building Foundation. It aims to track the evolution of African capacity across space and time. The report builds upon and augments the existing body of knowledge to help optimize the use of capacity development strategies, with particular attention to Africa's post-conflict states.

Preparations for Busan aid effectiveness summit intensify

28 April 2011

The official website for the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to be held in Busan, Korea, from 29 November to 1 December 2011, has been launched. To facilitate knowledge-sharing and priority-setting ahead of the meeting, the OECD/DAC, in cooperation with the Learning Network on Capacity Development (LenCD) and the Southern initiative CD Alliance, are coordinating broad consultations on capacity-development related issues in the aid effectiveness agenda.  

Supporting capacity development for environmental sustainability

25 April 2011

The purpose of this publication is to provide practical guidance to UNDP staff, partner countries and other development partners on the nature of environmental capacity and how to support capacity development for environmental sustainability (CDES). The guide presents the undp approach to CDES, including guiding principles, an analytical framework and a five-step process that can be adapted to various settings. The guide builds on UNDPs Practice Note on Capacity Development and Practice Note on Capacity Assessment and incorporates best practices from CDES experience.
 

Rethinking governance and development in Africa

20 April 2011

Below the apex of the national political systems and behind the headlines, in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa most of the time, governance is failing to work for development. The better-off solve their livelihood problems privately, while for the majority life remains harsh, troubled and short.

It is against this backdrop that a new research venture, the Africa Power and Politics Programme, is exploring more effective forms of delivering public goods, under the guiding hypothesis that "institutions function better when they 'work with the grain' of the society which hosts them."

Ethics and integrity in developmental leadership

14 April 2011

Many developmental problems are attributed to the failure of leadership, and in particular to the absence of either ' ethical leadership'  or 'integrity. But what is ‘ethical leadership’? What is ‘developmental integrity’? How is it achieved? And what are the conditions for sustaining it? This is the focus of a new study by  the Development Leadership Programme, published in March 2011.

Rebuilding local governance structures in Afghanistan – a long walk

05 April 2011

This case study on efforts to build sub-national governance institutions in Afghanistan illustrates the challenges of implementing decentralization programmes in a post-conflict setting. The focus of the UNDP-supported National Area-Based Development Programme (NABDP) is to transform informal local Shuras (committees) into Community Development Councils and higher-level District Development Assemblies (DDAs).  The reality, however, is that the newly elected local representatives face an uphill battle to achieve widespread acceptance as legitimate interlocutors of local development.
 

New book on ownership and political steering in developing countries

03 April 2011

Donors increasingly recognize the political dimension of development cooperation and that they themselves are political actors. But how can this 'political' role be aligned with the interests and ideas of partner countries, and with the principle of ownership? How are partnerships and mutual trust created and maintained through the ups and downs of daily cooperation? How does policy making take place in partner countries, and how can donor and supply driven cooperation be avoided? This collection of essays, published by GIZ, offers important practical insights for policy-makers and practitioners alike.

The benefit of hindsight: Lessons on improving development effectiveness

01 April 2011

Impact and Aid Effectiveness: Mapping the Issues and Their Consequences, is a free-to-download compilation of analytical work spanning three decades. One of the interesting insights that can be gained from such a historical perspective is a better understanding of how some ongoing preoccupations have been shaped by their proximity to other debates or policy concerns. 

How can donors best support the strengthening of domestic accountability in developing countries?

23 March 2011

Rather than encouraging the adoption of particular models of governance, donors should seek to nurture the environment of transparency and accountability out of which appropriate solutions to the challenges of development might emerge, led and owned by local stakeholders. This is one of the key messages from a panel discussion on domestic accountability during the European Development Days in Brussels, on 6th December 2010. It is also the focus of a new ECDPM discussion paper that explores how emerging capacity development perspectives can help foster democratic ownership.
 

South African municipality scores for learning-based approach on water and sanitation

22 March 2011

The eThekwini Municipality in Durban, South Africa, is one of the two global recipients of the 2011 UN "Water for Life" Best Practices Award. The local authority was commended for its innovative approach to communication and awareness raising and its outstanding contribution to addressing key challenges related to water and sanitation in an urban area. 

Online discussion: Is capacity development on the brink of maturity?

21 March 2011

We are pleased to invite you to participate in an online discussion on some of the issues tackled in "Capacity Development in Practice", the resource volume for practitioners.

Scaling up in development cooperation

21 March 2011

For over 30 years one of the core tasks of the German international cooperation agency GIZ's core tasks has been to support people, organizations and societies in developing and emerging countries as they undergo the learning and change processes needed to achieve capacity development. Specifically, this entails supporting people in acquiring technical expertise, managerial competence and performance capability. And it means supporting organizations, public institutions and private companies in making their organizational, management and production structures more efficient and effective. 

First "State of the Humanitarian System" report published

20 January 2011

The aim of this report, commissioned under ALNAP’s Humanitarian Performance Project, was to provide a system-level mapping and assessment of international humanitarian assistance. The research team synthesized the findings of roughly 500 global survey responses, 100 recent evaluations, 89
interviews, staffing and budget information of over 200 aid organizations and a financial analysis of global humanitarian aid flows. The resulting report
represents a pilot effort to broadly assess the ‘state of the system’ with the intent, if it is found useful, to repeat the exercise once every two years.

In one of its key findings, the study depicts "a system steadily and incrementally improving its own internal mechanics and technical performance, while remaining deficient in some 'big picture' requirements for effectiveness".

Review of Impact and Effectiveness of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives, Institute of Development Studies (2010)

18 January 2011

As traditional forms of state-led accountability have been increasingly found to be inadequate, thousands of multi-stakeholder and citizen-led approaches have come to the fore, to supplement or supplant them. Despite their rapid growth, and the growing donor support they receive, little attention has been paid to the impact and effectiveness of these new transparency and accountability initiatives. Responding to this gap, this report, based on a review of literature and experience across the field with special focus on five sectors of transparency and accountability work, aims to improve understanding among policy-makers and practitioners of the available evidence and identify gaps in knowledge to inform a longer-term research agenda. 
 

An analytical framework for assessing decentralized local governance and the local public sector

15 January 2011

In recent years, a consensus among development practitioners and decentralization experts has emerged that decentralization is about more than merely shifting power and resources away from the central level or strengthening the administrative capacity of local governments. Instead, decentralization is increasingly defined as the empowerment of people through the empowerment of their local governments. This definition recognizes that decentralization is a means rather than an end in itself: decentralization should be pursued in order to empower people over the public sector so as to achieve improvements in the delivery of public services. 

This new perspective has important implications for how we measure and assess progress on decentralization reforms and on the status of decentralized governance systems. 

Multi-actor systems as entry points to capacity development

26 December 2010

Reasons for a revision of intervention logic

It is often assumed that capacity development starts from within individuals and organisations and then permeates into society. But capacity also comes about through interaction between actors. This suggests that a change in intervention logic and repertoire can boost effectiveness.  

Case studies: Multi-actor systems as entry points to capacity development

21 December 2010

The following case studies from Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya provide some real-life experiences of how multi-actor capacity development takes place. 

The dynamics of change

10 December 2010

Dealing with power – the key to successful MSPs?

For over ten years, Wageningen UR Centre for Development Innovation (CDI) has been offering capacity development programmes to support the practitioners of multi-stakeholder processes (MSPs). One of the most important functions of these programmes is to prepare facilitators to work with power and conflict in order to bring about successful outcomes.

From token inclusion to transformative engagement

09 December 2010

Urban planning in India

Although labelled ‘participatory’, many urban planning processes in India involve only select elite groups. This article explains what is required to achieve genuine participation involving all stakeholders, including the poor and the marginalised.

Facilitating WASH forums

08 December 2010

Democratic processes in governance and peacebuilding

19 November 2010

IDRC Canada is supporting case studies in eight countries examining the links between poverty reduction, risk mitigation and democratization.

A Magic Bullet For Gender Equality?

11 November 2010

Successful decentralisation should make government more accessible, accountable and responsive to women. But does it? Have decentralisation processes increased women’s decision-making power at the local level?

Preserve status quo or promote gender equality?

11 November 2010

Women’s rights activists and gender and development practitioners have high hopes for local government as an arena for promoting gender equality and respecting women’s human rights. However, gender equality can only be achieved through radical structural change.

African Governance Institute

08 November 2010

Based in Dakar, Senegal, the African Governance Institute (AGI) seeks to advance pan-African perspectives on governance through analysis, dialogue, knowledge sharing and capacity strengthening.

LAFIAS: A support tool for local decision-making

08 November 2010

This report presents the finding of a UN Capital Development Fund pilot programme, Local Authorities Financial and Institutional Analysis System (LAFIAS), in Guinea, Mali and Benin.

Trust is an essential ingredient

29 October 2010

Ousmane Oumarou Sidibé has been given no mean assignment. He is responsible for reforming the entire system of governance in Mali. His aim is, first and foremost, to make government more client-oriented. At all levels. Ousmane Sidibé argues that the key to achieving that goal is a major shift in attitude. Such a shift can’t be forced. Civil servants will have to be convinced, one at a time, that it is in their own interest. It can be done, he tells Evelijne Bruning, but it will take time, and a lot of money.

Helping policy research organizations become more accountable

05 October 2010

A significant proportion of funds aimed at development is allocated to research. This investment is done on the basis that rational policy processes rely on good evidence. Research organizations generating this evidence can have great impact on the citizens of a country. As such, it is important that they remain accountable.

Strengthening country procurement sytems in Bangladesh: 2 case studies

28 July 2010

At the Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in September 2008, donors agreed to use country systems as the first option for aid programmes in support of activities managed by the public sector. These two UNDP case studies describe how this works in practice in Bangladesh. The first case study: 'Towards use of country systems for procurement in Bangladesh', analyses the challenges of assessing capacity at the national level as a first step towards aligning national procurement systems. The second study highlights a promising community-level initiative to enhance local monitoring of Millenium Development Goal-related project procurement.

First Joint Governance Assessment in Rwanda

07 February 2009

Policy Practice Brief 5 - Carrying out a Joint Governance Assessment - Lessons from Rwanda