Your turn!

1. Sector Wide Approaches in motion:From an aid delivery to a sector development perspectiveBruxelles, 10.-11. June 2008 Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

2. Your turn! • In your experience from the water sector, • what are the achievements and strengths of water SWAps? • What are the weaknesses and challenges? Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

3. Overview: The general lessons • Strong interest in the SWAp and PBAs • More driven by donors than by government • Limited analytical underpinnings • Increasing attention to civil society • Increasing concern about links to decentralisation • Many rather incipient processes – weak incentives? • And/or a SWAp concept beyond reach? Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

4. What is a Sector Programme? A Sector Programme is a product of the Sector Approach. It is a government (not donor) programme Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

5. Sector programmes: 5 typical elements Public finance management Sector policy in macro-framework Services and enabling environment Accountability & Performance monitoring Institutions and capacities Aid alignment and harmonisation Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

6. Key Issue: Capacity to SWAp? • Too much complexity vis-à-vis available capacity and incentives to transform the SWAp into sensible action, for all stakeholders? Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

7. The SWAp concept – means and ends • Born out of aid effectiveness concerns… • …but aim of sector programmes is sector development, thus... • …raising the ante: how can a sector develop? • …implying: • systemic view, more to look at, more diagnosis • handling political economy dimensions • increased complexity • The JLP is moving in this direction, offering imperfect analytical framework for “sector helicopter view” Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

8. Sector systems and Organisations Open Systems Model for Sector Diagnosis Contextual factors beyond influence Sector Governance Inputs Outputs Outcome Impact Contextual factors within influence Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

9. Open Systems Model for Sector Diagnosis Organizational capacities Contextual factors beyond influence Feedback-mechanism Public financial management Sector coordination mechanisms Policy frameworks Inputs Outputs Outcome Impact Change capacity Decentralization and deconcentration Specific incentives driving performance Contextual factors within influence Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

10. Sector diagnosis and reform entry points • Wider context factors, public sector wide reforms • Sector resources and inputs • Sector outputs • Sector governance and accountability • Policy frameworks; sector vision and strategy; legal issues and legislative frameworks • Public financial management systems and capacity • Organizational capacities • Feedback-mechanisms • Sector coordination mechanisms • Decentralization and/or deconcentration • Specific incentives driving or constraining performance • The change capacity of domestic actor Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

11. Sector policy: process • Country ownership still compromised • How good is ‘good enough’ • Cobbling the pieces together • Still weak policy – budget links • ‘Policy - capacity = capacity gap’ • Too much ‘development (project?) planning thinking’ carry over Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

12. Sector policy: content • Lack of prioritisation • ‘Missing middle’ (in objectives and in targets) • Poor micro-, meso-, macro linkages • Lack of non-state actor involvement • Taking account of winners and losers • Beyond government, below national level, towards disadvantaged areas and people • Can (or should) losers be implementers? Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

13. The budget, PFM, MTEF • Theoretical importance well accepted • De facto budget/PFM issues not yet that central • Finance ministries conspicuously absent • MTEFs in sector can be very rudimentary • Limited sector incentives to pursue better PFM Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

14. Risky PFM issues in SWAps • Risk of “state-centred” perspective – budget not equally important in all sectors • Sector programme budget may only be part of sector budget, or cut across sectors • Risk of overlooking fiscal decentralisation interfaces • Risk of technocratic bias • Premise of predictability uncertain • MTEF – maybe, but when? Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

15. Institutions and Capacities • Everybody’s concern • Everywhere – and nowhere…. • Few handles – except the supply driven TA and training Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

16. Capacity development issues • Mainstreaming CD in Sector Programmes • Opening dialogue about institutional/political economy drivers and constraints • Opening dialogue which respects that CD must be demand-driven • Maintaining realism about what sector level CD can achieve • Finding joint sector approaches to support CD Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

17. Accountability Political system/government Context Checks and balances organisations Non-state actors Core public agencies Frontline service providers Donors, international organisations Governance Accountability Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

18. Focus on expenditure Focus on sector outcomes Focus on CD for government Bias towards mutual accountability concerns Attention to revenue Service users to hold providers to account CD of ‘pillars’ of accountability Priority of domestic accountability Strengthening domestic accountability Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

19. Monitoring • Harmonisation and alignment successes • Monitoring for learning vs monitoring for accountability • The problem with indicators • Monitoring systems as government management information tools first and donor ‘checking tools’ after Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

20. Alignment, harmonisation, modalities • Unprecedented push for H&A • Government push essential – donors alone won’t make it • Overdoing donor-govt coordination may crowd out domestic sector coordination • Coordination often poorly performed • Increased time required for SWAps • Inclusive SWAp model appreciated, but.. • Budget support still contentious Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

21. H&A issues • Putting the sector coordination perspective first • Getting business-like approach to coordination, and managerial capacity to pursue it • Embracing transaction costs – pay them with a smile! • Working on tensions around donors coming too close for comfort Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

22. Decentralisation • Centralising tendencies in SWAps – how to deal with decentralisation is key issue in several JLP events • Central government faces “donor dilemmas” vis-à-vis local governments • Funding mechanisms, policy/legal mechanisms, bargaining – all in play to define autonomy/control balance • Country perspective on the tension and issues, not an aid perspective Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

23. Concluding remarks: Implications? • Looking for a middle ground between.. • the Scylla of a building a system on sand, stuck in capitals, pondering about complexities; and.. • the Charybdis of unprincipled, opportunistic muddling through Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal

24. Strategic Incrementalism? • A sector development perspective • Explicit political economy perspective • Consistent actor/stakeholder perspective • Strengthened managerial inputs • Common sense focus on results • …building SWAp as a process also with focus on processes • …and thereby fostering trust through modesty, realism and patience…. Nils Boesen/Erma Uytewaal