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Managing Post Conflict Aid How Not to Make Unity Attractive

Managing Post Conflict Aid How Not to Make Unity Attractive. St Antony’s Workshop International Aid and the Two Sudans 6 February 2013. CPA and JAM. January 2005 - John Garang and Ali Othman Taha sign CPA March 2005 - JG and AOT sign JAM “to make unity attractive …”

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Managing Post Conflict Aid How Not to Make Unity Attractive

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  1. Managing Post Conflict AidHow Not to Make Unity Attractive St Antony’s Workshop International Aid and the Two Sudans 6 February 2013

  2. CPA and JAM • January 2005 - John Garang and Ali Othman Taha sign CPA • March 2005 - JG and AOT sign JAM • “to make unity attractive …” • Garang’s vision, not many others • to deliver a Peace Dividend: $8 billion, inc. $4 billion of aid • Donors to “re-engage in ways that are well coordinated”

  3. A Rare Post Conflict Opportunity • A durable settlement between two parties capable of committing their constituencies • In the SPLA/GoSS a partner who was truly grateful to the donors and aware of his lack of capacity • A comprehensive and genuinely joint Joint Assessment Mission The donors’ best ever opportunity They missed it

  4. What a ‘pre-failed state’ needs • Institutions: S. Sudan never had any • Public Service Capacity: to build ‘entirely from scratch’ • Basic Services: Lowest school enrolment in the World, 45% child malnourishment, 1 in 4 dead by 5 • Infrastructure: No paved roads, no transport links in any direction, 1,500 km to sea

  5. Statehood: ‘a conceptual vacuum’ • ‘Supply’ State or ‘Facilitating’ State? • Lack of capacity gap forced the answer • Citizen - State Relationship (Sovereignty)? • The standard answer: • Direct relationship: individual to unitary State • Mediated by democracy & honest, capable bureaucracy • The standard ‘neo-patrimonial’ analysis of state failure: • patron-client corruption rots bureaucracy & democracy • Pre-failed states are different • Sovereignty is real but dispersed, indirect • Structured on ‘tribes’, ‘clans’, etc AND • Patron-client networks • Designed to manage (not resolve) conflict • Globalisation, geo-politics & aid causes them to fail

  6. What S. Sudan Got • The promised peace dividend (2011): • $4 billion aid; 30,000 classrooms and teachers; 4,000 water supplies; 2,800 nurses & doctors; trunk roads • ‘neo patrimonial’ solutions to state failure • The delivery • $3 billion to 2009    • Substantial support to basic services, at unaffordable standards/unsustainable levels  • 44 + 46 classrooms, 3,500 teachers    • 67 km of tarmac (2012)    • Weak, naive effort on state institutions   

  7. Relief or Development • The Two-Track Strategy • Track1 - ‘development of core capacities’ [Development] • Track 2 - ‘delivery of essential services’ [Relief] • Meaningless without ‘track switching plan’ • There was no switching plan • Track 1 effort grossly under-estimated. • Lead Track 1 agency incompetent, disengaged • Majority of actors Track 2 ‘specialists’ • Result: Track 2 dominant, Track 1 put in ‘too difficult’ box • A false dichotomy anyway

  8. Coordination & Harmonisation NOT • 2008 donor mapping: • 26 donors • 169 projects (reported) + ?? (unreported) • Only 25 projects submitted for Govt review • 37 projects in health alone • Average of 11 donors per sector • 13 donor missions in one month • John Garang wanted trunk roads. Donors preferred ‘more media-friendly projects’

  9. Donors per Sector - 2008

  10. Projects/Sectors By Donor MDTF Supporters

  11. Channels, Modalities & Narratives • From OLS on, S.Sudan has been a major theatre for humanitarian aid • Principal actors: UN agencies and INGOs • The Post-Conflict dilemma: Withdraw, change or carry on regardless? • Answer decides positioning along the “relief-recovery-development” spectrum • Axiomatic that the pre-CPA actors were best qualified for the JAM

  12. Carving up the JAM Cake 31% still classified as Emergency Relief The ‘Carry on Regardless’ option

  13. ‘Modalities’ in Theory • Multilateral-managed pooled funds • MDTF: World Bank as expert in working with Governments [Track 1] • CHF: UN as Humanitarian expert [Track 2] • Contractor-managed pooled fund • Basic Services Fund to fill pre MDTF gap [Interim but Twin Track ] • Bilateral Projects • Because donors wanted them • The Joint Donor Team to • Oversee MDTF for donor partners • Coordinate donor partners’ bilateral projects

  14. And in Practice • Evaluations rank MDTF bottom, UN close behind, contractor-managed funds better, bilateral projects best • BUT management style and relations with GoSS apart they are all the same: channels to pass funds to UN agencies and NGOs. • In most cases, in small packages ($200,000 to $1 million), short term (12 to 24 mths) • Severe diseconomies of scale and discontinuity • Even for Track 2 this was not efficient • Not even the best funds addressed the track switching problem

  15. “Rats in a Sack” • JAM signed March 2005 • UN and World Bank immediately stalemated over accounting / audit for MDTF • UN: submitting documents to Bank would “violate the single audit principle” • October 2006 (!!!!) resolved under donor pressure • Dutch Minister to Wolfowitz: “I do not understand how administrative quarrels can be allowed to put the reconstruction process at risk” • Norwegian NGOs withdraw from bidding to train 6,000 teachers: ‘unrealistic’, contract procedures unsuitable for NGOs.

  16. The Aid Capacity Gap: • A range of narratives about ‘modalities’, ‘relief versus development’, and ‘development versus conflict prevention’ • These concealed a simpler failure: professional management • World Bank, and donors, completely under-estimated the MDTF’s task • MDTF failure allowed other actors to ‘carry on regardless’: • Minimal monitoring and evaluation • Loose accountability, oversight committees routinely conflicted • Basic operational requirements - bills of quantities, well drilling logs, etc - ignored • ‘Inclusive’, slow approach to strategic and technical issues • Short ‘humanitarian’ timescales and small packages • Diseconomies of scale and cascading overhead charges

  17. A Darfur Coda • Similar • Conceptual gap on what post-conflict Darfur might look like • Dominance of UN/NGO humanitarian complex • Mostly pooled funds, UN managed • Small package, short term approach • Different • Donor ‘toxic’ fear of any close engagement • CPA type settlement improbable • Government in full control of MDTF • Elements of a Viable Three-Tiered Strategy • Doha process (UN Joint Mediation Team) • Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation (UN) • Darfur Community Peace and Stability Fund (UN) • BUT not integrated and without the capacity to do better

  18. Conclusions • The aid community has let South Sudan shockingly badly, given a relatively positive starting point and the urgent need to use the CPA period well • If donors are not willing to make good on their commitment to coordination, and to put in the effort required, they should return to bilateral project aid • The tendency to carry on in humanitarian mode needs to be resisted • Standard neo-patrimonial ‘failed state’thinking does not help

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