 As
Africans and their international partners gear up
for a major push to fuel development and poverty
reduction, Africa has a new opportunity to push the
development agenda and to improve conditions for the
continent’s poor. In July 2005, the Group of Eight
industrialized nations agreed to double aid to some
$50 billion a year, recognizing the common interest
in accompanying Africans on the road to sustainable
development. But for increased aid flows to
translate into better development outcomes, African
governments and societies have to strengthen their
capacity to implement development programs.
The
attention paid to Africa’s lag in achieving the MDGs
and its faltering economic performance has correctly
drawn attention to Africa’s capacity gaps and the
constraints that the continent faces in overcoming
them. Using the new resources flowing towards Africa
in the form of debt relief, aid, trade and
investment requires that Africa and its partners
address this capacity challenge, learning from the
successes and mistakes of the past.
Shared
growth requires capacity not only in the public
sphere, but also in the private sector and civil
society. Poverty reduction requires the state to
carry out basic public management functions to
provide access to basic social services. In the
private sector, entrepreneurs, farmers and
shopkeepers need regulatory institutions that ensure
a competitive and cost effective business
environment, low barriers to entry, and minimum
risks to investment.
The
starting-point today is much more propitious than at
the launch of the African Capacity Building Facility
(ACBF) more than a decade ago. The PRSP era has
paved the way for important innovations in the way
donors and the World Bank do business. The
introduction of budget support (including PRSCs) and
Sector Wide Approaches (SWAps) aligned with
government systems have put countries in the
driver’s seat with stronger incentives to show
results. Harmonization of donor efforts around
country-owned benchmarks for poverty reduction
although slow has likewise improved the efficiency
of the partnerships with developing countries. The
development of various country-level, multi-sectoral
programs related to public sector reform and public
financial management, community-driven development,
and the fight against HIV/AIDS are also in place and
show promise.
A
Few Key Messages:
A Task
Force was set up to recommend changes in the way the
Bank affects African capacity, both directly through
operations aimed at capacity development and
indirectly through the way it conducts its overall
business of development lending and cooperation in
Africa. Based on its assessment of the evidence of
capacity development and widespread consultations
with Africans and their partners, a few key messages
are emerging which can inform and stimulate the
efforts of all parties in capacity development on
the continent—African countries, external partners,
and the Bank. The Task Force regards these as a work
in progress around which further discussion and
reflection are on-going.
Message 1: Capacity is the missing link in Africa’s
achievement of the MDGs
Capacity
comprises the skills, incentives, resources,
organizational systems and structures—as well as the
broader enabling environment—that allow individuals
and organizations to plan, implement, and monitor
their development. Equally important is the need to
answer the question: capacity for what? In this
regard, capacity is best developed and used most
effectively and tangibly in pursuit of specific
objectives such as delivering services to the poor,
improving investment climate for private firms and
entrepreneurs, empowering local communities to take
part in public decision-making, and resolving
conflict and promoting peace and security.
Capacity remains a binding constraint to development
and poverty reduction despite concerted efforts by a
number of African countries and substantial donor
support. This underscores the crucial importance of
easing the capacity constraint, in tandem with
larger aid flows to Africa; the two need to go
together.
Since the
end of the 1980s, macro-economic, structural and
social policies have improved all over Africa and
political and economic governance has improved since
the early 1990s. In short, with economic policy and
good governance building blocks moving into place to
create opportunities, together with the availability
of external financing, capacity remains the most
binding constraint meeting the stipulated MDG
targets in Africa.
Message 2: Capacity development aims at an
effective state and an engaged society
Capacity development must be approached from what it
intends to achieve. An effective state with an
engaged society are needed to reach the end goals of
poverty reduction, growth, empowerment, peace and
security.
A state is effective when it delivers quality public
goods and services meeting the needs of the
population. Effective states require engaged
societies that demand change and hold governments
accountable for such delivery.
An engaged society, an end in itself, is also a key
element of the domestic accountability system.
Participatory institutions that are active holding
the state accountable include parliaments and their
committees, advocacy, interest and consumer groups,
professional associations, local governments and
communities.
Message 3: Africans must take the lead in
capacity development and aid management
Capacity development should be approached
strategically as a core area of country strategy for
growth and poverty reduction. As home-grown
strategies are much more likely to address the right
issues and be effectively implemented, African
country stakeholders, including their regional
institutions, have to be at the center of a
strategic approach to capacity development.
African governments should design strategies for
capacity development as part of a participatory PRS
process, including a robust monitoring and
evaluation system as an integral part of its medium
term plan such as the PRS.
Message 4: External partners must engage
existing capacity in all African countries
External partners must respect African leadership
and ownership of the design and implementation of
national capacity development strategies. They must
also follow a customized approach to supporting a
country's capacity development strategy.
The international partner community should support
the implementation of the capacity development
strategies with timely, flexible and predictable
technical and financial assistance. Technical
cooperation (including technical assistance) to
African countries is on a strong rebound in 2004, it
reached US$5.8 billion. Unfortunately these
technical assistance expenditures are not building
capacity; there is therefore a need for redirection
of its use in two ways. One is to raise the share of
technical assistance funding going to capacity
building activities instead of expatriate salaries
and support. The other is to provide it in a way
that pools the fragmented financing arrangements
into a basket to fund prioritized capacity
development activities or filling country-identified
short-term needs for achieving results with the
country directing the investments. There is also a
need to fund regional and sub-regional capacity.
In all African countries, external partners should
take a longer-term, more patient and predictable
approach to capacity development, extending over
15-20 years.
Message 5: Achieving capacity outcomes
requires independent monitoring
Mutual accountability between external partners and
African countries has been gathering momentum
especially in the context of the PRS process. Africa
itself has shown the way though the African Peer
Review Mechanism, which uses a regional framework to
strengthen domestic dialogue and encourage change
towards improved political and economic governance.
A shared vision
The emerging shared vision of effective approaches
to capacity development provides a conceptual and
operational underpinning for a common platform. It
is supported by the literature review and the
experiences documented in the country and thematic
studies. And it is reinforced by a strong
endorsement from the consultation process so far.
This platform provides the basis for a coordinated
“big push”—a new compact—to be mobilized with our
African partners, the donor community in general,
and the World Bank Group. None of the three partners
can do it all alone. While each of the partners may
have a different role, sustainable capacity
development calls for a spirit of mutually
reinforcing support and accountability.
The renewed compact will require the commitment of
African leaders and their development partners to
address capacity development more strategically,
systematically and boldly. It will require a frank
and comprehensive assessment dealing with the real
constraints to building capacity. It will require
using and retaining capacity effectively. It will
require analytical and financial support for
homegrown strategies for capacity development. And
it will require the evolution of modalities and
practices for partners to support the development of
country capacities.
This article is written by Callisto Madavo, former
Vice President for the Africa Region, World Bank, is
reproduced from the World Bank Institute’s
Development Outreach September 2005 edition, and was
written in his capacity as leader of the Task Force
on Capacity Development |
