a results-oriented approach to capacity development for democratic governance
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A Results-oriented Approach to Capacity Development for Democratic Governance. Workshop for CIDA Ottawa, 10.-11.December 2008. Session 1. Introductions and Learning Objectives. Learning Objectives. Make sense of capacity concepts - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
A Results-oriented Approach to Capacity Development for Democratic Governance
Workshop for CIDA
Ottawa,
10.-11.December 2008
Session 1
Introductions and
Learning Objectives
3
Learning Objectives
o Make sense of capacity concepts
o Recognise key elements of the CD challenge in the democratic governance area
o Be able to assist partners adopting a results-based operational approach to CD
o Know options for and limits to own role in support to CD
Session 2
The Capacity Development Challenge - Overview
5
Accra Agenda for Action
“Donors will support efforts to increase the capacity of all development actors – parliaments, central and local governments, CSOs, research institutes, media and the private sector – to take an active role in dialogue on development policy and the role of aid..”
6
The Paris/Accra point of departure
“We agreed in the Paris Declaration that capacity development is the responsibility of developing countries, with donors playing a supportive role, and that technical co-operation is one means among others to develop capacity.”
Accra Agenda for Action
7
Then – what are we talking about?
Capacity – synonyms:
Ability, capability, aptitude, faculty, competence, facility, power, gift…
So what is the
capacity of this car?
8
CD – What does it mean?
o “Many view capacity development in very vague terms“
o “Capacity development is not even a term that most people outside of development organizations really know much about.”
o “The lack of a clear and agreed definition of what is meant by capacity development is a challenge”
9
The definitions ...
Capacity:
The ability of people, organisations and society
as a whole to manage their affairs successfully.
Capacity development:
The process by which people and organisations
create and strengthen their capacity....
Support to capacity development:
Inputs to capacity development processes
delivered by external actors....
10
Capacity is inside people, organisations and broader
systems
…shaped and influenced by
external factors and actors
11
Capacity – in plain figures
Capacity of people,
organisations,systems
Contextual factors and actors influencing capacity
Supportingchange
Two non-exclusive options:
“Working on the demand side”
“Working on the supply-side”
12
Five key elements of the approach
A. Focus on change
B. Holistic approach
C. Focus on what is there
D. Results focus
E. Serious about ownership and about donors playing second fiddle – jointly…
13
The Change Function
Dissatis- faction
Process of change
Vision
Enhancedcapacity
Cost of change
14
Incomplete functions
o D x P x V = Change!
o D x P = Fast road to confusion
o D x V = Anxiety and frustration
o P x V = Bottom of inbox
15
Tools for Change
Dissatisfaction1. Quick Scanning Matrix2. Setting the stage: Mapping sector and governance actors3. Political Economy and Stakeholder Analysis 4. Organisational assessment
Change process5. Partners’ role in CD processes6. Change management capacity and design
Vision and design7. Sequencing/
scoping8. Logical design
Session 3
Assessing capacity: Holistic, outputs, power issues – what
to look for?
17
Actors, Organisations and System in
Democratic Governance
Public and private frontline
agencies
Citizens, voters,consumers, economic
agents, elitesetc.
Checks andbalances
organisations
PoliticalSystem/Government
Core publicagencies
Context
Governance, demand
Accountability, supply
Donors
18
Inputs Outputs
Analytical framework - 1
Capacity of Organisations
Contextual factors within influence
Immed.+intermed.Outcome
Impact
Contextual factors beyond influence
Organisations as open systems
Governance
Development results
19
What assessments often find...
o Lack of resources
o Lack of planning
o Lack of effective tax regime
o No transparency
o No effective oversight
o No focus on results
o No….
20
Understanding…nothing??
Current reality
DesiredReality:
Democraticgovernance
Measuring the difference…?
..or understanding reality…?
21
Combining values and understanding?
Current reality
Desiredreality:
Progress towardsdemocratic governance
Measuring an “actionable” difference…?
.. understanding reality…
relevant benchmarks within reach
.. credible change process
22
Capacity diagnosis, step by step..
“Outside-in”:
1. Why assess, who should assess?
2. Watch the context
3. Focus on results
4. Inputs
5. Go inside the box: other boxes...and
6. What lies beneath?
23
1. Accra ambiguities on assessments
o “Developing countries will systematically identify areas where there is a need to strengthen the capacity to perform….at all levels…and design strategies to address them”
o Developing countries and donors will jointly assess the quality of country systems in a country-led process using mutually agreed diagnostic tools…. developing countries will lead in defining reform…Donors will support these reforms and provide capacity development assistance.
24
2. Embedded in the context
Structural factorsInstitutional factors
= Agents/actors inside and outside organisations
25
Stakeholders and actors..
o Individuals and collectives pursuing particular interests...
o Political & economic elite, civil servants, the military, civil society, donors...
o Always strategizing, always dynamic...
o ..and embedded in structural and institutional drivers of and constraints to change
o How can actors help to deal with factor constraints and exploit drivers?
26
Actors & Stakeholders
Public and private frontline
agencies
Citizens, voters,consumers, economic
agents, elitesetc.
Checks andbalances
organisations
PoliticalSystem/Government
Core publicagencies
Context
Governance, demand
Accountability, supply
Donors
27
3. Outputs first – outcomes next!
o Outputs are all aspects of products, services and regulatory functions
o Past output levels point to likely future
o Outputs are good proxies for capacity
o Capacity changes causes outputs to change
o Dialogue about outputs diverts attention from inputs, vague plans, TA, training…
o But: It is not that simple!
28
Challenge
Outputs?
Prepare for the House of the Commons!
Yes, obviously!
No,
never ever!
29
Tensions in results-orientation
Managing by Results- Meet the targets
- “Hard” Outputs
- “Objective” assessment or verification
- Outwards accountability
- Rigorous methods and high quality data
- Sanctions and rewards- Encourages conservative
behaviour
Managing for Results- Continuous
improvement- Also “soft” outputs,
outcomes and impacts- Self-assessment and
participation- In- and outwards
accountability - Rapid, low cost methods- Motivation, learning- Encourages risk-taking,
experimenting
30
5. Capacity: The six-box model
StrategyAre goals and strategies clear? Do they fit inputs and contexts? Structures
How is work divided?
Rewards (motivation)
Are there incentives for doing key functions?
Helpful mechanisms (systems & processes)Are coordinating and control instruments adequate (planning, budgeting, auditing, monitoring)
Internal RelationshipsBetween boss-staff, peers, and units? Constructive conflict resolution approaches?
LeadershipDo someone keep the boxes in balance; adapt to the context?
Context (actors and factors)(what constraints and demands does it
impose?)
31
The 6 boxes unpacked
o Strategy: Are goals and strategies clear? Do the inputs and contexts fit?
o Structures: How is work divided?
o Leadership: Does someone keep the boxes in balance; adapt
to the context?
32
The 6 box unpacked (2)
o Internal Relationships:
Between boss-staff, peers, and units? Constructive conflict resolution approaches?
o Helpful mechanisms (systems & processes):
Are coordinating and control instruments adequate (planning, budgeting, auditing, monitoring)
o Rewards (motivation):
Are there incentives for doing key functions?
33
6. What lies beneath?
o Look for both the “functional” and the “political” dimensions of organisations
o Look for both formal and informal aspects
o All organisations have informal aspects and a political dimension
o Functional, political, formal, informal - all can strengthen or weaken capacity and change prospects
Question: Who needs to know what, and when, about these aspects?
34
“Functional” and “political” dimension of capacity
Functional dimension “Political” dimension
Main unit of analysis?
Drivingforces?
Image of man?
Change?
Change efforts?
Focus on functionaltask-and-work system
A sense of norms, intrinsicmotivation
Employees caring for theorganisation
Participative reasoning,finding best technicalsolution, orderly
Internal systems, structures,skills, technology etc
Focus on power-and-loyalty systems
Sanctions and rewards,incentives
Individuals caring for themselves
Internal conflict, coalitionwith powerful externalagents, unpredictable
Incentives, change of keystaff, outsmarting opposition
35
Tool: Diagnosis of formal/informal fit
Formal System Informal SystemPurposes Is there goal clarity? Is there goal agreement?Structure Functional; product/
project; or matrix?How is work actually done?
Relation-ships
Who should deal with whom on what? What technologies should be used?
How well do they do it? Quality of relations? Modes of conflict management?
Rewards (incentives)
Explicit system: what is it?
Implicit, psychic rewards: what do people feel about payoffs?
Leader-ship
What do top people manage?
How? Normative “style” of management?
Helpful mecha-nisms
What is the:-Budget system?-MIS?-Planning system?-Control system?
What are they actually used for?How do they function in practice?How are systems subverted?
36
Summary: Diagnostic dimensions
Focus on the functional-rational dimension
Focus on the political dimension
Focus on factors within the organisation(s)
How is the job done?
How is power exercised and interests accommodated?
Focus on factors in the external environment
Is there an “enabling environment” for doing the job?
Which forces influences the internal power relations?
Session 4
Getting CD results and processes right for democratic governance
38
Breaking away from a donor-centric focus
is wrongly assumed leading to
Sustainablecapacity and results
is leading to
Sustainable capacity and results
Donor and partners’ input, and partner leadership
Figure 1: The traditional, limited assumption focusing on donor inputs
Figure 2: The extended assumption converting ownership to tangible commitments
DonorTC inputs &activities
39
Get CD results right
External TC support to CD
CD processes
Recurrent inputs to the organisation(s)(budget, staff)
CD outputs: Organisation(s) with increased or enhanced capacity to perform
Increased or enhanced outputs (services, products)
Outcomes for users of products and services
Wider impact
Internal resources dedicated to CD
Design logic: Start from impact, work backwards to determine if and how TC support may be relevant and feasible
40
Get CD results right
V.A.T. experts
Change process lead by managers with training, coaching, joint development of new processes
CD outputs:Tax authority has procedures, staff and managers able to administer VAT
VAT revenue up 200%, coverage 80% complete
VAT revenues transparently used in budget for social services
Increased literacy, improved health, stronger social contract
Manager, staff, some costs
Design logic: Start from impact, work backwards to determine if and how TC support may be relevant and feasible
Session 5
Change Management and Ownership – how to make it
operational?
42
Challenge
Which words are most positively connected with capacity to develop and change?
Powerful, harmony, tension, emotional, agreement, forceful, conflict, orderly, unknown, planned, control, interested, motivated, interests, drive, reason….
Add to the list…
43
Characteristics of change processes
o Rarely linear
o Normally contested and resisted
o Most often incremental
o Goals and plans have ritual functions as much as managerial
o Losses materialise quicker than wins
o Change creates angst
44
Key factors for successful CD - process
o External pressure for change
o Leadership, creating sense of urgency, purpose and feasibility
o Credible coalition for change, with enough power to deal with resistance
o Carefully crafted change strategy and cunning change management
o Flexible change process
45
Elements of change processes
Agenda setting ->
Formulation/Design ->
Approval ->
Implementation ->
Pausing/phasing out ->
46
47
Four options for interventions
Focus on the functional-rational dimension
Focus on the political dimension
Focus on factors within the organisation(s)
Getting the job done
Getting power right, and accommodating interests
Focus on factors in the external environment
Creating an “enabling environment” for doing the job
Forcing change in the internal power relations
48
Change interventions a la carte
Predominantly functional-rational perspective
Predominantly political perspective
Interventions targeted at internal elements
Change of systems, structures, procedures, technology; skills training; management training,
Promotions, firing, targeted support to “groups of reformers”, sanctions against rent seeking, performance-based benefits to key staff
Interventions targeted at external stakeholders and factors
Output-based budgeting, change of resource envelope, change in formal/legal mandate, introduction of supervisory agencies etc.
Coalitions of external stakeholders strong enough to impose change. User pressure for accountability, support to advocacy and lobby groups, training of politicians, journalists.
Session 6
Donor support to CD – roles, means – and joint approaches
50
A Challenge from Paris
“Capacity development is the responsibility of partner countries with donors playing a support role”
Paris Declaration 2006
- What does that mean???
51
Focus on the sector/organisations
o Don’t ask what donors can do for the organisation/sector…
o ..ask what the sector/organisation might want to do to strengthen its capacity –
o - and whether donors might be helpful or not to that process –
o Question: What could that entail?
52
Tool: Development partners’ roles
o Identify the roles actually played in cases you are familiar with
o Discuss if there is a trend between what was done and what maybe should have been done
o Time for the task: 45 minutes
53
Discussion – donor roles in CD support?
o Capacity development is a domestic affair
o So, how proactive should donors be?
o If it depends on the context, which context factors are then important?
54
Donor roles in developing support
o Support development of broad directions for change and of change strategy
o Focus on feasible CD targets in terms of changes in organisational outputs
o Understand drivers and constraints to become a trusted partner
o Play a catalytic role, do not design or implement
o Ensure that CD inputs can adapt to the process rather than vice versa
55
Joint CD support in sector programmes
o The SWAp is all about strengthened sector capacity, capacity often the difficult missing link
o CD is a core part of the sector programme, not an add on – get it on the agenda
o Same principles apply for CD as for other SP areas:
• Alignment to framework and joint plans before joint funding modalities
• Share diagnostics, reviews, dialogue
• Exploit comparative advantages – and disadvantages…
56
How donors can support CD processes
o Own efforts
• Behave!
• Get a grip on the context for CD
• Deepen dialogue
• Stop topping-up, poaching of staff etc.
• Don’t go alone
• Seek and share knowledge
o Financed/acquired
• Peer mechanisms
• Piloting new ways
• Staff exchanges
• Knowledge acquisition
• TA
• Training
57
LOCAL INSTITUTION(S)
DONORS
TA
Customer?Client?
Beneficiary?Partner?
Stakeholder?Employer?
Doer?
Middleman?Mediator?
Facilitator?Controller?
Spy?
Employer?
Stakeholder?
Customer?
Partner?
Benefactor?
TA - Triangular Affairs- Uneasy Balances?
Session 7
Bringing the ingredients of the CD cocktail together
59
Repetition: The Change Function?
Dissatis- faction
Process of change
Vision
Enhancedcapacity
Cost of change
60
Inputs
Results-based CD
Capacityof Sector
System andOrganisations
Contextual factors within influence
Contextual factors beyond influence
CDsupport
Outcomes ImpactOutputs
61
Key factors for successful CD - content
o Scope of change in relation to existing capacity
o Realistic targets – defined as outputs
o Combination of various options for CD
o External pressure for change
o Specificity of the products
o Sequencing and timing of interventions
62
Basics first?
o Inputs and procedures before results?
o External controls before trust in managers?
o Don’t try to replace patrimonialism, work to modify it?
o Work on reducing discretionality and opaqueness, rather than introducing the Perfect System?
o Leave NPM on the shelf?
63
Sequencing
o Platform approach: Basics first, consistent with power relations and change capacity
o Reform units?
o Ring-fencing strategic units?
o Focusing on “uncontroversial” routine processes?
o Risks in all approaches and no right answer
o Sectors cannot do it alone
64
CD planning matrix
Impact
Outcomes CD development objective
Outputs CD immediate objectives
Capacity CD results
Recurrent inputs CD activities
CD inputs – all sources
65
Monitoring Capacity Development
o Why?
• Accountability
• Promote and sustain change
o Who?
• Depends…
o What?
• The whole chain
66
Inputs
Results-based CD
Capacityof Sector
System andOrganisations
Contextual factors within influence
Contextual factors beyond influence
CDsupport
Outcomes ImpactOutputs
Self-assessme
nt
Political system
Customer surveys
Academia
External partners
67
Self-assessment
1 2 3 4 5
Leadership
Customer orientation
Teamwork
Systems
2007
2006
68
About helping others...
“That if real success is to attend the effort to bring a man to a definite position, one must first of all take pains to find HIM where he is and begin there.
This is the secret of the art of helping others. Any one who has not mastered this is himself deluded when he proposes to help others. In order to help another effectively I must understand more than he- yet first of all surely I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him. If, however, I am disposed to plume myself of my greater understanding, it is because I am vain or proud, so that at bottom, instead of benefiting him, I want to be admired. But all true effort to help begins with self-humiliation: the helper must first humble himself under him he would help, and therewith must understand that to help does not mean to be sovereign but to be a servant, that to help does not mean to be ambitious but to be patient, that to help means to endure for the time being the imputation that one is in the wrong and does not understand what the other understands.”
Søren Kierkegaard: The Point of View for My Work as An Author (1859). Translation by Walter Lowrie, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1962.
Session 8
Next steps and future options:
Open Forum
70
Proposed agenda
1. CD in CIDA – new ways but love stays?
2. Learning and research needs?
3. Next steps?