The Impact of Aid Policies on DomesticDemocratisation Processes: The Case of MaliDonor Harmonisation: Between Effectiveness andDemocratisation. Case Study IV

Hamidou MagassaStefan Meyer

5050 Working Paper / Documento de Trabajo

February 2008 Working Paper / Documento de Trabajo

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5050 Working Paper / Documento de Trabajo

February 2008 Working Paper / Documento de Trabajo

The Impact of Aid Policies on DomesticDemocratisation Processes: The Case of MaliDonor Harmonisation: Between Effectiveness andDemocratisation. Case Study IV

Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

February 2008

Hamidou Magassa is senior socio-economic consultant on rural development at SERNES. Previously, he was a

research professor in Mali and France. An essayist and poet, he is the author of various publications on

development. He holds a PhD in Anthropological Linguistics (Comparative African Literature) from the University

of Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III), and enjoyed a lengthy academic stay at the University of Indiana

(Bloomington/USA), as a post-doctoral researcher in institutional analysis.

Stefan Meyer is a senior researcher in the development area at FRIDE. He is a political scientist with Free

University Berlin and holds a Masters degree in Governance and Development from the IDS in Sussex. Before

joining FRIDE, he worked as a programme coordinator for Germany’s GTZ in Sierra Leone and as a consultant for

KfW and a number of NGOs.

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Contents

Foreword 1

Introduction 3

Context 3

Donor harmonisation in Mali 4

Mechanisms of donor harmonisation 4

Development and monitoring of CSLP 5

Budgetary aid and institutional reform 7

Evaluation 8

The Political system and democratisation 10

Actors and institutions 13

The National Assembly 13

Civil society organisations (CSOs) 14

Reform of the civil service and horizontal control systems 15

Decentralisation 16

Main challenges to meet 16

Implications for donors 19

Political dialogue 20

Analytical capacities 21

Choice of instruments 22

Institutional set-up 23

Human resources 23

Bibliography 24

AcronymsACP Africa, Caribbean and Pacific CountriesADB African Development BankANICT National Agency for Investment in Local Communities (Agence Nationale d’Investissement des Collectivités

Territoriales) CAFO Women’s Organisations Collective (Coordination des Associations et ONGs Féminines)CAS Country Assistance Strategy CDI Institutional Development Committee (Commissariat au Développement Institutionnel)CNOP National Coordination of Rural Organisations (Coordination Nationale des Organisations Paysannes)CNSC Civil Society National Council (Conseil National de la Société Civile)CONFED EDF National Coordination Support Unit (Cellule d’Appui à l’Ordonnateur National du FED)CPS Statistics and Planning Unit (Cellule de Planification et de Statistique)CSLP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (Cadre Stratégique de Lutte contre la

Pauvreté, 2002-2006)CSO Civil Society OrganisationCSCRP Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, also referred to as second CSLP, (Cadre Stratégique de

Croissance et de Réduction de la Pauvreté, 2007-11)DAC Development Assistance CommitteeDNSI National Department of Statistics (Direction Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Informatique)EDF European Development FundEID Democratic Discussion Forum (Espace d’Interpellation Démocratique)EPT Education for All (Education Pour Tous)EU European UnionF CFA/XOF West African CFA Franc. XOF is the ISO currency code. (Franc de la Communauté Française Africaine)FECONG NGO Platforms Collective (Fédération des Collectifs d’ONG)FENASCOM National Federation of Community Health Associations of Mali (Fédération Nationale des Associations de

Santé Communautaire du Mali)FES German Friedrich-Ebert-StiftungFICT Territorial Collectives Investment Fund (Fonds d’Investissement des Collectivités Territoriales),FRIDE Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo ExteriorGBS General Budget SupportGDP Gross Domestic ProductHIPC Highly Indebted Poor CountryIDB Islamic Development BankIMF International Monetary Fund MDC Cooperation and Development Mission – Presidency of the Republic (Mission de Développement et de

Coopération - Présidence de la République)MDG Millennium Development Goals MDRI Multilateral Debt Relief InitiativeMDSPA Ministry for Social Development and the Elderly (Ministère du Développement Social et des Personnes Agées)MPAT Ministry of Planning and Land Use Management (Ministère du Plan et de l’Aménagement du Territoire)MTBF Medium-Term Budget FrameworkMTEF Medium-Term Expenditure FrameworkNDI National Democratic Institute (USA)NGO Non-Governmental OrganisationNIP National Indicative ProgrammeODA Official Development AssistanceODHD Sustainable Human Development Observatory (Observatoire du Développement Humain Durable)OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development PAGAMGFP National Action Plan for the Improvement and Modernisation of Public Finance Management (Plan d’Action

Gouvernemental pour l’Amélioration et la Modernisation de la Gestion des Finances Publiques)PARAD Programme in Support of Administrative Reform and Decentralisation (Programme d’Appui à la Réforme

Administrative et à la Décentralisation)PD Paris Declaration PDES Economic and Social Development Programme (Programme de Développement Economique et Social)PDI Institutional Development Programme (Programme de Développement Institutionnel)PISE Education Sector Investment Programme (Programme d’Investissement dans le Secteur de l’Éducation).PRECAGED Capacity Building Programme in the Strategic Management of Development (Projet de Renforcement des

Capacités dans la Gestion Stratégique du Développement) PRODESS Integrated Health Sector Investment Project (Programme Décennal de Développement du Secteur de la

Santé)PTF Technical and Financial Partner (Partenaire Technique et Financier)SAP Structural Adjustment Programme SBS Sectoral Budget SupportSECO Coordinating Secretariat of Malian NGOs (Secretariat de Concertation des ONG Maliennes) SFD Decentralised Financial System (Système Financier Décentralisé)UNDP United Nations Development Programme WAEMU West African Economic and Monetary UnionWB World Bank

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

1

Foreword

Does aid foster freedom? Does democracy help reduce

poverty and inequality? Is good governance a

necessary condition for aid to be effective? These are

some of the pertinent questions that have been in the

background of most of the recent debates on what

Northern countries should do when working with

developing countries. Although it becomes increasingly

clear that issues “beyond aid” have more impact on the

lives of those living in poverty, high hopes are set on aid

and those who are charged with programming it. It is

to these people that this study is addressed.

This research project – entitled Donor harmonisation:

between effectiveness and democratisation – aims to

explore only one dimension of the vast theoretical

debate that has grown up around the questions above:

what is the potential collateral damage that the

growing coordination and harmonisation of aid donors

could inflict on the social contract in developing

countries? And what are the implications for aid

agencies, in their practices of political dialogue, their

policies, their institutional set-up and their human

resources strategy?

Our basic assumption is that a new architecture of aid

relations has been constructed over the last decade.

The state as developmental actor has been brought

back in after a decade of public services bashing under

the aegis of the Washington Consensus. Today, a new

consensus is being formed. Landmark events have

included the Millennium Development Declaration in

2000, which defined global objectives, the Monterrey

Conference in 2002 that accordingly defined the

resources and the mutual obligations between North

and South, and lastly the Paris Declaration in 2005,

which began to define the modes and institutions for

aid delivery. In the meantime, new initiatives are fine-

tuning the consensus. Amongst these are the efforts

aimed at greater complementarity in the EU code of

conduct on the division of labour, initiatives to connect

regional integration with institution building and

development outcomes at the national level, and the

continuing debate over new roles for multilateral

organisms.

As a result, the relationship between recipient

countries, recently re-baptised “partner countries”,

and donors is changing. Since the 1980s,

conditionality has reigned – either in its crude form of

economic conditionality for the implementation of

free-market principles, or in its second-generation

form of demands for political opening and

accountability of those in public office. Mutual

accountability shall replace this unfruitful

relationship, which has not been honoured by anybody.

We diagnose a “post-conditionality regime”, which

leaves behind confrontational approaches and efforts

to bypass state structures, and is heading towards new

modes of government-donor cooperation, that are,

however, no less intrusive.

In the background of this research lies the assumption

that not only state capacities, but also a social contract

between citizens and the state, forms the basis of

successful and equitable development.There is a large

range of institutional configurations that can

potentially enshrine this contract, and these are

legitimate in their very local contexts as historical

sediments of social negotiations. For our research on

the interface between aid harmonisation and

democratisation, we use a political economy approach

that explores the opportunities for citizens to become

informed, to participate and to hold those in power to

account. What we are interested in are the local

definitions of these configurations in countries of the

South – in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Mali and Peru in

particular. Consequently, we ask what influence

Western countries exert on these polities in their role

as donors. Is there a trend to harmonise their

interaction with partner governments, but maybe less

so with other relevant local actors, such as

parliaments, civil society or public oversight

institutions?

This research project hopes to inform donors, taking

a participative perspective that incorporates the

Working Paper 50

2

opinions of a wide range of actors. In particular, this

research may be helpful for the future of the Spanish

aid system. It was devised during a previous project,

“foroaod”, which took a snapshot of the rapid

reform process in policies and institutions of the

Spanish development aid system. It is also meant to

facilitate dialogue between European donors on their

practices and lessons learnt. We thereby want to

work towards a common European development

policy.

The project has three phases. In the first phase we

present an analytical framework and methodology for

the country studies, establishing the basis for the

approaches and hypotheses of this research. The case

studies are conducted in a second phase. Mostly, they

are drafted in partnership with researchers from

southern countries. The third phase reaches a

conclusion, with the design of an applicable instrument

of analysis.The aim is to take the findings into account

within the daily practice of aid planners and managers.

Alongside the publication of the working papers, we

attempt to integrate practitioners, policy makers and

academics as much as possible by offering them work-

in-progress presentations.

This case study on Mali describes the lessons in a

country that is highly aid dependent and features

amongst the best governance and democracy scores in

the Sub-Saharan region. Here, extraversion of

government accountability has been characteristic for

a long time, virtually untouched by the three changes of

regime since independence. Only lately, with an

increasing devolution of government services and

decision-making through the decentralisation process,

has government action come under new scrutiny, whilst

donors have made an effort to stay back from dictating

policies. This report claims that all the pieces of a

working aid relationship that could reinforce a citizen-

state contract are on the table. Efforts from

government, donors and civil society are needed to

assemble them. Strengthening oversight bodies and

institutions of constraint and linking them to the

political actors is part of this.

This report in itself is an attempt to combine a view

from the South – from Bamako – and one from the

North – from Madrid.The research process and writing

have offered a fascinating dialogue and a challenging

search for mutual understanding of the bottlenecks of

Malian political development.

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

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Introduction

Against the backdrop of democratic consolidation that

has been taking place since 1991, Mali is often cited as

a “good pupil”. In addition, the many needs of an

extremely impoverished population, living in a harsh

environment characterised by desertification and no

access to the sea,attracts increased levels of development

assistance and numbers of donors. In this sense, Mali is

the perfect example of a developing country where the

investment of official development assistance (ODA)

exists in a stimulating political context.

ContextThe Malian case is original for the following reasons: (1)

its territorial decentralisation, consisting of 703 rural

and urban communes; (2) the singularity of the concept

of “consensual leadership” in the pluralist democratic

system; and, (3) anchorage of civil society participation

within the framework of the second Poverty Reduction

Strategic Paper (CSCRP, 2007-2011).

Mali has long experience as a recipient of official

development assistance, initially from the former

Soviet bloc and China, at the beginning of the 1960s,

and later from Arab countries, following the oil boom

of the early 1970s. Undoubtedly, at present, European

and American ODA is the most significant, following on

from the end of the structural adjustment programmes

(SAPs) of the 1980s and the advent of pluralist

democratisation in the 1990s.

With the onset of growing dysfunction in the aid

management system in the 1980s, numerous initiatives

were undertaken by the government of Mali, supported

by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of

the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD) and the United Nations

Development Programme (UNDP). In certain aspects,

Mali was a pioneer – albeit more as a testing ground

than as a leader – in the improvement of aid

effectiveness and harmonisation. This was long before

the commitments made in the 2005 Paris Declaration.

As a matter of fact, the Mali Joint Government Donor

Commission for the reform of Official Development Aid

(ODA), put in place by the government of Mali in

1998,had already laid down seven main objectives: (1)

to clarify and simplify the institutional mandates of the

structures responsible for aid coordination and

management; (2) to harmonise procedures and

conditions for implementing cooperation activities; (3)

to set up inter-sectoral and spatial mechanisms for

development assistance coordination and trade-offs;

(4) to strengthen national and local capacity; (5) to

create a permanent information system on cooperation

activities; (6) to involve civil society at every level of

aid planning and management; and, (7) to integrate the

cooperation system into national economic and

financial channels.

Within the framework of the OECD/DAC 1999 “Mali

Aid Review”, constructive measures on the part of the

state led to improved relations between donors and the

Government of Mali (UNDP/OECD, 1999). However,

efforts at harmonisation and the initiation of a process

of institutional reflection on better coordination of

available budget resources had been reduced merely to

the management of Malian civil service per diem

allowances provided by donors.

In the practice of cooperation and political

development dialogue, it is still necessary to develop

and facilitate harmonisation and coordination of ODA

through a high level of co-steering. It must be submitted

to regular and collaborative evaluation by civil society

organisations (CSO) and beneficiary populations,

whose abilities to approve, tolerate or reject ODA

projects are the best indicators of aid effectiveness.

Mali has been cited as a successful African example of

the process of democratisation that began in 1991.

Conversely, there exist the multiple grievances of an

impoverished nation, which lives in a harsh, landlocked

environment tainted by desertification. This has led to

the growth of aid and of the number of donors. In this

sense, Mali is the perfect example of a developing

country where the investment of official development

assistance is framed within a favourable political

context.

Nevertheless, a number of strategic considerations

must be addressed in order to increase the volume of

aid, such as the fight against corruption, the diligent

application of civil service reform, and the need for a

faster transfer of financial and technical skills within

the framework of decentralisation.

Among the political distortions of this West African

crossroads country, one must point out that:

• Mali is a significant departure and transit point of

immigration to Western Africa and Europe. At an

implicitly political level, aid resources are in part

destined to support the government’s efforts to

regulate migratory flows;

• The North of Mali has for decades faced a

continuous low-intensity Touareg rebellion, despite

the rebels’ many agreements with the government.

This Saharan area is also engaged in the fight

against transnational terrorism, with the support of

the American army, which ensures the training and

supervision of Malian and Saharo-Sahelian sub-

regional military troops;

• Mali, enclosed by seven international frontiers, is

vulnerable to the political instability of neighbouring

countries, such as Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Sierra

Leone, Liberia, Niger, and Algeria;

• Mali is the third largest producer of gold in Africa,

with potential oil production in the near future, but

despite this, industrialisation has not been

stimulated. This highlights the risk of institutional

erosion and lack of transparency in the management

of public finances, as is often the case in countries

where a substantial part of the national budget

originates from exploitation of natural resources.

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Donor harmonisationin Mali

Mali is largely dependent on foreign aid. In 2005, aid

represented 14 percent of the growth in national

revenue and accounted for 38 percent of the national

budget. Donor disbursements are apportioned as

follows: 83 percent for project aid, nine percent for

general budget support, and two percent for sectoral

budget support. The three main donors are the

European Union, France, and the World Bank.They are

followed by The Netherlands, Japan, the United States,

the African Development Bank (ADB), and Canada.

Germany and Arab organisations also make significant

contributions. In this respect, the EU Donor Atlas

indicates one of the highest concentrations of aid

towards Mali amongst European donors. In contrast to

this external source of state revenues, the national tax

burden remained low,at 11 percent in 2005,well below

the 20 percent target set by the West African

Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU).1

Beyond these figures, there are a few new initiatives

in the field of aid that aim to change the way in

which it is currently managed, such as: the good

governance incentive tranche proposed by the

European Union; the new mechanisms of the US’

Millennium Challenge Account; and, the contribution

of non-traditional donors (China Arab countries,

Cuba and Venezuela).

Mechanisms of donor

harmonisation

At the highest level, there are three coordination

mechanisms between donors and the Government of

Mali: the Coordination Group, the Joint Commission

and the Development and Cooperation Mission.

1 Data from OECD/DAC, World Bank, WAEMU, EuropeanCommission. Colombo, 2006.

1.The aid coordination and harmonisation

framework in Mali is currently made up of 35

donors, divided into eight sectoral and three core

groups. The Netherlands, Belgium and the World

Bank (lead donor) led the technical pool’s rotating

mandate up to December 2007 (the presidency of

these meetings is biannual and rotating). In order to

implement donor commitments in accordance with

the Paris Declaration, the Group has drawn up a

Road Map (2007-2010) in response to the National

Action Plan on the Effectiveness of Development

Assistance (2007-2009), recently designed by the

Government of Mali. Contrary to their usual

approach to aid by agency, donors are currently

elaborating and agreeing upon a Joint Country

Assistance Strategy (JCAS) to interface with the

Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

(CSCRP). As well as the monthly donor meetings,

sectoral groups have meetings at random intervals

with a rather large participation.The Institution and

Decentralisation group, with 15 members, is the

largest.There are also sectoral groups dedicated to

the environment, education, health, drinking water

and sanitation, food security, budget support and

public finance management. The six donors that

grant general budget support have experienced less

coordination difficulties than those in sectoral

budget support, given the sensitivity of each donor to

its own priorities. For its part, the European Union

(EU) has recently presented Bamako with its own

code of conduct with regard to complementarity and

division of labour in development policies.

2.The Mali Joint Commission of Government and

Donors brings together the donors and Malian

authorities, and is co-chaired by the Malian Minister

of Economy and Finance and the lead donor. The

technical instruments and working groups of the

Joint Commission are general tools, such as the

Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (CSLP), or sector

strategies, like the Decentralisation, Education and

Health strategy. These are accompanied by pluri-

annual budget execution instruments (Medium-Term

Budget Framework – MTBF; Medium-Term

Expenditure Framework – MTEF; and Framework

Agreement on Budget Support), and political

dialogue, which is being consolidated in depth while

each side is gaining skills. However, the weak

leadership of the government, limited civil society

participation and the lack of joint analysis amongst

donors are factors that do not contribute to the

effectiveness of the Joint Commission.

3.The Development and Cooperation Mission, linked

to the Presidency of Mali, assures direct supervision

of and gives impulse to these activities under the

auspices of the Head of State.

In order to implement the goals of the Paris

Declaration, the Government of Mali, through the

Ministry of Economy and Finance, has recently

approved a National Action Plan on the Effectiveness

of Development Assistance (2007-2009) in

accordance with the Declaration’s 12 indicators and

five core principles: national ownership, alignment,

harmonisation, results-management, and mutual

accountability. Organised in a target scoreboard, with

actions, monitoring and evaluation, accountability and

a timetable for execution, the 12 indicators provide a

very clear idea of the challenges that Mali has to meet

(Government of Mali, 2007).The donors corresponded

to this initiative with a harmonisation road map (Pool,

2007b).

Development and monitoring

of CSLP

The progression from project aid to programme aid, and

later to budget support, reflects a new concept of

development and a reevaluation of relations between

donors and recipient countries, inspired by the Paris

Declaration. Before then, however, the recommendations

of the November 1999 workshop on institutional

reforms for the improvement of aid coordination had

already helped national decision-makers and donors to

recognise the need for one single comprehensive

framework. The latter would benefit from the IMF’s

poverty reduction initiative of debt relief for Heavily

Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs).

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

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This comprehensive development framework, the

Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (CSLP), was

adopted by the Government of Mali for the period

2002-06 with support from the Bretton Woods

institutions. An instrument of financial negotiation and

subsequently a development plan, the CSLP depends

on the Ministry of Economy and Finance which is in

charge of coordinating economic reform programmes.

Moreover, it constitutes the basis of donor aid

contributions as well as HIPC debt relief and the

Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).

The implementation of the CSLP is receiving

important institutional and governmental support, and

is the key reference point for regular coordination

meetings:

• The Steering Committee, presided over by the Prime

Minister, and composed of the main pertinent

ministries, donors and civil society representatives;

• The Monitoring Committee, headed by the Minister

of Economy and Finance;

• The National Technical Committee, headed by the

Minister of Economy and Finance’s Secretary

General, composed of 13 workgroups and nine

regional committees;

• The CSLP Coordination Group, attached to the

Ministry of Economy and Finance, is responsible for

coordination activities and the dissemination of data

and information;

• The Aid Harmonisation Secretariat, also attached to

the Ministry of Economy and Finance, is a new inter-

ministerial coordination unit, set up in 2007

following the Paris Declaration;

• The National Planning and Development

Directorate, attached to the Ministry of Planning

and Land Use Management (MPAT), is responsible

for the annual publication of the CSLP review.

Furthermore, several public technical service offices

are in charge of producing statistical data. Amongst

these are: the National Department of Statistics and

Information (DNSI), attached to MPAT, and the

Sustainable Human Development Observatory

(ODHD), under the auspices of the Ministry for Social

Development and the Elderly (MDSPA). Moreover,

each ministerial department has its own Statistics and

Planning Unit (CPS). With respect to the CSLP and

the management of results, there exist the following

constraints:

1.The lack of reliable statistical data does not facilitate

the evaluation of impact in poverty reduction.

According to donor representatives, the frequent

planning reports do not reflect the reality, and

donors, under the pressure of disbursement

commitments, are unable to monitor and assess the

results of ministerial spending. A clear example of

this is the UNDP’s Human Development Index

(HDI), which calculated life expectancy in Mali at

47.9 years of age, and classified Mali as 175th out of

177 countries in the HDI rank (with a score of

0.338), while the Ministry of Planning published the

figure of 65.5 years of age for life expectancy and a

HDI score of 0.450.There is a long way to go before

Mali will have reliable statistical data for those who

collect and organise it as well as for its users.

2.The budget monitoring reports are written without

proper consideration of the CSLP. They deal more

with the due-process of operations than with CSLP

impacts of priorities and results. Since the state

budget is an input budget, no relationship can be

established with, on the one hand, the MTEF and, on

the other, impacts on poverty and social development

indicators. Consequently, evaluation based on

results-management cannot be carried out.

(Fritz/Lange 2006)

3. An additional difficulty is the fact that governance and

poverty data are not only used for descriptive

purposes, but also as a trigger for incentive tranches.

The European Commission and the Millennium

Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the United States

have different approaches towards these indicators,

but they both tie aid to similar performance criteria.

This could potentially undermine the real value of data.

The elaboration of the first CSLP, which was more

oriented towards social and institutional sectors, has

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certainly led to a debate about the framework of public

strategies within the Malian administration.The second

CSLP, redefined as the Growth and Poverty Reduction

Strategy Paper (CSCRP), for the period 2007-2011,

outlines the macroeconomic, structural and social

programmes and policies to be implemented in

accordance with the national budget. Within these

principles, it aims at accelerating growth by seven

percent in agriculture, mining and infrastructure

sectors, as well as integrating the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) and consolidating the

achievements of the first CSLP.

However, the participative process of elaboration of the

CSCRP, with its focus on the productive sector, has not

brought any significant evolution according to Malian

civil society or the private sector. Furthermore,

approved directly by the Council of Ministers, the

CSCRP was not subject to parliamentary consultation

despite its assumed role as Mali’s single reference

framework for socio-economic development.

Conceived in the volatile context of shifting

development trends, the recommendations of the

CSLP reflect the views of international, multilateral

and bilateral financial institutions, which are greatly

concerned with macroeconomic stability, rather than

the concerns of the Government and population of

Mali. The inversion of priorities between CSLP I and

CSLP II was not accompanied by strengthened

political will among all potential actors, geographic

areas and other sectors capable of stimulating

economic growth and sharing in development. And,

since the plurality of means of formal participation and

definition of national priorities are contained within

one single framework of reference, the recurring

questions about formulation, implementation and

monitoring of results are most often left without

appropriate institutional responses.

These reform proposals, essentially sectoral, are

nevertheless tainted by several weaknesses and

dysfunctions in the management of development

policies in general, and of foreign aid to Mali, in

particular. The response to the single reference

framework of mid-term policies and development

strategies, CSLP (2002/2006), later CSCRP

(2007/2011), must be consolidated with greater

governmental, civil and private ownership.

Budgetary aid and institutional

reform

It has now been established that the CSLP represents

the single reference framework for medium-term

development policies in Mali, and the principal

reference for donors in the implementation of technical

and financial priority programmes, such as:

institutional development and improvement of

governance and participation; human development and

better access to social services; and the development of

infrastructure and support to core productive sectors.

In order to fulfil these objectives and the reform of

public finance management, the Framework

Agreement on Budget Support, signed in March 2005,

has formulated proposals for donor participation in

budgeting and its revision in order to identify, analyse

and research risks, on the one hand, and to effect

external auditing of the Government’s budget, on the

other. Mali is engaged in budget support through the

following:

• Framework agreements on budget support with eight

donors: the World Bank, the African Development

Bank,Belgium,Canada,France, the European Union,

the Netherlands, and Sweden, in March 2006. This

framework comprises general and sectoral support

arrangements.

• Specific arrangement for sectoral budget support

(Health and Education), signed in July 2006, in

which Sweden, Norway and Switzerland participate.

• Specific arrangement on general budget support

signed in June 2007.

A number of reform programmes were conceived to

directly support the management of public services. On

the one hand, there are procedural conditions for being

eligible for general budget support and sectoral budget

support agreements. On the other, there are targeted

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

7

projects meant to build and enhance state

performance. However, it has been the commitment

from donors to direct budget support and the criteria

of development results that has improved the

relationship between government and donors, rather

than direct financing of ministerial activities.

In response to a previous World Bank evaluation of the

period 1990-2003, which considered the potential

impact of institutional development modest and

almost negligible (World Bank, 2007c), a 2005 report

recommended a strategy for strengthening institutional

capacities.This point of view seems to be widely shared

among donors. In light of this, the fundamental

question for the Government of Mali continues to be

how to combine budgeting with poverty reduction

results, in terms of elaboration, implementation and

evaluation.

Other significant objectives of these institutional

development programmes are:

• Civil service reform: Institutional Development

Programme (PDI) and the Programme in Support

of Administrative Reform and Decentralisation

(PARAD) of the Institutional Development

Committee (CDI);

• Public finance management reform: National

Action Plan for the Improvement and Modernisation

of Public Finance Management (PAGAMGFP),

which includes a procurement procedures code, and

the development of the MTEF.

• Consolidation of sectoral programmes, such as: the

Integrated Health Sector Investment Project

(PRODESS), and the Education Sector Investment

Programme (PISE).

• Decentralisation: several donors, notably bilateral

ones, are involved in support programmes to

strengthen local planning and implementation

capacities, alongside the National Agency for

Investment in Local Communities (ANICT).

In 2006, the OECD conducted a survey with the

Government of Mali and 13 donors, with respect to the

Paris Declaration’s five key issues and 12 indicators

(OECD, 2007; World Bank, 2006a). With respect to

national ownership, the survey’s findings underline a

weak relationship between budgeting and the country

strategy paper. With regard to alignment, there is

insufficient funding implemented through Mali’s

administrative systems. Concerning harmonisation, it is

limited to health and education. The survey

recommends a common country assistance strategy

based on the country’s priorities, as well as enforcing

the principle of division of labour among donors. As for

mutual accountability, there is no formal mechanism.

The OECD recommends the implementation of a joint

evaluation of the Plan of Action, as well as the annual

evaluation of Government and donor efforts.

Evaluation

Considering the current legislation, macroeconomic

framework, CSLP and sectoral programmes agreed

upon by the main development partners, along with

transparent, trustworthy and efficient management of

public finances, which is being reinforced (by the

National Action Plan), and pluri-annual result-

oriented budgeting, which is proposed for

institutionalisation, Mali fulfils all the necessary

conditions for an increase in the significance and

participation of budget support as an instrument of

financial cooperation. Budget support is the financial

cooperation instrument that links the Government of

Mali and donors, allowing for: (i) better coordination

of activities, (ii) progressive substitution of multiple

donor practices with national alternatives, and (iii)

analysis of concrete means for the harmonisation of

programmes and procedures, in order to progressively

redirect a part of international development assistance

towards programme budget support.

Regarding national sovereignty and the consolidation

of Malian leadership, civil society commentators argue

that the complete opening of the budget elaboration

process and allocation of government expenditure to

donor influence poses serious problems in the fields of

national priority definition, concepts of development,

and political vision. Add to this the different

programming cycles’ timetable constraints, which vary

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8

substantially between donors and the Malian system.

This is the case, for example, with the sub-sectors of

education, national security expenditure and

administrative expenses (wages, indemnities and per

diem allowances). That is, the quality of higher

education, conflict prevention and resolution, and

subsistence of government employees are of greater

concern to the Malian state whereas donors choose to

prioritise primary education and basic services. And,

while donors – in accordance with their concept of

effective poverty reduction spending – would like to be

involved in the budgeting process from the initial

stages, the Government of Mali, for reasons of

sovereignty, cannot envisage their involvement until

priorities have been set autonomously.

Moreover, an inter-ministerial committee under the

authority of the Cooperation and Development Mission

(MDC) of the Presidency of the Republic established in

July 2005 that, despite its relevance for Mali’s

economy, institutions and society, ODA lacked

coordination and was poorly integrated within the

national framework, adding that its effectiveness was

scarcely acknowledged by the people.This also reflects

shortcomings on the part of the government in taking

up the responsibility for coordination. It likewise draws

attention to the need for a single framework of

reference in development strategy,wherein elaboration,

organisation and implementation procedures could

encourage consultation in decision-making and ensure

arbitration within and among sectors.

Furthermore, the Joint Commission uses the CSLP

process as a mechanism of dialogue between Malian

authorities and donors. However, it is most often

reduced to meetings between the Ministry of Economy

and Finance and donors. From a global development

approach perspective, such an exclusive management

of ODA may become a source of dysfunction, confusion

and conflict with other ministerial departments.2

Driven by national necessities and the international

agenda, coordination procedures have steadily evolved in

recent years. A complex, multi-dimensional structure for

the coordination of donors, refinement of government

systems and involvement of civil society actors has

emerged in Mali. Whilst all pieces of the puzzle now

seem to have been placed on the table, they still need to

be assembled for the transformative effect of aid to

unfold. It is hoped that this will push the country into a

cycle where public investment is both overseen by

citizens and responded to with greater productivity.The

list below outlines some contradictions that prevent the

pieces of the puzzle from falling into place.3

• “It seems that donors put the horse before the

cart”: as outlined above, the elaboration of the

PRSP has been unsequenced – both technically and

politically. The second PRSP was elaborated before

the first was evaluated. Moreover, it took place right

before presidential elections in 2007, thus impeding

a synchronisation of the technical substance with the

political leadership.

• “In terms of their time horizon donors seem to be

standing in the valley”: Given the attractiveness of

Mali for aid targeting, both in terms of poverty rates

and reasonable governance indicators, donors suffer

an increasing disbursement pressure.This can lead to

short-term attempts to quickly fix bottlenecks in

absorption capacities. It diverts the attention of aid

planners away from a 15-20 year horizon of political

development that does not always fit with the three

or four-year planning cycles.

• “Coordination structures resemble a five-

dimensional Rubics Cube,where you sort out one side

and gain disorder on the other”: The extreme

complexity of the multi-dimensional coordination

structure – be it according to sector, geography or by

instruments – leads to a situation where a significant

share of the time of both government and donor staff

is spent in coordination meetings. Civil society also

pushes to be included in these spaces.Whilst this might

be legitimate, it again increases the interaction costs.

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

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2 Such as: Ministry of Planning and Land Use Management(MPAT); Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation(MAECI); Ministry for Territorial Administration and Local Communities(MATCL); Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MCI); Ministry forSocial Development and the Elderly (MDSPA); and Ministry forInvestment Promotion and Small and Medium Enterprise (MPIPME).

3 Most of these descriptions are derived from the testimonies of theinterview partner. For a similar synthesis see Bergamaschi 2007.

• “The Bamako meetings between donors and

government are as virtual as a stock exchange”:

There is a clear disconnection between Bamako

reports and rural realities. Figures are inaccurate,

information is not accessible, monitoring systems at

the national level are not sound, nor do they serve as

a point of reference for public debate.The issue is not

so much the availability of data but their reliability

and usage. Some interviewees explained that

statistical reports are drawn up according to the

situation, thus frequently generating contradictory

figures. Some donors sideline this challenge by

devising their own indicators for project evaluations,

while others enter into a pragmatic pact by referring

to the papers in Bamako’s air conditioned offices

rather than the facts on the ground.

• “If the main entrance does not work, donors will

always find a backdoor”: There is widespread

rhetoric regarding compliance with the principles of

the Paris Declaration. However, if donors do not get

an immediate response from the central ministries,

they often make the same proposals to other

governmental structures or at another level, thus

bypassing budgetary and central planning structures.

It is still common to negotiate projects with

ministries independently, without referring to the

comprehensive planning structures. The division –

and often competition - between planning and

finance, and the decentralisation of ministries,

contributes to the problem.

• “Theatre meets bureaucracy”: The President’s aim

is to increase aid levels, and he performs well in that

task. Given that concern is mostly focussed on

volume, the issue of effectiveness suffers because of

the hands-off approach taken towards his many

ministers. What seems to be a simple lack of

technical coordination could actually make sense

politically when ministries are given a certain

leverage over their domains, which then turn into

fiefdoms. Furthermore, the president engaged in

parallel discourse and policy when he proposed his

own Projet pour le Développement Economique et

Social, PDES (Toumani Touré 2007), which stands

in direct competition with the PRSP/CSLP that is

supposedly the country-owned policy (despite it being

generally acknowledged that it is highly donor-

driven). What is perceived as a “lack of government

leadership in policy definition”, in the bureaucratic

donor view of aid effectiveness, might actually be

functional in a political sense.

• “Although donors lead, there seems to be a second-

level, ‘subversive’ ownership when it comes to

implementation”: It seems undisputed that donors

lead in formulation, with little initiative on the

definition of policies emerging from government. On

a second level, however, the country “proceeds” in

implementation.The general rupture between formal

definitions and informal practice contributes to this.

The Political systemand democratisation

Adopted and promulgated in 1992, the Constitution of

the Third Republic of Mali, in its determination to

reinforce the democratic accomplishments of the 26

March 1991 uprising, promises to defend the

republican form and secularity of the state, the rights

of women and children, the cultural and linguistic

diversity of the national community, national unity, the

improvement of quality of life and protection of the

environment and cultural heritage. It also pledges to

uphold the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man

of 10 December 1948, the African Charter of the

Rights of Man and the People of 27 June 1981, the

unity of Africa, the promotion of peace, regional and

international cooperation, and the peaceful resolution

of conflicts among states, with respect for the rule of

law, equality, liberty and the sovereignty of nations.

Authoritarian or democratic, every political regime in

Mali since the 1960s has established itself upon the

organisational resources of civil society, which is

traditional and modern at the same time. There is a

centuries-old historical continuity in the relationship

between civil association borne out of multi-ethnical,

patriarchal, polygamist communities and state

intervention, since the Medieval empires of the Western

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10

Sudan. Be it under socialist central planning (1960-

1968), a single-party military regime (1968-1991) or

pluralist democracy (since 1991), the political

conquest and cooptation of CSOs has always been a

state objective, in order to gain lawful legitimacy.

Though not partaking in power, these CSOs have

persistently contributed, openly or not, to maintaining

or changing state leadership.

The republican victory of the democratic movement, at

the onset of the 26 March 1991 insurrection, confirms

the aforementioned historical hypothesis, as trade

unions, human rights organisations and various other

political associations (originating from various

segments of civil society and at that moment united to

fight the single-party military regime) came to power.

Moreover, in order to reposition themselves within state

power, in the wake of the 1992 general elections, these

same associations would undergo an institutional

mutation into more than fifty political parties. In 2005,

they constituted over one hundred parties representing

a population of approximately 11 million Malians.

Counteracting thirty years of single party rule, a

spectacular eruption of CSOs and the abounding

proliferation of political parties attest to the

institutional malaise that permeates the whole social

body, urban as well as rural. In effect, there is a strong

tendency towards agglomeration of all kinds of

interests and confusion in the political statements of

these organisations of democratic governance. This is

manifest in their lack of autonomy in debates and

decision-making, as well as in their irregular capacity

to honour commitments, and lack of technical,

financial and human resources.

Caught between these extremes of single party rule and

party proliferation, the public response to the Malian

political system seems to oscillate between rejection

(boycott of the 1997 elections) and, since 2002, the

consensual politics of the then incumbent president.

Such erratic or “nomadic” behaviour on the part of

Mali’s political class lends the country’s rich political

sphere a distinctly opportunistic bias, instead of

leading it to harness a long-term economic and social

ideal borne out of the autonomous quality of human

resources. Such a weak disposition to reflect, propose

and act together in their mandate seriously undermines

the democratic opposition’s institutional worth in face

of the population of Mali, which, as a result, abstains

heavily from voting and thereby de-legitimises the

political leadership, which is seen as self-serving.

However, after three decades of single-party rule that

ended in 1991, Mali has seen a constitutional renewal

of civil activity, with the reinstatement of the multi-

party system, periodic free elections, freedom of the

press, the emergence of civil society organisations, the

annual Democratic Discussion Forum (EID), where

citizens interpellate government, the implementation of

administrative decentralisation in the 703 rural and

urban communes, the continuous progress of state

reform through the Institutional Development

Programme (PDI), and the official recognition of the

role of the private sector. Still, a major challenge

remains, which is to increase the scarce participation

in elections, particularly with regard to women and

youth, sectors that represent the great majority of the

population. In fact, the political consensus advocated

by the Presidency does not favour the consolidation of

a democratic culture.

Although Mali is perceived as an open democratic

society, two restrictions on freedom of speech have

thrown a shadow on the consolidation of the process.

Five journalists were arrested for having published an

article, deemed indecent, on a love affair whose

anonymous subject was supposedly President Amadou

Toumani Touré. And the same happened with the

anonymous author of a publication entitled “ATT-

cratie”, which described the unsavoury practices of the

President’s close relations.

The Djoliba Centre, a space for democratic

consultation in the form of conferences and debates, in

1997 opened a central and regional information

bureau to collect data about Malian perceptions and

improvement suggestions on ODA and its management.

So far, negative views far surpass the positive, ranging

from 63 to 43 percent, respectively. This is due to the

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11

fact that ODA results are mixed, contributing more

towards infrastructure building (schools, health centres

and roads) than to changing the prevalent way of

thinking with a view to a future of autonomous

national development for Mali (Djoliba Centre, 1997).

In order to improve the effectiveness of current aid

management, civil society actors demand concerted

dialogue and collegiate responsibility sharing, with a

view to bridging the communication gaps currently

existing in all stages – elaboration, planning,

implementation, monitoring and evaluation – of ODA

projects and programmes (CNCS, 2007, 2006; see

Betke, 2006). To this end, they recommend using the

dynamics of local self-management expected from the

territorial decentralisation (to the 703 rural and urban

communes), and the concomitant involvement of the

customary authorities (village and sub-division

leaders), so that ODA may reach its real beneficiaries.

Furthermore, they have submitted the idea of a unified

piece of legislation to tackle aid management, in the

shape of a code of conduct applicable to all parties

(donors, state and direct beneficiaries).

For its part, the EU has recently created an incitative

mechanism within the framework of the 10th

European Development Fund (EDF) that grants

African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries access

to supplementary funds in the order of 10 to 30

percent of their National Indicative Programme

(NIP). This is subject to five conditionalities, notably

related to governance. Mali’s governance profile, as

traced in 2006 by the European Commission, Canada,

Switzerland and the World Bank, is very critical of the

main weaknesses in the fields of human rights, suffrage

processes, the judiciary, corruption, institutional

capacity, management of public finances, the private

sector, national security, social governance, regional

integration and the quality of partnerships.

The lack of a strategic vision of global development,

which characterises the entirety of the Malian political

class, reduces the democratisation process to political

representation for profits. And, paradoxically, the

Malian citizen does not believe in the ballot’s sanction

(approximately 70 percent abstention in recent

elections), while he/she approves of the consensual

management of resources and conflicts, which justifies

a posteriori all acts of corruption and their residual

derivatives. Therefore, the traditional system of

political consensus, currently endorsed at the highest

level of statehood, favours a conception of hope and

unanimity in public life, which eats away at any

contrasting will to build an alternative political project

through debate and democratic criticism, all this in a

context of generalised pauperisation.

With the exception of a few recent pre-electoral

tendencies, the socio-cultural factors mentioned above

help to explain the lack of initiative of Malian state

actors in the elaboration of development strategies and

the general discouragement in the public sphere.

Reasons for this can be traced either to the local

culture’s strong attitude of avoidance, or to the side-

effects of the structural adjustment programmes begun

by the Bretton Wood institutions in the 1980s. The

latter have always had perverse consequences for

Malians and, in particular, the civil service, where one-

fifth of all civil servants lost their jobs.

The general tendency of dependence upon aid has

sustained a clientelistic mentality and behaviours

throughout decades of loss of political references,

impoverishment and intellectual bankruptcy that have

been naturally replaced by donor projects and

programmes, and IMF control over public expenditure

and finances. Such an obvious failure of economic

liberalisation and pluralist democratisation calls for

investment in the best human resources and

strengthening of capabilities in order to endow them

with the necessary means to reform a state that is

submerged in a quest to maximise ODA opportunities.

Paradoxically, donor countries are no longer concerned

with supporting the significantly strategic function of

training human resources and stimulating the

intellectual productivity of Malian higher education,

which is dilapidating rapidly in the globalised society of

knowledge.Yet, donors’ narrow vision focuses solely on

Education for All (EPT), as if the many pillars of

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12

education were mutually exclusive. However, it is only

the quality of all three pillars of the educational system

(primary education, professional and technical

education, and higher education) that will allow a

country to win the battle of human resources and,

therefore, the battle of development.

In view of the amplitude of reforms needed to build an

effective administration in Mali, donors’ difficulties in

aligning amongst themselves with respect to national

structures and procedures, and donors’ anxiousness to

rapidly disburse aid and obtain steadfast, visible

results, donors end up strongly influencing the balance

of ODA. This often skews any real perspective of

autonomous development, which would require long-

term investments based on a lasting political will

shared by the whole country.

Malian democracy is perceived to be infested with

patrimonial and clientelistic relations (that is, traffic of

influence and relations of dependency), which are

characterised by the building of social relations within

a political economy of corruption. Within the

framework of the serious fight against corruption in

Mali, in 1999 the World Bank was asked by the then

President to launch an anti-corruption programme

(World Bank, 2003). Sanctions and arrests were

implemented against high ranking state civil servants

and state company officials during the mandate of

Alpha Omar Konaré. In effect, the latest report of the

General Auditor’s Office estimated the volume of

embezzled state funds in the period 2002–2006 at

over 150 million euros.

At present, donors are harmonising towards a common

approach to tackle corruption. However, beyond the

classical instruments of public finance management

reform, a change in the mindset of civil society and the

private sector with regard to social engagement is

required.

Although corruption is a widespread societal

phenomenon in Mali, the justice sector, in particular, is

regarded by Malians as the most corrupt within the

public sphere, since it represents a citizen’s last resort.

Although the written laws are unanimously regarded as

modern, deeply contrasting legal practices are

accepted as legitimate by popular culture.

Actors and institutionsIn the first Mali Aid Review, 1997, civil society actors

expressed a negative opinion about the real impact of

ODA projects and programmes on living standards.

Superficial positive effects notwithstanding, ODA is

reproached for not paying enough attention to the

structuring of beneficiary groups with a view to

building autonomous development and management

capacities, such that collective facilities were

abandoned at the end of many projects and

programmes.

It must be noted that a sizeable portion of ODA

resources roll back into paying the costs of

international, national and local agencies that sustain

the development cooperation system. This can

sometimes turn it into a business affair, at the service

of those who invest in the humanitarian business.

Despite such a mixed balance,ODA is nevertheless seen

in a favourable light when the political conditions on

democratic, comprehensive and available access are

assured to its real beneficiaries, as is the case with

social sectors and the improvement of road

infrastructures.

Two parallel worlds emerge.The political class, whose

parties have a weak electoral representation of roughly

20 percent, and “civil society”, which is under

construction. Donors collaborate almost exclusively

with the executive, although some timid attempts are

made to encourage the strengthening of parliament

and civil society.

The National Assembly

Despite its sometimes significant interpellations with

the executive, the National Assembly is seen as weak in

its control function regarding the executive. The

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

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mechanisms of the Assembly’s Financial Committee

and others of defence of local interests need

improvement. Also, the configuration of political

parties and the President’s consensual leadership style

are not favourable to the progress of democratic

debate.

The National Assembly’s Financial Committee is

responsible for receiving, analysing and ratifying the

allocation of national and international budget

resources destined for the implementation of public

sectoral policies. However, it does not have the

autonomy to analyse, criticise or oppose the planning

or modalities of state, donor and credit budget

resources. And the Supreme Court’s support, in

particular from the Court of Auditors of the Supreme

Court, has most often been seen as unwelcome. At any

rate, in 2007 the Supreme Court elaborated for the

National Assembly the “Report on the 2005 Execution

of Financial Laws”.

Furthermore, the Malian parliament bears the sad

reputation of being interested mostly in raising its

members’ salaries, to the point of provoking the

Constitutional Court’s (Cour Constitutionnelle) recent

reaction, opposing such interests through a fin de non

recevoir (refusal to consider) ruling.

Civil society organisations (CSOs)

Malian CSOs can be classified into four levels: (1)

CSOs in local communities and villages, working with

foreign partners, and in constant contact with the

population; (2) national and international NGOs,

collaborating with CSOs and the populations in

development cooperation activities; (3) CSO-NGO

groups – such as CAFO, SECO, FENASCOM, etc. –

which implement development programmes in an

attempt to influence policies and programmes in favour

of the population; and, (4) federate and confederate-

style CSOs like CNSC, FECONG, etc. that intervene

exclusively at the political level. One must also note the

presence of international NGOs often grouped into

coordinative platforms, such as the Forum of European

NGOs in Mali, which currently consists of 36 NGOs.

CSOs try to fulfil several different, often contradictory,

functions simultaneously, such as providing services,

information, applying political pressure and delivering

critical studies. A debate is currently taking place to

better understand NGOs’ comparative advantages, in

order to respond to criticism directed at Bamako-

based organisations with regard to their weak rural

anchorage. This comprehends the need to ensure

democratic governance both within local NGOs and in

their umbrella organisations. For this, a code of

conduct is suggested. NGOs’ capacities of self-

governance in terms of representativeness and

legitimacy is a long process that is being contested

(FONGEM, 2007; FECONG, 2007a, 2007b).

Civil society is in search of a stance on the new aid

architecture, particularly within the Paris

Declaration’s international agenda, which it tends to

simplify to questions of global budget support and

sectoral budget support (FONGEM, 2007). It seems to

have difficulty in assimilating other elements of the

Declaration, such as the mechanism to measure mutual

responsibility.

Although the participative process of development of

the second CSLP did not bring about significant

improvements on the pitfalls of the first one,4 the

Malian actors involved recognise the benefits of the

political dialogue that took place between the

government and CSOs and the private sector. This

dialogue allowed, on the one hand, for grassroots voices

to reach the administration and, on the other, for

accountability to be reiterated as the natural obligation

of public administration under the rule of law (CNSC,

2007). CSOs are ready to debate and deepen political

dialogue with government and donors concerning ODA,

with the objective of participating in forthcoming

international meetings.

To compensate the negligible presence of CSOs in the

Paris Declaration, OECD/DAC has created the Civil

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4 The limitations that are pointed out concern representation,credibility and legitimacy of those chosen as “civil society” spokesmen,as well the form and significance of their participation. See: Kama,Cissoko., and Ramatou,Touré., 2005.

Society Consultative Group on Aid Effectiveness, with

the aim of enhancing consultation on this issue with

developing countries’ civil societies. At present, the

focal points of donors for civil society consultation

enhancement in Mali are the Canadian and French

Embassies. In order to coordinate the efficient

participation of Malian civil society in the international

debate about development assistance effectiveness

taking place in the Cotonou, Ottawa and Accra, a

steering committee has been created, made up of

several members and coordinated by FECONG. Nine

grassroots consultations with civil society actors and

representatives have taken place so far, within the

regions and cercles (regional subdivisions) therein.

Thus, in September 2007, a synthesis workshop was

held in Bamako. The results of this workshop were

presented to donors and the Government of Mali to

create a three-tiered dialogue (FECONG, 2007a,

2007b). According to CSOs, the challenges of the Paris

Declaration for ODA effectiveness in Mali centre to

two key issues: on the one hand, government and donor

commitment to actively discuss and debate with civil

society actors and representatives, in order to deepen

political dialogue; and, on the other, civil society’s

capacity to serve as a reliable and representative

interlocutor, acting as a counterweight to donors and

the state. Other strong recommendations are: the

reframing of ODA to include CSOs; the need for a more

proactive state, as opposed to a reactive stance that

responds only to foreign stimuli; greater conceptual

autonomy of the CSLP; and more dynamic and

competent participation of all civil society actors,

especially private sector executives.

The current state of Malian CSOs’ human, material

and financial resources denies them the necessary

political leverage, bargaining strength and

representation before donors and the state. Thus, they

demand a concerted and permanent capacity building

programme.

Reform of the civil service and

horizontal control systemsEach ministry has, in principle, one internal control

system – auditors that have autonomy to intervene in

horizontal, central, regional and local control systems

concerning their respective ministries. In practice,

these structures are regarded as “voies de garage”

(sidetracks) for unsuccessful civil servants. In this

sense, they lack institutional authority, and their

personnel are not willing to conduct thorough

investigations against their colleagues.

Besides the Prime Minister, there exists another

horizontal control system, the Contrôle Général des

Services Publics (Mali’s Executive Supreme Audit

Institution), which is the corresponding central

mechanism of the ministerial control system. It has

special control systems at its disposal, at the

presidential level. In a speech on 22 September 2007,

Mali’s Independence Day, the Head of State revealed,

in the spirit of reinforcing public resource

management transparency, that in the period 2002-

2007 he had received 722 reports from different

inspection bodies, of which 138 were likely to be tried

in court.

Within the autonomy of the Judiciary, the Supreme

Court’s Court of Auditors is the highest authority on

Mali’s accounts, comprehending control systems and

sanctions (collection, fines or prison sentences). In

order to strengthen this judicial body, the 1998 Treaty

of WAEMU recommends all eight countries to set up a

Court of Auditors. This has been done in Senegal,

Burkina Faso and Guinea-Bissau. Côte d’Ivoire, Niger

and Togo are in the process of doing so, while Mali and

Benin have delayed these procedures due to (or on the

pretext of) a need for constitutional revision. Here, it is

pertinent to remember that up until 1996 budget aid

revenues were not accounted for or certified by the

Court of Auditors of the Supreme Court, which also

ensures auditing of the different UN projects in Mali.

Furthermore, accountability and rendering of accounts

have not been examined within the judicial system in

Mali since 1960.

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On the other hand, the General Auditor is appointed by

the President of the Republic for a non-renewable

seven-year mandate. Due to its strong communication

skills and powers of enforcement, this control system

has gained increasing credibility with donors and the

public in general. Yet, contrary to the French-based

administrative system that prevails in Mali, the

General Auditor’s Office is modelled upon the

Canadian model.

Civil service reform is attached to the Institutional

Development Committee (CDI), in order for the

administration effectively to fulfil the expectations of

its beneficiaries, in keeping with the current trend of

increasing significance of citizenship, diversity of

opinions and good governance. CDI has a decennial

action plan (2006/2009) through the Institutional

Development Programme (PDI), financed mainly by

the European Union,The Netherlands and the UNDP.

Despite the current overlapping activities of all the

different oversight and auditing services, efforts are

being made to harmonise data – in particular, that of

the Central Directorates (of the Ministry of Economy

and Finance) of Budget, Treasury and Financial

Control.

Decentralisation

Gradually carried out by the Third Republic of Mali, on

the basis of a long-term mission, the effective

implementation of decentralisation reforms by means

of the development of 703 rural and urban communes

is, without doubt, Mali’s best example of donor-

assisted public policy. This is exemplified by the

National Agency for Investment in Local Government

(ANICT), which is responsible for receiving and

allocating investment subsidies to territorial

collectives, supplying local services, investing its own

resources, guaranteeing loans, and ensuring the equal

distribution of municipal budgets (Magassa, 1997).

ANICT has at its disposal a very important account of

central, regional and local transfer, managed by the

Territorial Collectives Investment Fund (FICT), which

allows it to ensure financial control with relatively

simple procedures.This account is fed by state budget

transfers, donor contributions and territorial

collectives’ contributions. Its foreign benefactors are:

the European Development Fund, the United Nations

Capital Development Fund, Agence Française de

Développement, Coopération Suisse, the Netherlands

Development Organisation (SNV), the German

Development Bank (KFW), the World Bank, Canada

and the African Development Bank.

Although decentralisation is one of Mali’s best

political references, the transfer of technical and

financial skills to territorial collectives has yet to

become a reality. Due to a diversity of local factors, in

the 2004 elections, which succeeded in obtaining the

highest participation rates of all consultations

organised in Mali, 40 percent, more than half of all

mayors, were not re-elected.

Main challenges to meetThere seem to be three disconnected worlds in Mali -

we might dub them theatre, bureaucracy and village.

The president is mostly interested in increasing the aid

influx and searches for immediate results in his relation

with the populace mostly through charitable, if not

paternalist practices, and sometimes with populist

characteristics. By setting up a parallel programme –

the PDES – a vision was presented that follows the

objectives of political marketing rather than those of

institution building. On the other hand, the very mode

of consensual politics, dialogue and the depiction of the

president as “father of the nation” is said to have

averted a series of social confrontations, one example

being the successful handling of the Tuareg uprising.

One might describe this style of political discourse as a

“theatre”.

Meanwhile in the busy offices of Bamako, donors

engage in sophisticated coordination mechanisms,

which is why one might call this area the

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“bureaucracy”.Thereby, on the one hand, initiative by

national actors is sometimes suffocated by blueprint

approaches and intellectual leadership in policy

formulation by the multitude of foreign consultants.

This is mirrored by the entrenched attitude of Malian

civil servants who, historically, have become used to

having the last word.

On the other hand, donors are not a monolithic block,

and they could be described as follows:There are those

who have a zero-tolerance and confrontational

approach to bad governance, corruption and the slow

pace of reform regarding gender equality.These donors

support the strengthening of oversight institutions or

rights-based reform programmes, often with added

civil-society windows in order to increase the demand

for reform. In contrast, others reject climbing “the

North side of the mountain” and advocate for a critical

engagement behind closed doors which is particularly

sensitive to maintain diplomatic etiquette. They are

skilled in situating a number of senior advisors in core

positions of government. A third set of donors refrain

from becoming politically involved. They often

formulate macro-economic recipes for the government

that, given the donor’s weight, are rather difficult to

decline, however. A fourth category situates itself by

avoiding government and working its way from the

bottom up. Thus, they score poorly in terms of

alignment with national systems. These donors work

with local administration and representatives, or

directly with bypassing structures of NGOs. The

smarter of these create linkages with national policies

and delivery structures that increasingly reach out

beyond Bamako. They have a significant training

component in all their programmes. Others just ignore

the state structures and subcontract non-state actors –

sometimes their own nationals rather than Malian

actors – to “get the job done”.

One of the most interesting developments in terms of

aid effectiveness is the latest efforts on division of

labour.These go beyond the Paris targets. Each donor

in Mali, led by the EC, strives “to do more in less

areas”, to define a workable division of labour at

sector level.A matrix has been designed to evaluate the

weight of each of the donor programmes in both the

sector and within its own portfolio (Pool 2007). As

foreseeable, it shows a significant dispersion and a

proliferation of actors in any one sector. But this is the

first time that this has become visible and so, as actors

strive towards a joint assistance strategy, it may be

resolved. It is a first assessment and a sensitive process

has begun among donors, not only to identify what they

do particularly well (comparative advantage) but also

where they are better than others (competitive

advantages).

Finally, there is the reality in the villages and rural

areas. The two above worlds – with distinct logics to

each of them – are disconnected from the daily lives of

Malians in the villages and urban neighbourhoods.

Although there has been a series of consultations and

information campaigns, these remain mainly symbolic.

There are a number of reasons for this. First, members

of National Assembly, who are voted for on a

geographic constituency basis with a first-past-the-

post rule, have not taken up the practice of

channelling the concerns of their constituencies to the

government and filtering down information on

government programmes and resulting entitlements.

In general, the oversight capacity of parliament,

particularly on budgetary processes is extremely

weak. Second, although consultation on the poverty

reduction strategy is held, the fact that there is a poor

connection between planning and budgeting makes

these spaces rather meaningless in terms of impact,

although they might be useful in terms of information.

Third, there are many consultations, participatory

workshops and deliberative exercises.The proliferation

of actors, be it governmental agencies, NGOs or

donors, together with the extremely poor quality of

data, makes it difficult for people to understand the

system. It is also worth mentioning that, whilst

government data is poor, most donors also lack a

communication strategy with the general public to

present what they are doing and how much they have

spent. Fourth, NGOs claim to represent local groups

and act as a transmission belt for information from

the centre to the periphery. However, the system of

self-governance of the sector, the issues of

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

17

questionable representation and legitimacy, the

distortion by external funding and at times

undemocratic internal structures raise doubts over

whether NGOs can claim this role of neutral broker.

All in all, the very set-up of diffuse communication

and access to solid information impedes the shift of

Malian people from subjects that gratefully receive

hand-outs to citizens that monitor their entitlements.

There are a number of situations where the presence of

donors and their actions interact with the political

system and culture of Mali. Having lived some fifteen

years under democratic rule, the practice of holding

government to account is still poorly developed and

accountability is externalised to donors as opposed to

being directed towards citizens. The methodological

framework of this study (Meyer/Schulz 2007) calls for

inquiry into the interaction of donors with the

“oversight triangle” – parliaments, horizontal control

by administration, and civil society. In Mali a fourth

dimension – the de-concentration of power to federal

entities – should also be considered.

Donors are active in supporting these oversight and

accountability mechanisms. A senior civil servant in the

Section de Compte de la Cour Supreme explained that

there would be little chance of his organisation

remaining active without the consistent support of

donors. A particular feature is the newly established

Bureau of the Verificateur General.This office shall fill

gaps in oversight, and has published a report that drew

significant attention. However, its institutional position,

its legal bases and its relation to the Section de

Compte du Cour Supreme is contested. This becomes

particularly relevant when donors prop up this entity

significantly as opposed to others.

Although there is little direct support in the

development of political parties, there are some efforts

to strengthen the role of Parliament, such as from the

UNDP, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty

Democracy (NIMD), the US American National

Democratic Institute (NDI) and the German Friedrich-

Ebert-Stiftung (FES). The latter, Friedrich-Ebert-

Stiftung, has just published a handbook for Parliament

(FES 2007). These programmes for democracy

promotion are, however, poorly linked to the

“standard” interventions aiming at poverty reduction

and institution building.

The “political society” is perhaps the least developed in

terms of donor assistance and feasible instruments. In

contrast, civil society is well funded.The current debate

on how NGOs could govern their sectors more

democratically has already been mentioned. This goes

along with a debate on the comparative advantages of

NGOs. More and more, they focus on advocacy and

oversight, as opposed to service delivery, which still

remains the largest area of activity. Donors follow this

trend. The European Union has set up a flexible

programme and funding mechanisms for civil society

organisations dubbed ARIANE and aims to foster

citizens' knowledge and participation in local

governance.

Decentralisation adds a fourth dimension of control to

the “oversight triangle”. If donors were to decide

between the triangle and decentralisation as the most

effective accountability mechanism, there are good

reasons to argue against the triangle.These include the

poor effectiveness of administrative controls, the

potential politicisation of parliamentary control and

the questionable legitimacy of civil society.This is why

many donors see in decentralisation the best way to

bring power to the people (Betke 2006). However,

there is no trade-off between the separation of powers

and oversight at the national level, on the one hand,

and the checks and balances within a federal system,

on the other. More and more, however, donors

understand that noone can do everything and a division

of labour emerges in this field, too.

Donors in Mali may contribute significantly to the lack

of transparency of public institutions by their very

mode of operation. The Paris Declaration Monitoring

Exercise 2006 reports that aid is insufficiently

captured by country systems and that donors have a

significant number of bypass structures via PIUs

(OECD 2007). The Public Financial Accountability

Assessment 2007 rates donor behaviour in terms of

Working Paper 50

18

predictability of aid flows with the lowest possible

score (PEFA 2007). Donors contribute to the

unpredictability of aid and its inclusion in national

budget planning and reporting mechanisms. The

multiple aid coordination structures of the Malian

government and the absence of a single window for aid

relations makes accountability of aid elusive. All these

factors contribute to poor transparency of the aid

flows that the Malian government receives.

In general, citizen oversight, be it via parliament or via

critical civil society, depends heavily upon the fact that

public action is clearly defined and predictable. Donors

impede this by multiplying programmes for service

provision and leaving government officials in the dark

in terms of what financial means they can expect in

order to implement their strategies. Thus government

action becomes arbitrary and entitlements are unclear

because they are neither institutionally located nor can

they be sustainably budgeted for. An unintended side-

effect of aid is that citizens cannot know what they can

expect from the state. Signs of change are noticeable

in reactions to the aid modality of budget support.

Although only 10 percent of all aid is given in direct

budget support, NGOs start to question their role as

they are both alarmed by decreasing funds for

activities usually implemented by them and also

concerned about public integrity and effectiveness

(FONGEM 2007).

There is donor involvement in strengthening the

oversight functions, the checks and balances of the

democratic system in Mali. There are, however, two

shortcomings:

• First, the programmes of institutional strengthening

of control functions are not interrelated.There is no

connection of civil society programmes with systems

of administrative oversight. NGOs are badly equipped

to understand the constitutional details of the

horizontal controls, just as most of the reports of the

Cour de Compte are inaccessible both literally and in

terms of presentation. One exception is the newly

instated office of the Verificateur General, who does

have a communications strategy. However, many

interviewees remarked that its function is rather

exotic in the Malian system. Similarly, there is no

connection between Parliament and the other sides

of the triangle. Parliament and civil society seem to

be worlds apart. And the capacities of

parliamentarians to analyse the findings of

administrative oversight bodies is severely limited.

That means that each donor that focuses on one of

the sides does not take into account the other two

and what they could potentially profit from each

other.

• The second shortcoming is the lack of connection

between “regular aid programming”and support for

the functioning of oversight functions. Most sector

programmes do not take into account the linkages of

public services and political involvement of citizens

beyond “participation” as beneficiaries. Whilst a

technically highly sophisticated Public Expenditure

and Financial Accountability Assessment is

conducted, this focuses particularly on the soundness

of the executive, without taking into consideration

concrete openings for parliament and civil society.

Technical experts devise large projects, and an

assessment of the political effects is rarely

undertaken. On the other hand, a number of experts

in democracy promotion have only weak relations

with their colleagues in the poverty reduction branch.

Implications fordonorsMali seems to be on the threshold of a breakthrough to

a new aid relationship, that in itself might shed more

light on the contract between the Malian government

and the people. Whereas the first CSLP was imposed,

the second generated more debate. The Paris

Declaration and the consequential debate on division of

labour is leading to a locally shared set of standards

for good donorship.This goes along with governmental

efforts to further improve governance and structure

key functions of state capacities such as the civil

service, financial management, and service provision,

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

19

together with the devolution of powers to decentralised

entities. A device for mutually monitoring the

commitments of both donors and the Malian

administration is being proposed. The disjunction

between planning rhetoric, on the one hand, and

budgeting and implementation realities, on the other,

seems to diminish gradually. Although the quality of

data remains poor and is not yet a focus for public

debate, statistics institutions are being reinforced and

this should make development results measurable on

population level. Furthermore, NGOs have started

debating their comparative roles and their internal

governance. They increasingly request access to

information and admission to deliberative spaces.Since

the 2007 elections parliament seems to have

graduated from being a resonance box for the

President and has become a genuine opposition.

Mechanisms of oversight such as the Section de

Compte, the Verificateur General and internal controls

are getting more effective and professional.

In this light some adaptations in donor practices in

Mali are necessary. What is needed are practices,

analyses and skills that put the state and its capacities

at the centre, as opposed to simply demanding outward

accountability towards donors through

conditionalities, and bypassing the state through

project-based support. Some of the considerations

detailed below could make donors more sensitive to the

political dimension of the harmonisation agenda.

Political dialogue

As mentioned above, Mali shows rather weak

leadership in policy formulation, but settles in what we

have called a “subversive ownership” with the

respective political gains. On the other hand, the donor

side is far from monolithic in its approach to both the

partnership dimension and the policies they propose.

These are the circumstances that describe the power

relations between government and donors when

negotiating aid. Lately, reactions to the Paris

Declaration, stock tacking, standard setting and

monitoring, have fostered a dialogue based on mutually

negotiated standards, as opposed to bilateral deals.

This will be reinforced even more by the drafting of the

joint assistance strategy (SCAP). Furthermore, the

newly promoted division of labour might have an

impact on political dialogue. When the government is

called to take the lead in defining comparative

advantages and sector leadership of donors, its

position might shift slightly from that of a recipient of

aid to that of a chooser of assistance. At the same time

donors have chosen to establish conditionalities in a

more transparent manner, be it in the disbursement

triggers of the World Bank Poverty Reduction Growth

Facility, the European Governance Incentive Tranche of

the 10th FED or the US Millennium Challenge

Account.

Correspondingly, there is significant effort in Mali to

include non-governmental organisations in debate over

the application of the Paris Declaration principles.

NGOs seem to be torn between a protective stance,

fearing the loss of established domains of their

operations, and a recent eagerness to move into new

roles of advocacy and monitoring of public policies.

They openly debate the preconditions for that shift,

namely by setting themselves standards for good

internal governance and the self-regulation of the

sector.There is awareness of the need for new analytical

skills and capacities to communicate and influence.

In the light of this new aid relationship, donors are

called upon to reflect on the very nature of political

engagement with partner countries. The new aid

modalities that are promoted by the Paris Declaration

– although not taken on by all donors – have changed

the aid relationship and have given far more

prominence to dialogue. Whilst more and more

information on aid programming is available, the

missing link now is the establishment of a process

measuring mutual accountability. In other African

countries there are examples of independent

stocktaking that have triggered the debate on the very

meaning of the aid relationship, including

conditionality. Such a mechanism in Mali could foster

agreements on locally defined standards of both good

donorship and good ownership. This should both be

sequenced with annual budgetary cycles and tackle one

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20

or two particular issues more specifically each year.

Then donors will see themselves forced to position

themselves on a continuum between nondisclosure and

transparency. They might reduce their reporting to

mere technical details to the Ministry of Finance, enter

into a broader dialogue with the whole of government,

or even expose their contributions and approaches to

civil society. Only the latter will support the government

in developing a “democratic ownership” of aid policies.

Key recommendations:

• Support setting up the mechanism for evaluating

mutual accountability, as proposed in the Paris

Declaration.

• Disclose conditionalities and disbursement triggers

to civil society and parliament.

• Support civil society in analysing and criticising the

process and technical content of the aid relationship.

Analytical capacities

The need to expand the time horizon, towards a

political economy analysis beyond the three-year

spending cycles, has been mentioned. The increasing

disbursement pressure, and some donors’ dispersion

amongst too many sectors and projects, impedes

developing the much-needed long-term outlook.

Contracting out analyses to short-term consultants

frequently does not ensure the internalisation of

knowledge in the agencies. High staff turnover adds to

the problem. Furthermore, although there are many

informal instances of information sharing, in the donor

community there is little formal sharing of country

analyses that would meet academic standards. Beyond

these well-known obstacles, two challenges are

paramount in Mali.

First, the donor presence potentially suffocates the

development of an independent academic sector in

Mali. A particular impact on the democratic culture is

the distortion of the academic landscape when donors

monopolise most of the experts in activities like

programme management and evaluations.This is being

mirrored by the lack of independent Malian research

institutions (which cannot agglomerate competent

individuals into lasting organisations). The Malian

academic landscape consists of a huge number of

consultants, rather than competent institutions. Whilst

donors have taken the step from projects to policies,

this has not yet had any repercussion on the

organisation of knowledge. Sectors are “swapped” and

funds are merged, but donors have not set up joint

funds to foster the creation and institutional

development of independent institutes geared towards

analysing public policies, fiscal issues and economic

development. Leadership in the production of truth

seems to be among the hardest things for donors to

give up. Protection of national academics prevails and

little joint analysis is done.

Second, whilst decentralising analysis to the country

offices is urgently needed, there are more and more

issues that have to be studied taking account of

globalisation. Global interdependencies increasingly

seem to wrest national policies from the control of

government as they are shifted into spheres of global

governance. In Mali both government and critical civil

society are starting to monitor the impacts of

international regimes of trade, migration, climate

change, security and others. In the OECD countries,

policy coherence – the harmonisation of non-aid policy

objectives with poverty reduction goals – is best

achieved in the headquarters of donors. There, inter-

ministerial dialogue can foster the mitigation of

adverse impacts on the Malian people of policies like

security, migration and trade.

At the same time, it becomes increasingly important to

assess the impact of these policies on the ground. In

Mali, three areas are of primary importance: security,

namely the perception of Mali as a frontline state in the

war on terror; migration, both as a source and a transit

country, and trade, particularly agricultural products

but also mineral resources. For example, the linkages

between migration and development are becoming

increasingly obvious.These are often reduced to purely

economic issues, however. The impact of Malian

migrant communities on political development is as

significant as it is unexamined. Issues like these can

only partly be perceived at the country-office level, and

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

21

a nexus with the political, social and economic realities

“at home” is needed in the donor countries. That

means that representatives of aid agencies and

diplomatic representations not only have to implement

aid programmes, but also play a role in the national

dialogue at home. Whilst “working forwards” into the

countries, they have to start “working backwards”,

informing their ministries of the effects of non-aid

policies and providing them with evidence to convince

their colleagues in the interior and defence ministries

and their colleagues in the European trade

department. This is a new mandate that expands the

scope of analysis significantly.

Key recommendations:

• Equip country offices to conduct political economy

analyses on the collateral effects of aid and long-

term political trajectories.

• Devise financing instruments and technical

assistance for the institutional development of

Malian research institutes that adhere to standards

of academic rigour and political independence.

• Strengthen country offices to monitor the impact of

non-aid policies of their home countries on Malian

development, particularly regarding the poor, and

provide evidence for the inter-ministerial dialogue at

home. Communicate with Malian civil society,

academics and politicians in order to assess and

expose welfare-relevant spheres beyond the reach of

sovereign regulation.

• Analyse impact of migrant communities on political

development.

Choice of instruments

Within civil society, the instrument of budget support in

particular has generated an increased debate on the

role of the state and thereby has drawn attention

towards mechanisms of participation and democratic

oversight.The “dance around the budget” promoted by

this modality reemphasises questions over access to

information and hard data for citizens, control by

parliament, horizontal checks both internally and by

institutions, such as the Section de Comptes and the

Verificateur General, as well as accountability. Whilst

budget support seems to be an important channel, a

mix of instruments appears necessary. That does not

mean that efforts should be spread as broadly as

possible.The division of labour promoted by the “cadre

de coordination” and its secretariat, the “Pool

Technique”, promotes a focus with more weight in less

sectors.

There is however the danger that by focussing on only

one instrument, donors shut themselves off from access

to experiences which are important to inform their own

policy development. An integration of various

instruments within the same sector could ensure that

bridges are built between disconnected worlds.

Whereas budget support could “buy a seat at the

table” and ensure participation at high-level fora,

technical assistance and capacity building could

provide insight. Project approaches – more likely

through strengthening citizens to demand better

services, than by providing these through “bypassing

structures” – would ensure the connection with

grassroots and citizens’ perspectives. This has to be

reflected in the skills set, personalities and the attitudes

of donor staff. It is a major effort to integrate the

diversity of experiences and professional profiles – and

personalities – that such an integrated mix of

instruments comes with. In other words, it is important

that the head of the country office understands how to

foster a productive dialogue between the political

advisor, the minister and the manager of a civil society

programme, in order to triangulate their respective

realities.

In general, donors are advised to contemplate the

thresholds for engaging at all. Size matters. The new

“division of labour” matrix not only displays the

weight a specific project has within the portfolio of the

donors, but also its weight within the sector, as

compared to that of the other players. In this light,

donors that contribute to less than, say, 20 percent

within the sector should consider withdrawing or a

reshuffle. Additionally, the whole coordination

apparatus demands a significant core investment. At

least one senior staff member is needed in-country to

follow up on all the coordination and harmonisation

Working Paper 50

22

tasks. Delegated cooperation might solve some of these

issues. An example is the successful delegation between

Norway and Sweden: Sweden “doing” Mali, and

Norway, Malawi. The dynamic of donor-government

dialogue and the (to be developed) mutual

accountability mechanism will soon trigger a dynamic

of convincing donors to further focus, be it through

reasoning or outright blaming and shaming.

Key recommendations:

• Fully engage in the current debate on division of

labour and identify comparative advantages. Focus

assistance on some key sectors.

• Assess the viability of a mix of instruments within

one sector. Strive for a cross-disciplinary approach

within the country office.

Institutional set-up

With the Paris Declaration, ownership is supposed to

move from the North to the countries that receive aid.

Mali has long been a test case rather than a leader in

new coordination structures. Blueprints for

development had been devised in Paris, Washington,

Brussels and elsewhere outside Mali. Lately a new

dynamic has emerged in Mali, which makes the

presence of senior decision-makers in Bamako even

more necessary. Decentralisation to country offices is a

much needed requirement in order to join the emerging

coordination structures in-country. These range from

joint analyses, to delegated cooperation, policy

dialogue over budget support and the negotiations

regarding the joint strategy and the division of labour.

Decentralisation could also provide for bridging some

of the gaps mentioned – between the high-level policy

circles of aid programming and rural realities, between

civil society and political society, and between the

constituencies that promote democracy and those that

foster development. Therefore the heads of country

offices have to have a mandate to flexibly negotiate

with local counterparts and other donors, as well as to

integrate the parts and instruments of their own

programmes.This is not yet the case for all, but there

are interesting examples including the significant

delegation of decision-making in Canadian cooperation

to very flexible instruments of aid programming in

German cooperation.

Regionalisation is another feature. Monetary integration

within UEMOA and political integration within

ECOWAS and the African Union is starting to play a role

in policy development and the monitoring of governance

standards.More and more,regional benchmarking allows

for learning of good practices. Democratic developments

– similar to conflict and economic destabilisation – tend

to spill over, driven by radio broadcasts and migration.

This trend has to be followed by the regional organisation

of aid programmes.The short-sighted “partner-country”

view has to be complemented by a regional strategy.That

means being present and supporting the regional

mechanisms, both officially by being represented at

regional organisations’ level, and also by taking part in

regional learning exercises, often facilitated multilaterally

by OECD or UNDP, and civil society networks.

Key recommendations:

• Delegate decision making to country offices.

• Adapt planning to administrative (budgetary) and

political (electoral) cycles.

• Provide for linkages with regional initiatives and

institutions.

Human resources

The Paris Declaration and the general trends in

development policy have changed the staff profile of

development workers.The shift towards the policy level

has called for more macro-economic expertise and

general governance knowledge. Working more and

more on the policy level, some interviewees complained

about the lack of contact they maintain with the actual

beneficiaries in Mali. A whole new set of dialogue skills

and the readiness to engage in often cumbersome

coordination processes is needed. Staff incentives have

to reward engagement in the construction of the new

aid architecture. As mentioned, the pieces of the puzzle

are on the table, but they have to be put together and

this will be a laborious day-by-day process. Only then

will the “spirit of Paris” be set free, beyond the

achievements of the technical markers. This spirit

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

23

would necessarily include the redirection of

accountability from the donor-partner country

relationship to a citizen-state contract. To that end,

committed staff is a key precondition. Fostering an

attitude of seeing the big picture, of mingling open-

mindedly with other donors and of contributing to the

creation of sustainable and just institutions, will most

probably not be achieved through a bureaucratic

management-by-objectives approach. Instead, an

organisational culture that encourages considering the

collateral effects of aid on the democratic system of

the recipient country is needed.

Key recommendations:

• Assess coordination workload of in-country staff and

integrate relationship building into staff incentive

structures.

• Generate learning spaces, eg. via participatory

evaluations, to overcome technocratic approaches

and foster strategic forward looking. Maintain

equilibrium between management by organisational

culture and management by objectives.

• Balance staff rotation with long-term postings.

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synthèse des concertations régionales et

communales”, rapport préparé par Oulématou

Sow Dembele, Souleymane Bocum, Hallassy

Sibide, August 2006, Bamako.

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contribution de la société civile a la revue

annuelle du CSCRP - Rapport Final"; Hallassy

Sidibe, Siriman Sakho, Zima Jean Diallo;

February 2007.

Colombo, Enrico (2006): “Appui à

l’harmonisation de l’aide au Mali - Matrice des

principaux partenaires techniques et financiers

du Mali”, Commissionné par le Ministère des

Affaires Etrangères Et de la Coopération

Internationale et la Délégation de la

Commission Européenne, Bamako, March

2006.

European Commission (2006c): “Projet

République Du Mali: Appui et Renforcement des

Initiatives des Acteurs Non Etatiques”

(ARIANE) - dispositions techniques et

administratives d’exécution (D.T.A)

www.ariane-ml.org

FECONG (2007a): Rapport général de synthèse

des ateliers régionaux sur la Déclaration de

Paris et l’efficacité de l’aide, par Commission

d’organisation de la consultation nationale de la

société civile sur l’efficacité de l’aide publique

au développment, Bamako.

FECONG (2007b): Rapport national des

consultations de la société civile sur la

Déclaration de Paris et l’efficacité de l’aide,

présentation ppt, par Commission

Working Paper 50

24

d’organisation de la consultation nationale de la

société civile sur l’efficacité de l’aide publique

au développement, Bamako.

FES – Friedrich Ebert Stiftung: “Parliamentary

handbook for Malian members of Parliament”;

(forthcoming).

FONGEM (2007): “Efficacité de l’Aide Budgétaire

et de l’Implication sur les Acteurs dans le Cadre

de la Décentralisation et du Développement Local

au Mali”, GIRAD-Afrique, Bamako, July 2007.

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“Strengthening domestic accountability in Mali

by integrating the poverty reduction strategy

and the budget”, Eschborn

http:/ /www2.gtz.de/dokumente/bib/07-

0522.pdf

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Strategy Framework (2002-2006)”, May,

2002.

Government of Mali (2003): “Rapport sur la

réforme de l’aide au Mali : Coordination,

efficacité de l’aide extérieure et réduction de la

pauvreté”, October 2003.

Government of Mali (2005a): [Presidency of the

Republic, Cooperation and Development

Mission] “Mesure pour améliorer la

coordination et l’harmonisation de l’aide

extérieure au Mali”, July 2005.

Government of Mali (2005b): “Plan d’Action

Gouvernemental sur l’Amélioration /

Modernisation de la Gestion des Finances

Publiques PAGAM”.

Government of Mali (2006a):“Growth and Poverty

Reduction Strategy Paper” (CSCRP) (2007-

2011), December, 2006.

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national d’actions sur l’efficacité de l’aide au

développement Déclaration de Paris 2007 –

2009”.

Magassa, Hamidou (1978), “Papa Commandant a

jeté un grand filet devant nous”, Ed. F. Maspéro,

Paris.

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décentraliser: Un dilemme au Mali”,

Alternatives Sud, Vol IV/3 ; pp117-126.

Magassa, Hamidou (1998): “L’état, la démocratie

et la solidarité – suivi de ‘la grandeur d’âme’”,

dans: L’Afrique face au défi humanitaire,

Paris/Bamako (Présence Africaine).

Meyer, Stefan & Nils-Sjard Schulz (2007):“Donor

Harmonisation: Between effectiveness and

democratisation – Analytical framework and

methodology for country case studies”. October

2007; www.fride.org/publication/273/

OECD / Canadian Embassy to Mali (2001):

“Rapport d’évaluation du processus de réforme

de l’aide au Mali”(1999-2001),December 2001.

OECD/DAC (2005): Paris Declaration on Aid

Effectiveness, March 2005.

OECD/DAC (2006a): “Paris Declaration

Monitoring Report – Final Draft”, Paris, 18

October 2006.

OECD/DAC (2007):2006 “Survey on Monitoring the

Paris Declaration” - Country Chapter Mali, Paris,

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/62/12/38984552.pdf

UNDP/OECD (DCD/Club du Sahel) 1999:

“Réformer les systèmes d’aide : le cas du

Mali”, Paris/Bamako, 1999.

PEFA (2007): "Mali Rapport PEFA - Public

Expenditure and Financial Accountability",

Bamako, 2007.

Pool Technique (2007): “Matrice Financière de

donateurs - Rapport Intermédiaire

Provisionnelle”, Bamako, June 2007.

Pool Technique (2007b): “Projet De Feuille De

Route - mise en œuvre des engagements des

PTF dans le cadre du plan d’action efficacité de

l’aide”; June 2007.

Touré, Amadou Toumani 2007: “Projet pour le

Développement Economique et Social, Un

meilleur avenir pour les Maliens à l’horizon

2012, Visions et Actions, ” March 2007.

Vérificateur Général du Mali, 2007: Rapport

2006, Bamako www.bvg-mali.org

World Bank (2003): “Recommandations

visant a renforcer le programme anti-

corruption”, rapport 37927,

http://go.worldbank.org/RKHQJH3YC0

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World Bank Support to Capacity Building in

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

25

Africa:The Case of Mali”, Report No.: 32908,

Washington.

World Bank (2006a): “Aid Effectiveness Profile:

Mali 2006”;

http://go.worldbank.org/MR5I91FSP0

World Bank (2006c):“Beyond the numbers – PRS

monitoring” – Chapter 3: Mali, Washington.

World Bank (2007a): “Public Expenditure and

Financial Accountability – Rapport Mali”,

Bamako, Washington.

Working Paper 50

26

The Impact of Aid Policies on domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Case Study IV Hamidou Magassa and Stefan Meyer

27

WORKING PAPERS50 The Impact of Aid Policies on Domestic Democratisation Processes: The Case of Mali. Donor

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an initiative of Shlomo Ben-Ami, November 2004

WORKING PAPERS

www.fride.orgGoya, 5-7, Pasaje 2º. 28001 Madrid – SPAIN. Tel.: +34 912 44 47 40 – Fax: +34 912 44 47 41. Email: fride@fride.org

Since 1999, Mali has been a laboratory for aid harmonisation. It has been more a

testing ground than a leading actor. Many coordination initiatives have failed, and

high hopes are put on the new structures arising from the local adaptation of the

Paris Declaration. Mali brings together the formal features that often trigger an

influx of aid: democratic governance and high poverty rates.

This report exposes three unconnected worlds, labelling them “theatre”,

“bureaucracy” and “village”. The presidential discourse – “the theatre” – is both

useful in attracting aid and serving electoral purposes of political marketing. It does

not, however, concern itself with the measurability of action and does not yet

effectively take on the role of coordinator between implementing ministries. The

donors – “the bureaucracy” – are busy inventing coordination structures and

programmes for service delivery and institution building. Bearing the pressure of

disbursement and the costs of coordination, they mostly work with the executive and

are deeply immersed in the core functions of statehood, such as financial

management, public services and decentralisation. They remain rather shy when it

comes to domestic politics that go beyond Western blueprints of “civil society”,

however. The third arena – “the village” – remains disconnected from the above

worlds. Decentralisation has not yet reached the areas beyond Bamako and the main

regional cities.

The development policies seem to be dictated by donors. However, on a second level,

when it comes to implementation, Malian actors reinterpret the guidelines, thus

establishing a kind of “subversive ownership”.