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Strengthening Ownership and Leadership is still the Main Challenge

Program-Based Approaches have not yet solved the problem of poor ownership and leadership within national public authorities

The aid industry is looking more and more at larger program-based approaches for aid delivery whether they are called Sector Wide Approaches (SWAp), Sector Programmes, Facility Programmes or just Programme(1).  This article argues that “we” i.e. the donors, the Managing Contractors, NGOs, aid practitioners, etc. are still far from developing sufficient and adequate capacity in recipient institutions to take ownership and perform leadership of these programmes.

Ownership and leadership are the key elements to appropriate output delivery, long-term development impact and sustainability. The process of ensuring and developing capacity for ownership and leadership needs to commence from the very beginning of the programme identification phase.

A Program-Base Approach

A Program-Based Approach is about strengthening, through sector budget support, a National Sector Authority, typically a Ministry, to design, manage and implement a National Sector Development Plan or Strategy. This approach is based on the underlying principles of the Paris Declaration(2) including strengthening ownership, managing for development results, and alignment with national systems and procedures. Program-Based Approaches are often being criticized for being centralized policy systems, disrupting devolution and neglecting vulnerable population groups. There is certainly some truth in these harsh statements, but there are also some explanations to this, for example poor ownership leading to poor management of other than centralized activities only benefiting a core group of stakeholders.

My experience working with sector programming approaches since the early 1990s, mostly in Latin America and Africa, is that there exist a major ’capacity gap’ in both the design and implementation phases, often disrupting the success of many programs. This capacity gap is often expressed in lack of ownership and leadership leading to poor execution of budgets. This subsequently results in reduced output delivery, perceptions of centralization and neglect of local target groups. The challenge faced is to find the means to fill the “gap” and provide sustainable capacity development.

Ownership should be build up – not handed over!

“…. but Mr. Jensen, how can I approve this budget and these activities? – the money comes from a donor and I can’t be responsible for that …..” - Quote from a relatively high level manager in the Ministry of Environment in Bolivia, purportedly responsible for parts of an environment sector program supported by a donor agency.

I was met with this statement when we did the first annual budgetary and activity planning in the start-up process of a donor supported environment sector programme in Bolivia.

It had taken the donor and the Ministry of Environment two and half years to plan, prepare and approve this sector program. This is not an unusual timeframe, including problem identification, studies and analyses, design, feasibility assessment, appraisal to final government approval and tendering. My colleague, the above-mentioned manager in the Ministry, had no knowledge of donor program modalities, nor had he been part of the design process – he had no ownership feeling and therefore was reluctant to take the leadership role for what we were supposed to implement(3).

The design process had followed all the steps of the project cycle, see illustration below, and the process took two and half years and each step, with a declining involvement of stakeholders, resulting in a diminishing sense of ownership.

When the day came and the program was launched with a Managing Contractor working alongside the Ministry of Environment, the sense of ownership of the program was within a handful of very high-level government representative. The Head’s of Department and middle level managers in the Ministry, now responsible for the execution of the program, had very little understanding of donor program modalities and procedures. They did have fair understanding of the agreed sector strategy and the five technical components to be supported financially by the donor, but very limited knowledge and ownership of other national priorities supporting the Sector Strategy, including, for example, the overarching Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme.

Lack of ownership = lack of leadership

Ownership was poor and, naturally, this impacted on leadership, which became distorted by decision makers too afraid to take responsibility for the execution of donor funded activities. Programme ownership at local levels, including communities and private sector, who in the design where supposed to be key players in achieving the program goal and objectives, had vanished and a process of awareness and consensus raising was required. The capacity development process at the local level was suddenly focused on re-building ownership and establishing leadership for programmed activities – all stated pre-conditions in the program design - instead of implementing designed activities.

It took the Managing Contractor more than a year to restore and establish confidence and ownership to the program modality. The decision making capability remained disrupted throughout the program partly due to fear of making wrong decisions with donor money. 

Building ownership is part of Capacity Development

Developing capacity is about creating a learning environment where politicians and managers at both national and local levels, civil servants, civil society, and other beneficiaries of, for example, a Program-Based Approach, interact and stay focused on delivering appropriate outputs as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Capacity development starts at the identification and design phase, bringing in individuals and organisations who understand their present capacity level, what the problems are, what the resources available to solve these problems are, who the stakeholders and beneficiaries are, and how they will influence the capacity development process of the sector.

International donors, including AusAID, are evaluating the tendering of design phases before actual implementation. This provides a window of opportunity for early capacity development. The challenge is to ensure that the preparation for the design phase is owned and managed by national authorities providing sufficient time for learning and reflection.

Handing over ownership to civil servants after a pre-design or design phase is not the answer to more sustainable programs. A phased approach, incorporating capacity development activities on ownership and leadership - in pre-design and design phases - will enhance and maintain ownership, strengthen leadership and facilitate long-term sustainability.

Jorgen Jensen, Manager

jjensen@hassall.com.au

Jorgen has been Team Leader for an Environment Sector Program Component in Bolivia for 3½ years and has worked as institutional development advisor for donors on sector and regional programme design and review missions. He joined HAI in 2006 and leads the Development Impact Group (DIG).  For further information on DIG visit http://www.hassall.com.au/international/DevelopmentImpactGroup.html

(1) Hereinafter called “Program-based Approach”

(2) Paris Declaration: OECD 2005 www.oecd.org/dac 

(3) Ownership is here measured by: the capability to take responsibility of what is owned including own development (OECD, Paris Declaration modified by the author)