Contrasting approaches for water policy development in Tunisia and Sri Lanka : lessons learned from USAID experience

The paper reviews these two approaches -- taken by the Rural Potable Water Institutions project (6640377) in Tunisia and the Irrigation Management Policy support activity (under project 3980289) in Sri Lanka, to (1) assess their effectiveness in helping cooperating countries to formulate and implement policy; (2) determine their adaptability to other countries; and (3) identify the role USAID Missions can reasonably play in policy reform. The paper also discusses ways that USAID Missions can effectively use technical assistance for policy formulation and also tailor their own efforts to local conditions, including the style and operational procedures of the cooperating countries. Finally, the authors present lessons learned from both experiences, including the following: (1) Successful policy change tends to be evolutionary, not revolutionary. (2) Leadership continuity is more important for policy change than is charismatic leadership. (3) Minimizing the number of institutions affected by a policy change is a critical element of any policy formulation process. (4) Major policy change must not be based on generalities but on solid field data and analysis. The more complicated the change, the more important are reliable data and high-quality analysis. (5) The distinction between top-down and bottom-up approaches to policy formulation is an artificial one. Successful policy change requires support and commitment at both grassroots and senior policy levels. (6) A specific policy change process should never be used as the occasion to address other peripheral or unrelated problems.