Micro-macro connection in country development strategies : a review of social and institutional analysis in Africa Bureau CDSS"s and action plans

It includes an examination of PPC and Africa Bureau requirements for attention to social and institutional issues in the preparation of these planning documents as portrayed in Guidance for FY 1988 through 1990. A list of the documents reviewed is found in Annex 1. The following is a synopsis of the major findings. (1) PPC guidance for FY 1990 CDSS"s and Action Plans, and Africa Bureau guidance for 1988-91 Action Plans cover many of the social and institutional concerns contained in the language of the Continuing Resolution regarding U.S. development assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa. (2) The guidance requirements for a specific monitoring and eveluation section in CDSS"s with plans for collecting gender-disaggregated baseline data as program progress indicators, precedes the possible passage of the African Famine Recovery and Development Act which would also require Missions to monitor and evaluate the performance of development assistance with specific reference to the poor majority. (3) With few exceptions, there is insufficient social and institutional analysis in the FY 87-89 Action Plans and CDSS"s under the "Constraints to Development." (4) CDSS and Action Plan strategy implementation plans are only loosely connected to the problem statements and analyses of constraints to development in regard to social and institutional analysis. Benchmarks for measuring progress toward CDSS objectives are not formulated in terms of progress made by population groups in any of the documents reviewed, nor do they include indicators for changes in the conditions of women and the poor. (Author abstract)