Political economy diagnostic exercise - Zambia : final report

While governance is treated as a separate sector in the CDCS, governance impacts development generally and cuts across all sectors. The section on the governance development objective relates, then, to specific programs USAID will support and the more general discussion on governance is incorporated into the national-level analysis. This final report is intended as an input into discussions with the country teams and builds on earlier findings. As well as presenting the research team"s findings, this report describes the process and methodology applied, specifically the types of analytical questions used at national, sector and specific "problem" levels. This political economy diagnostic exercise (PEDE) identifies fundamental political economy (PE) bottlenecks in each of the CDCS programme areas, providing a practical analysis that can inform USAID decisions about how best to deliver aid. However, this analysis does not provide all the answers to development objective problems, nor does it provide prescriptive guidance on USAID"s development activities. Rather, it supplies: (1) a broad understanding of the role of structures, institutions and agents relevant to USAID programs at sector level; (2) an in-depth analysis of specific PE blockages that relate to USAID program areas; (3) suggestions on how to use sector and problem-level analyses to address PE constraints; and (4) general recommendations about how USAID can address PE issues both in program design and implementation. This exercise should be seen as part of an on-going design process. PE analysis should be repeated regularly, and incorporated in USAID"s design, monitoring, and evaluation processes. Further recommendations in this regard are included in the concluding section of this report. (Excerpt, modified)