Synthesis of democracy and governance : cross-sectoral case studies

This report discusses DG cross-sectoral programming from five USAID Missions in Africa: Mali, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Guinea, and Madagascar. It identifies actions Missions take to promote DG links, the policy and implementation constraints that Missions and their partners face, the field impacts of their efforts, and future directions. Key findings are as follows: (1) In all five cases, Mission management was given credit for encouraging team leaders, staff, and partners to think and act collaboratively. (2) Partnership is critical to cross-sectoral success. In Mali, the "Big Four" partners (CLUSA, Save the Children, CARE, and World Education) implemented a cooperative agreement with the Mission across three strategic objectives (SOs). In Guinea, CLUSA combined agriculture- income generation activities with civil society strengthening and local government capacity- building. In Madagascar, PACT organized its team cross-sectorally, reflecting decisions taken by PACT/Washington to reduce stovepiping (isolated resource allocations) at headquarters. (3) Decentralization/civil society efforts encourage DG links. Missions placed the greatest emphasis on DG linkages to other sectors at decentralized levels -- community-based natural resources management (CBNRM); parent, student, and school associations; health management committees; and farmer associations. (4) Synergy can be unintended or crafted, but the trend seemed to be away from happenstance toward deliberate intent. (5) DG cross-sectoral programming is making a difference, but most of the impact is still ahead. At the time of the studies, CAMPFIRE in Zimbabwe had the longest activity, with USAID involvement at 10 years. Most activities had histories with USAID involvement of 3 years or less. A persistent theme in the cases was the need for synergy benefits to outweigh the management costs. Madagascar"s rule of thumb was that returns on an additional unit of staff time employed in pursuing synergies should exceed returns of an additional unit of that staff time employed elsewhere. Also, with few exceptions, Missions and partners urged development of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tools and indicators for reporting cross-sectoral impact. It is apparent throughout the case studies that Agency policy has not caught up to DG synergies practice. Congressional earmarks and unpredictable funding encourage stovepiping, while reporting and review by strategic objective for the R4 process reinforce sector-specific thinking. If the effort is to become mainstream, the Agency needs to encourage and reward synergy. Five main factors facilitated DG cross-sectoral linking: (1) host country context; (2) Mission leadership; (3) continuity in belief systems, programming, and staff; (4) organizational approach; and (5) funding requirements. In most instances, the host country context affected Missions" decisions to link DG with other sectors. For example, central-level commitment to decentralization in Mali established a favorable environment to link DG with health, education, agriculture, and economic growth at grassroots levels. Conversely, in Zambia, setbacks in democratization and structural adjustment spurred Mission management to innovate. The second key factor was Mission leadership. In Madagascar and Guinea, a champion or a believer in DG synergies emerged to give SO teams the incentive to innovate and take risks. The most frequently cited constraints to DG synergies were contextual (enabling environment and institutional learning), policy (earmarks, review process, disincentives, and measurement issues), and operational (measurement, reporting, contracting, time, and workload, etc.). The most frequently cited, though not the most intractable, obstacles were operational. (Author abstract, modified)