USAID Africa Bureau democracy and governance project : three-year final report

ARD and MSI provided a core team of advisors and support personnel to offer a range of services to AFR. In the area of policy development, the core team prepared a Working Concept Paper on Governance which stimulated discussions with AFR, USAID, Missions, and Regional Economic Development Services (REDSOs) in Africa, other U.S. government agencies, and members of the scholarly community. Discussions helped focus USAID"s governance policy and strategy, linking improvements in governance to democratic practice, and have brought about positive changes in the policy environment for broad-based, sustainable economic development. The core team also helped to develop an AFR strategy paper to promote D/G, entitled "A Blueprint for Sustainable Development Through Democratic Governance." The report"s appendices developed key arguments and provided the structure for several new centrally funded projects. With regard to policy implementation, the core team developed a list of impact indicators which have been recommended for adoption to the Bureau"s budget-allocation exercise; made a significant contribution to AFR"s thinking about operational indicators at the strategic level by conducting a workshop for experts in this area; and provided assistance at the field level for the development of project level indicators. Other accomplishments in the area of policy implementation include: (1) promotion of the participation of women in democratic development; (2) improvement in the design and implementation of country D/G assessments under the requirements contract; (3) facilitation of dialogue with Africans through meetings and workshops; (4) improvement of communications between USG democracy advisors; and (5) coordination with other USAID D/G activities and donors. The project also provided assistance in the development of medium- and long-term D/G strategies through the completion of 10 D/G assessments in 9 countries. In addition, the project developed for AFR and USAID timely approaches to assisting civil society and governance reform through the preparation of two papers; implemented a workshop on "Economic Reform in Africa"s New Area of Political Liberalization"; and, in response to the problem of corruption as a major obstacle to effective governance practices, organized two meetings of its D/G advisory panel on administrative corruption. To strengthen civil society, the core team planned a series of workshops to help AFR refine the concept and support the development of civil society; and prepared a paper which synthesized much of the best scholarly thinking regarding civil society in Africa, posed key questions to be addressed in developing an effective approach, and was used as the basis of a major workshop on the organization of civil society and its impact on policy-making and implementation. Lessons learned in terms of broad policy issues are as follows. (1) Corruption and overcentralization of decision making discretion are key constraints to sustained growth in Africa. (2) The effectiveness and extent of USAID"s D/G activities in Africa suffered from an ambiguous U.S. legislative mandate. Until mid-1993, there was a lack of clarity as to what kind of D/G activities were lawful and which were unlawful. (3) Activities were also limited by the long-standing competition within USAID over policy program development between field missions and the Washington regional and functional bureaus. (4) A great deal of energy was focused on short-range concerns, and too little attention was paid to civic society, and non-state governance/advocacy structures critical to the achievement of sustainable improvements in democracy. (5) Central guidance by USAID has been insufficient at the operational level to assure consistent, effective programming. (6) Mission and embassy concerns with short- and medium-term objectives and political sensitivity with sitting regimes sometimes limited participation of host country nationals in the conduct and public diffusion of assessments. (7) Virtually all of Africa"s new democracies must be considered at-risk. Democratic consolidation will require time and considerable changes at many levels -- there is little value in being involved only for the short-term. The following lessons were learned in terms of operations. (1) Missions need a wide range of technical support on a variety of country and program level issues related to D/G. (2) It has been valuable to develop and apply a broad-gauge political assessment methodology using a comparative approach in this project. (3) Traditional bilateral projects are not effective in responding to political/governance opportunities and problems in a timely manner. (4) Washington-based workshops on D/G were most useful when linked to a specific programmatic or policy need. (5) Continuity in support provided by consultants and full-time core staff is very important to the success of USAID"s D/G activities.