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What role for different actors in the achievement of development results: the case of the civil society in the development of Africa
30 November 2007
African Community of Practice, Managing for Development Results
This article, reprinted with permission, was originally published in the November 2007 newsletter, ONLINE. The newsletter is distributed to members of the African Community of Practice on Managing for Development Results. Persons wishing to join the Community of Practice should contact Sheila Daunt at: .
Results-based management in development, as it is currently termed, is a recent concept, but the underlying principle seems to us to be based on the most elementary common sense, to the extent that the ultimate goal of any kind of management organized within a strategic framework is necessarily to attain effective results that justify the measures taken. This simple notion is easier to acknowledge in the context of private management than in the area of public policy, in which the notions of ‘the public good’ and ‘public service’ are not always understood in the same way by all participants in public life. Furthermore, when one is operating in a developing country context and the public intervention in question is a developmentorientedone, the connection is perceived to be more distant, and the linkage between action and effect, in terms of ‘development results’, becomes more difficult to pin down and more diffuse. We feel that this difference in treatment or perception has to do with the nature of the actors involved and with their respective roles, which are not the same in developing countries as they are in the industrialized world. The usefulness of results-based management resides in the fact that it reiterates the basic principles of sound public policy management, a systematic and coherent approach, and the use of operational tools to support and gauge the extent to which the desired results have been obtained. The purpose of this article is to explore, in particular, the role of civil society in the achievement of development results.
Civil society is still an ill-defined notion despite all that has been said. We understand it to be that part of the population that belongs neither to the State, nor to its subdivisions or political parties, and absolutely not to the military. It is most readily grasped in its organized forms, which indeed make it easier to define the identities, general frames of reference, roles, and objectives of civil society organizations (CSOs). With some differences depending on the country, CSOs therefore include the following: nongovernmental organizations, associations of various types, labor unions, professional organizations, etc. What they have in common is that they constitute structures intended to defend a general interest, the interests of their members or those of a well-defined category, the goal being to lobby for the restoration of equity, justice and infringed rights, or for the promotion of societal values. They operate in cities, but are also increasingly active in peri-urban and rural areas.
A more or less exhaustive inventory of those values that galvanize civil society into action is, in any case, contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted in December 1948 by the 58 members countries of the United Nations. Its preamble reiterates the basic freedoms and rights to which all human beings are entitled regardless of race, sex, religion or nationality. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, approved in 1981, supplements the provisions of the Universal Declaration by incorporating values and concerns relevant to Africa and to contemporary issues: i.e., the rights of peoples to exist; the right to freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources; the right to economic, social and cultural development, etc. This Charter invokes for the first time a right to development, a right that governments are required to ensure that their citizens exercise.
The Charter also sets forth the corresponding rights of citizens “vis-à-vis the State, the international community, and the family”, as well as their right to strive for the achievement of African unity. Reading between the lines of these provisions, we can see that they assign to African citizens an activist role in working for the development of their counties and their continent. This novel provision is undoubtedly rooted in the development status of African countries, and in the failure of development policies adopted by those in power and usually imposed by outward-looking actors, who are part of Africa’s public policy scene to a much greater extent than is the case elsewhere in the world.
Due to its debt burden, among other things, Africa has indeed seen its sovereignty gradually slip away in favor of the lending institutions, which have then imposed adjustment policies that have proven disastrous and have destroyed the already fragile socio-economic equilibrium of these young nations. The countries’ inability to resist the dictates of financiers has been a factor in the crystallization of an African civil society that has emerged to occupy a public space in which community interests were no longer being defended by anyone. This phenomenon is particularly manifest in the actions of the Farmers’ Associations, or associations such as ROPA and other platforms for the articulation of demands, which have set themselves up as defenders of a subsistence agriculture threatened by the contradictory rules of the World Trade Organization and by the protectionist policies of the industrialized countries. These farmers’ organizations are exerting very strong pressure on African governments to adopt coherent agricultural and rural development policies. Farmers’ organizations in the West African sub-region recently mobilized strongly to protest the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union, to decry the plundering of land and ocean resources, and to make a case for more effective and sustainable development. In Mauritania, human rights organizations have been in the news recently for addressing the issue of the after-effects of slavery, embarking upon a vast mobilization and lobbying campaign, and introducing into the government’s initial legal text changes that criminalize this inhumane practice and support its eradication through social insertion measures.
In our view, this preponderant role of African civil society is also attributable to the absence of a true political class capable of proposing credible alternatives to the powers that be, and to institutional
weaknesses that make any political alternation precarious, as the recent news from many African countries has shown. Civil society, because its vocation is not to exercise power, can also help maintain a reasonable degree of pressure on governments and democratic institutions, and on political actors in general, serving as an essential counterweight for the consolidation of democratic gains and for the defense of the economic and social interests of the population. It should be noted that this counterbalancing function does not constitute in and of itself an ‘anti-regime’ position.
African civil society is thus increasingly called upon to intervene as an indispensable development actor, while at the same time facing huge challenges associated with its capacity to assume this new role. Its close contact with local people, its quest for locally appropriate solutions, and its flexibility are factors that explain its successes thus far. Admittedly, the degree of development of CSOs varies a great deal from one country to another, but we feel it is reasonable to attempt to group them by natural sub-region within the continent, and to schematize the major challenges facing this civil society. As an entity to which governments and development partners turn for help, civil society has in recent years seen its development role increasingly acknowledged in all African countries, particularly in the wake of the gradual democratization of regimes, the resulting liberalization of public discourse, or leadership changes such as that in Morocco. As paradoxical as it may seem, its rise is also due to a worsening of living conditions, continued poor governance, and corruption in public resource management. Thus, in a country like the Republic of Guinea, where the central authority has been in disarray for some time now, local people have found other grassroots ways of organizing themselves to solve their day-to-day problems and to mitigate, however slightly, the harshness of the economic climate.
At the same time, however, African civil society faces major challenges due to the problematic working environment in Africa. These difficulties include: extreme poverty, especially among some groups such as women and young people; low levels of literacy; inadequate specialization on the part of CSOs; problems of internal governance; and even legal constraints. Given these problems, public authorities and their development partners, in keeping with their usual modus operandi, are in the habit of proposing ‘turnkey’ solutions in the form of capacity-building projects or programs. This blandly termed ‘capacity building’ often provokes perverse behaviors that fail to address real needs because inappropriate solutions are being applied. A well-adapted capacity building strategy must necessarily include a diagnostic of the actual situation as well as an analysis of strengths and weaknesses. Its implementation must be coherent, transparent, participatory and democratic. Paradoxically, these essential criteria are still not being routinely respected, because partners’ country interventions are still isolated and scattered according to their own program implementation agendas instead of being implemented within a global framework with harmonized means, as is the spirit of the Paris Declaration. It is not uncommon to see several capacity building programs implemented in the same country without any significant coordination. Our point here is to highlight the fact that the various interventions intended to enhance civil society’s ability to act are not part of a global strategic framework initiated by African actors themselves, i.e., by countries and their civil societies.
In conclusion, civil society has become a true development actor, and over time has made its presence felt to public authorities and the development partners. Although its influence in ensuring effective development is no longer disputed, the issue of its ability to play this expanding role is urgent. The solutions being offered are still unimaginative to the extent that they are, once again, originating with the donors. We feel that self-paced evolution, according to a self-determined agenda and relying upon local capacities to intervene and grow before external assistance is sought, is the best guarantor of sustainable results, and an essential ingredient enabling CSOs to make an effective contribution to African development. This observation is not an expression of regret. On the contrary: we applaud the critical facilitating role of development partners in support of public authorities and other development actors, including civil society. Each party has a specific and equally important role to play in ensuring that public funds are well managed in the interest of the development of countries and their people. We wish only to insist that these roles be well balanced.
Oumoul Khayri Ba Tall
Secretary General of the Mauritanian Monitoring and Evaluation Association (AMSE)
Board member and departing president of the African Evaluation Association (AfrEA)
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