Foreword

Dear Reader,

Africa is currently experiencing the world's fastest urbanization rate at 3.5% annually -placing increasing pressure on resource-constrained local governments to maintain and improve livability standards of their cities. But simultaneously, an 'Information and Communication Technologies' (ICT) revolution has swept across the continent -as evidenced by vastly improved telecommunications and internet infrastructure, leapfrogging mobile communications penetration rates, and emergence of a successful homegrown IT applications industry. Successful e-initiatives in South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and other regions have demonstrated that harnessing of ICT can enable a range of activities when integrated into the urban development agenda, such as strengthened financial management systems, social accountability initiatives capturing citizens' feedback and so forth. In this context, this report seeks to explore similar strategies for transforming capabilities of urban agencies in the Africa Region through the power of ICT.

In view of the World Bank Group's (WBG) commitment towards promoting sustainable urban development, the objective of this analytical report is to support the strategic direction, focus, and action plan in governance reform by implementing ICT within the urban development framework of the Africa Region. With a focus on replicating successful ICT-Urban Governance strategies in Africa, this report aims to (i) synthesize the role currently played by ICT towards improved governance, management and accountability of urban service providers in Africa as well as other Regions, (ii) explore current ICT initiatives that are relevant to the World Bank's thematic concerns, (iii) reconcile existing deficiencies/barriers towards potential for replication, and (iv) develop a roadmap to render easy strategy implementation by project teams.

Section I outlines evolving trends in urban governance and presents ICT as a potential tool in the environment of modern governance. Section II discusses the role of ICT in some of the Bank's core areas of urban focus, namely: Local Governance & Economic Development; Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations & Municipal Finance; Urban Poverty & Slum Upgrading; Urban Planning, Land & Housing; Urban Environment & Climate Change; and Water & Sanitation Service Delivery. An analysis of fundamental ICT methodologies employed is discussed in Section III. Section IV, in conclusion, suggests an action-plan for enhancing ICT initiatives as a component of the Bank's lending activities.

But essentially, this report is a work in progress -and requires your inputs to finish! We encourage you to join in the discussion and help shape the World Bank's roadmap towards applying ICT for urban improvement. Are you aware of any interesting ICT application or methodology that could transform Africa's cities? Do you have feedback or suggestions on what the World Bank's next steps should be in this direction? Or simply have questions or need clarifications on the material already presented in this report? Then do let us know! Your views will be incorporated (with accreditation to your name if permitted) in Section IV, building upon some of the ideas already contributed by Bank staff. Thoughts, suggestions, and comments can be conveyed to us using the online feedback form or by emailing grelhan@ifc.org. If you are on Facebook, post your suggestions to the World Bank Africa page. On Twitter, reply to @WorldBankAfrica

Hope to hear from you soon. Happy Reading!

Best Wishes,
Gaurav Relhan

The World Bank invites comments from African social accountability practitioners on a draft handbook examining the role of ICT in promoting good governance practices. Entitled Good Urban Governance through ICT: issues, analysis and strategies, the handbook examines a wide range of issues in which ICT can play a key role in promoting accountability and service delivery. The handbook was compiled by the WB's Africa Urban and Water Sector Unit. Gaurav Relhan, one of the compilers, says technology helps well-informed citizens collaborate, exchange ideas and participate in real-time with their elected officials. Voters can have their voices heard and officials can incorporate this feedback in their decisions. For instance, through mobile phones and the Internet, a Facebook page or post, a Tweet or a YouTube video, a citizen now has the power to participate at his fingertips to improve outcomes and trap corruption. Examples include tracing expenditures to see if there is sufficient spending by region or sector; tracking procurement results to see if vendors seem to be getting too much business or charging too much; and on-the-ground pictures to show whether projects were actually completed.

As governments prepare to spend up to US$100 billion annually by 2020 to limit climate change and prepare for its impact, Transparency International (TI) warns of the corruption risks of climate finance flowing through new, untested channels and recommends strengthening governance systems to tackle them.

The Global Corruption Report: Climate Change sets out practical guidelines to prevent corruption undermining climate change measures and calls on governments, international organisations, businesses and civil society to ensure good governance in climate policy.

"The urgent need to respond to climate change needs to be enhanced by transparency and accountability. Oversight must be built into all climate-related initiatives from the start," said Huguette Labelle, chair of Transparency International. "Good governance now will help ensure the success of the impact of climate change policy and funding."

"Bangladesh is at the frontline in the battle to combat climate change. How Bangladesh manages climate governance and ensures transparency and accountability in the use of climate change funds can provide lessons for governments and civil society around the world. The recommendations in the report come at a critical time," says Iftekhar Zaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh.

Under global climate agreements, substantial new funding from governments and multilateral agencies will be made available to finance mitigation of climate change, such as renewable energy projects like wind farms or solar power plants, and adaptation to it, such as constructions of sea walls, irrigations systems and disaster-ready housing.

None of the 20 countries expected to be most affected by climate change – where much of this money will be spent - scores higher than 3.6 on the TI's Corruption Perceptions Index, in which 0 indicates perception of extremely corrupt and 10 is very clean. Governments must ensure transparent oversight of how climate change funds are spent, which can be enhanced by civil society monitoring.

The report combines analysis from more than 50 leading climate change experts from 20 countries tackling a wide range of issues including:

• the politics of climate change and accountability of funding institutions
• the role of the private sector
• the integrity of carbon markets
• the response to climate change impacts in developing countries (climate-proofing infrastructure, preparing for climate migration and improving disaster management)
• Forestry governance

Public participation and transparent oversight
The report recommends greater public participation, access to information and accountability to make climate governance more effective. This would limit the potential for conflicts of interest in decision-making and the negative effects that lobbying and special interests can play in setting climate policy.

The report warns of the risk of a green resource curse. New technologies needed to replace fossil fuels, such as solar panels, require different natural resources. It is important that the mining industry that exploits these resources is transparent and publicly discloses payments to governments so that citizens can ensure the proceeds are used for their benefits.

Similarly, governments that sell land for bio-fuel cultivation, estimated to be 10 per cent of transport fuels in many of the world's leading economies by 2030, must allow for public participation and oversight so that local communities' land rights are respected.

Keeping forests clean and green
US$28 billion of climate financing is expected to flow annually to countries with large tropical forests to discourage deforestation and preserve this form of natural carbon storage. Illegal logging, worth more than US$10 billion a year, is already fuelled by corruption of customs and land management authorities. The report highlights that some governments have already claimed credits for fictitious forest plantation projects.

Case studies from Austria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Columbia, Kenya, Philippines, Spain, and the United States illustrate the global dimension of the climate change challenges facing the planet.

"Corruption holds nothing sacred, not even our planet’s future. Failure to properly govern climate change measures now will not only lead to misallocated resources and fraudulent projects today, but also hurts future generations," said Labelle.

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As Americans remember the tragic events of the BP oil spill one year ago, international humanitarian organization Oxfam America urges Africa's newest oil producer to avoid the same mistakes other oil producing countries have made. A new report by the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas, a coalition of more than 100 non-governmental groups in Ghana supported by Oxfam, calls on the international community to take further steps to prevent the West African nation from falling victim to the resource curse.

Ghana could earn more than $1 billion a year in early years of production from the "Jubilee" offshore oil field -called one of the largest recent oil finds in Africa. The increase in revenues could, if spent wisely, put Ghana on a path to meet the Millennium Development Goals, a set of human development benchmarks, by 2015.

"While Ghana is considered one of the most peaceful and relatively prosperous countries in West Africa, the onset of oil production, if not properly managed, carries the risk of it tipping in the opposite direction," said Richard Hato-Kuevor, extractive industries program officer for Oxfam America in Ghana. "With all eyes on Ghana to get it right, it's extremely important the oil boom doesn't undermine the important gains that have been made."

According to the report - Ghana's Oil Boom: A Readiness Report Card -government agencies, donor partners, oil and gas companies and civil society have made some gains since the Jubilee discovery in 2007, but significant challenges remain for the country. For example, on a scale of A to E (A standing for Excellent and E for Fail), each institution receives an overall grade of C (Fair). The grades are measured against recommendations made in a communique from a "citizens summit on oil and gas" held last June and Ghana's Big Test: Oil's Challenge to Democratic Development -- a 2009 report by the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) and Oxfam America.

The report also notes that Ghana's donor partners, such as the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund and the United States, as well as oil companies themselves, could do more to encourage oil revenue transparency and accountability before investing hundreds of millions dollars to develop the Jubilee field. This was the case when the World Bank's private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), approved $215 million in financing to oil companies for investing in the project, pre-empting local environmental approval processes.

While the IFC did enforce its policy on transparency of payments from oil, gas and mining companies to host governments, UK-based Tullow is the only oil company to disclose some early payments to the government and signal willingness to disclose contracts if the government agrees. Other oil companies operating in Ghana, such as Texas-based Anadarko and Kosmos, have not made similar moves.

"The track record shows that Ghana's development partners have provided some useful support, but major transparency gaps remain," said Mohammed Amin Adam, convener of the Oil and Gas Civil Society Platform. "In the Jubilee area, communities are growing suspicious of the good intentions made by companies to make social investments, respond to livelihood concerns and share use of the sea. Without transparency, competition and conflict could erupt, eroding Ghana's enviable track record of economic, social and democratic development over the last 20 years."

A new US law will help promote transparency in Ghana, according to Oxfam. As part of the Wall Street Reform Act of 2010, all oil, gas and mining companies reporting to the US Securities and Exchange Commission are now required to publish annually how much they pay foreign governments for extracting oil, gas, and minerals. Anadarko, Hess, and several mining companies in Ghana will in fact be covered by the law.

While this law will help increase the capacity of Ghana's government and civil society groups to check abuses, oil consuming countries in Europe and elsewhere, can play their part to promote the wise use of oil revenues in Ghana and other resource-rich countries by passing similar legislation. So far, the United Kingdom, France and Germany have signaled their support for a European Commission regulation in line with the US law.

"The only way to hold government accountable is to arm citizens, not with weapons, but with information," said Ian Gary, senior policy manager for extractive industries with Oxfam America in Washington, D.C. "Strong transparency laws in Ghana, as well as oil consuming countries will send the right diplomatic signals to oil, gas and mining companies and help prevent the same tragedy of squandered oil wealth seen in countries such as Nigeria and Chad."

Background notes:

* Ghana started production of significant quantities of oil in December 2010. By June, Ghana is expected to produce 120,000 barrels per day from the Jubilee field. The Jubilee field is owned by a consortium of companies including Tullow Oil, Anadarko Petroleum (US) and Kosmos Energy. The World Bank's International Finance Corporation provided $215 million to Tullow and Kosmos to develop the field. Further discoveries in 2010 and 2011 have raised expectations of further production, with Tullow estimating that Ghana could produce 250,000 barrels per day by 2014.

* The Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas in Ghana is a coalition formed in 2010 comprising over 110 civil society groups, individuals and academics. The platform is a forum for civil society to share knowledge about oil and gas exploitation and governance, strengthen civil society voices and forge a common strategy for engaging with other stakeholders, such as the government of Ghana, petroleum companies and frontline oil communities. The Platform receives support from Oxfam America, IBIS Denmark, Revenue Watch Institute and the World Bank.

In 2008 Rwanda's Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (Minecofin) embarked on a gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) programme. This document describes the development of the programme to date. It describes the first, preparatory phase as well as the second phase of implementation. It explains why particular approaches were adopted, achievements, as well as challenges. The document is intended for both internal and external audiences.

Minecofin hopes that inside the country those who are already involved in the GRB programme will gain a better understanding of the initiative, while those who are not yet but could be involved will be encouraged to participate. For external readers Minecofin hopes that Rwanda's experience will help encourage actors in other countries to move forward with GRB initiatives that are tailored to their particular circumstances. Such circumstances include both the situation of women, men, boys and girls in the country, and the way that planning and budgeting happens.

Although Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) in Rwanda has progressed well, the programme has faced and continues to face challenges. The first and second challenges help explain the limited progress on the third objective of the first phase of the project, namely the objective of establishing a gender disaggregated data collection and monitoring system at national level that planning officers might use. The first challenge is that MINECOFIN is not the lead agency, and does not, in fact, itself produce data relevant to delivery or situation analysis.

The key agency responsible for production of situation analysis and outcome data is the NISR, while service delivery agencies are responsible for administrative data. The GMO has, among its responsibilities, the task of ensuring that gender-relevant data exist. The second challenge is that some of the materials produced during the first phase were developed before the strategy for GRB in Rwanda had been agreed and thus are not specifically tailored to assist with the gender budget statements. For example, the indicators document focused on "outcomes" rather than "outputs". It can thus serve as an aspirational document in two senses. Firstly it is aspirational in the range of indicators it hopes to see produced in Rwanda.

Secondly it is aspirational in that outcomes represent what one hopes to achieve in the medium-term, while the main focus of budget documents is on what will be achieved in a particular year.

A third more general challenge for the GRB programme is that the budget reforms are still ongoing. So the GRB programme is being implemented in a situation when officials are still learning how to do the new form of planning and budgeting and find difficulties even before the extra challenge of "gender" is added. With this third challenge, MINECOFIN feels that the GRB aspect can actually help rather than be an extra burden because the gender budget statement requires that officials think more carefully about activities and outputs and how these can be measured through indicators.

A fourth challenge relates to the high turnover among staff in ministries and districts. This creates difficulties as often those who are trained move out of the positions where they have responsibility for tasks such as development of gender budget statements.

As already mentioned GRB project has achieved substantial results in both phases. However, more remain to be done to reach sustained degree of Gender Responsive Budgeting mainstreamed at both central and local level.

Although several trainings have been conducted for pilot sectors, there is still need for more in-depth trainings to impart more skills to the planning, budget officers and chief budget officers of all ministries to allow them produce GBS for the budget year 2011/2012. The same trainings will also need to be done at the district level due to the high staff turnover that has been registered.

The other important activity that remains to be done is the establishment of BS monitoring system to track the progress each year. GRB project will also need to review and harmonise the existing training materials, methodologies and manuals to reflect gender in the whole processes of planning and budgeting.

Alongside this document, there is an ongoing activity intended to video document the GRB achievements since its inception to date. It is also against this background that GRB portal on the MINECOFIN website is being constructed as one way of raising awareness and sharing experience and good practices with the wider public.

Last but not least, GRB team and the whole national budget directorate team will need further trainings to increase their knowledge and skills in gender issues in general and GRB in particular to allow them provide hands-on and mentorship support to all budget agencies.

Conclusion: This document records good progress on GRB in Rwanda. But there is still much more to be done. Plans already exist for further activities at district level, including workshops for district councils similar to the earlier workshop for parliamentarians, and analysis and feedback to district officials on the gender budget statements produced. At central level, 2011/12 will see gender budget statements become mandatory for all ministries, rather than only the four pilot ministries. As noted above, ideas have also been developed as to how a midyear evaluation of implementation of the sub-programmes highlighted in the gender budget statements could feed into the joint sector reviews which constitute an important step in the planning and budgeting process for each year.

La Commission économique pour l'Afrique (CEA) a conduit les efforts visant au renforcement du rôle de la société civile dans le processus de développement en Afrique. En 1990, la Conférence internationale sur la participation populaire dans le processus de redressement et de développement de l'Afrique, tenue sous l'égide de la CEA a abouti à l’adoption de la Charte africaine de la participation populaire. Cela constituait une réponse directe à l'appel lancé par les organisations non gouvernementales au Comité ad hoc plénier de l’Assemblée générale concernant l’examen et l’évaluation à mi-parcours de la mise en œuvre du Programme d’action des Nations Unies pour le redressement économique et le développement de l’Afrique, en raison du non aboutissement dudit Programme. Il s’agissait là de l’entame du débat sur le rôle de la société civile dans le processus du développement de l’Afrique et celui joué par la CEA dans la promotion de la participation de la société civile au processus de développement.

Dans le cadre de ses efforts soutenus visant à promouvoir la participation de la société civile au développement en Afrique, la CEA s’est employée à renforcer les organisations de la société civile, afin de leur permettre de jouer un rôle plus important en ce domaine. La Commission, a, entre autres initiatives, entrepris de concevoir des programmes destinés à :

• Promouvoir la visibilité et la compréhension de la participation de la société civile au processus de développement et de gouvernance ;
• Promouvoir des moyens nouveaux et novateurs de faciliter les échanges entre gouvernements et organisations de la société civile et entre ces dernières ;
• Créer un environnement propre à faciliter la participation des organisations de la société civile ; et
• Trouver les moyens d’institutionnaliser le processus participatif.

Réussir le développement participatif est fortement tributaire de l'efficacité et du dynamisme des organisations de la société civile, ainsi que de l'interaction et du partenariat entre les acteurs de développement. À cet égard, le cadre nécessaire au renforcement des relations entre la CEA et les organisations de la société civile s'inscrit dans un effort plus large visant à promouvoir la participation de la société civile dans le processus de développement et de gouvernance en Afrique et à mettre en place les capacités nécessaires pour aider ces organisations à devenir des partenaires efficaces.

Overview

1. This is the second budget options paper prepared by the Parliamentary Budget Office to provide alternative insights and policy options on what the government should do in order to achieve the various objectives of the vision 2030 of transforming Kenya into a newly industrialized, "middle-income country" providing a high quality life to all its citizens by the year 2030.
2. The analysis attempts to gauge the progress made with regard to the Governments effort in addressing the current economic challenges and extent to which the various mitigation measures have been put in place amid post election violence hangover and the global economic crisis. The report will provide a critical analysis on the progress made on the Government's commitment of aligning public resources with national strategic objectives under the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Vision 2030.
3. The focus of this year's budget options paper is to give alternative insights for sustainable economic growth, which seeks to address the issue of unemployment, which is almost reaching crisis level. Indeed, creating jobs for the millions of currently unemployed Kenyans especially the youth is most urgent than any other time in the economic history. The key issues the paper seeks to discuss are highlighted below:
   
   • The provisions of the Chapter 12 of the New Constitution have significantly altered the Public Financial Management (PFM) landscape. In particular, management of public resources is now based on key principles of transparency or openness, accountability and public participation. Equally, the constitution provides that public resouces be managed to an extent that it promotes equitable resource distribution in society, in addition to fair taxation of tax burden. This therefore calls for a realignment and change of culture among all players in the Public Finance Management (PFM) institutions.
   • Public debate on economic and social policly options has been given greater impetus in Kenya owing to the post election violence as well as financial market crisis and the severity of the resulting downturn. More interestingly, many economists and policy makers have had divergent views on the various policy prescriptions and the adequacy of financial regulation. Overall, questions have been posed with regard the mix between the role of Government due to market failure and the issue of over-regulation by the same government, which often stifles the growth of the financial sector. On a global front, there are unresolved imbalances in global trade and declining capital flows have had a negative effect on international financial coordination efforts. All the aforementioned have a bearing on demand management strategies on the Kenyan economy.
   • The policy debate extends beyond macroeconomic and financial stability issues to climate change and renewable energy and other environmental strategies have permeated economic debate. Issues of pension reforms to cater for the huge civil service whose payments largely relies on the exchequer presents serious budgetary adjustments and therefore need for a fresh relook. In addition, the report on achievement of MDGs presents mixed results.
   • Policy debate in Kenya is also focussed on our own specific transformation challenges amid the passage of the new constitution. Obviously, the adoption of the new constitution has altered the public finance landscape. Specifically, it brings in new aspects of fiscal decentralization and also introduces a paradigm shift in terms of institutional arrangement within the public finance arena. More importantly, to meet Kenya's development needs, a new path has to be forged across all organs of Government (Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary). The new dispensation spells out clear roles of each of the aforementioned arms of government.
   • It is important to note that putting clear and coherent policies is one thing; successful implementation is another. The executive must be held to account since jobs, growth and development are not abstractions: they play out every day in industries, factories, offices and permeates in all the sectors of the economy. In addition, there is considerable complexity in the organization of public services, in the structure and regulation of markets, and in the coordination of public policy and industrial development.

We are talking about the media and journalists. In the history of humankind, and no less so in South Africa’s turbulent history of colonialism, apartheid and the struggle for democracy, the media has played a key role in shaping and recording events and public opinion. In its various forms, it has provided a voice for the powerful and for the oppressed and voiceless.

In South Africa, we faced the challenge of deepening a post-apartheid democratic order ushered in by our 1994 national and provincial elections. Key components of strengthening our democracy are entrenching free, fair and regular elections, and maintaining a diverse, independent, ethical and professional media that reinforces access to information and freedom of expression.

The role of our mainstream media has shifted dramatically from a formerly traditional ‘uninvolved observer’ role to a more active ‘civic journalism’ role. With the advent of the on-line media and increasing access to information, journalists are no longer the gatekeepers to information that few others could reach. The evolving role of being a civic journalist in the print, broadcast or on-line media challenges us, for example, to:

• Seek out rather than tell the news.
• Promote discussion of public issues.
• Inform people on their civil, political, social and economic rights.
• Encourage people to organise and find solutions to pressing issues.

A good example of civic journalism has been the community radio sector. It has developed into an important voice for many communities in reaching areas and touching issues that other media often do not reach. Community radio stations made a vital contribution in our various post-1994 elections. They served communities where many people do not read or do not have access to newspapers, or have no access to a variety of political party campaign media.

In 2007, 152 of South Africa’s 191 radio stations were community radio stations.

The Media Monitoring Project (MMP) concluded that most of our media has tended to focus on the events of elections – like rallies, meetings and court cases – but often ignored issues like housing, services and the economy. Community radio stations were generally seen to pay more attention to these issues than the public broadcaster and commercial media:

"Community stations faced the challenge of reporting the elections with their communities’ interests and the democratic process as their primary concern. Election coverage by community stations was not only about fairness and diversity, but about developing a democratic culture and learning to participate in a democracy."

In our 2009 elections and beyond, the media has a pivotal information, analysis, debate, discussion and watchdog role. As journalists covering the elections, you bear the responsibility of promoting the values underpinning our Constitution, such as equality, non-discrimination, human dignity, tolerance and a respect for diversity.

In the public, commercial or community sector where you may be active as journalists, you all have a responsibility to take on this broader, complex role that challenges you to:

• Be an independent, critical and non-partisan voice during the election period.
• Represent the views and concerns of voters in the lead-up to elections.
• Inform, motivate and educate communities around the elections.
• Present information and debate on political party policies and current issues.

Once again, the media has an historic responsibility to continue to play an active role before, during and after the 2009 national and provincial elections:

• How do you play an ongoing independent role around the elections and in deepening our democracy in a changing political landscape?
• How do you assist with continuing voter education on voter registration, how to vote and other voting rights like protection from intimidation?
• How do you help voters to make an informed choice about whether to vote and which party to vote for?
• How do you encourage people to get actively involved in taking up and participating in local and national issues after elections?

As South Africans, we have entered an unprecedented pre-election period faced with a wider range of choices and an exciting, yet politically volatile climate. An experienced journalist, Zubeida Jaffer, captures what this moment means for us:

"The media will have to navigate the changing political terrain artfully. Its responses can either encourage the worst inclinations among all of us or help to bring out the best. In the interests of building a respected and solid media practice, it will need to be seen as fair, conducting itself without fear or favour. We are poised on the cusp of a great opportunity that will test our ability to respond with great maturity as never before."

Cape Times, 8 January 2009

The European Union awarded NIDPRODEV a 10-month grant in June 2010 to conduct Citizen Report Card surveys in 120 Niger Delta communities in the three southern geopolitical zones. The purpose of a Citizen Report Card is to provide public officials, as well as international donors, with the information they need to address the inadequacies of community life that contribute to sustained poverty.

A Citizen Report Card provides information about communities’ perceptions of government performance in the areas of (1) public services (including health, education, drinking water, sewage, communication, security, and credit), (2) good governance, and (3) infrastructure development, in particular, abandoned or incomplete projects.

By the end of December 2010, NIDPRODEV completed the input of data obtained through a 16-page survey administered through focus group discussions and key informant interviews in the 120 communities. Community demographics included 55 rural communities, 40 riverine/rural communities, and 25 peri-urban or urban communities. Forty-two (42) of the communities are oil-producing. Four hundred seventy-eight (478) focus groups, composed of 9,018 participants and representing 10 different tribal or clan identities, were organized into groups of Older Men, Older Women, Younger Men, and Younger Women. Among the 4,794 men and 4,224 women who participated in the focus group discussions, 58% farm, 36% fish, 54% can read well, 3% use a mosquito net, 80% know the causes of HIV/AIDS, and 90% believe that the relationship between their community and the federal government is poor.

NIDPRODEV programme officers will return to the 120 communities from February through April to deliver the findings to community members, along with information relating to citizen’s rights and responsibilities and the upcoming elections. Journalists to whom NIDPRODEV provided training for writing about the Niger Delta from a human rights perspective also will accompany NIDPRODEV programme officers on a number of community visits. The Citizen Report Card will be here on the NIDPRODEV website, be emailed to diverse stakeholders, and be the subject matter for stakeholder dialogue in a conference to be held in each of the three geopolitical zones in April and May 2011.

• Executive Summary
• Basic Demographics of Surveyed Communities
• Public Services -
  • Health
  • Education
  • Electricity, Drinking Water, and Sewage
• Good Governance Section
• Infrastructure/Development Projects

1.1 This is the report of a Gender Audit of the Ministerial Policy Statements of key sectors of the economy for FY 2010/11. The purpose of the audit was to generate proposals and recommendations for effective integration of gender and equity issues in sector activities as a measure to promote efficient application of budget resources. The study make proposals to inform the various sectors on how to comply with the Government's Budget Call Circular (BCC) which requires explicit measures of integrating crosscutting issues (such as gender and equity) in their implementation strategies. Furthermore, it contributes to strengthening the advocacy role of stakeholders in the budget process, and evaluating the gender compliance and its impact on service delivery in the sector.

The report is sub-divided into thirteen chapters as follows:- Chapter One includes the Executive Summary, which highlights the key findings in each of the sectors that was analysed.

1.2 Chapter Two is the Introduction which outlines the purpose of the study and its scope. The aim of the study is to provide the analysis necessary for informing the sectors on how to integrate gender and equity issues in their sector strategies. The study is initially focusing on policy statements of key sectors of Finance and Planning, Justice and constitutional Affairs, Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Tourism, Trade and Industry, Education, Health, Water and sanitation, Energy and Minerals, Public Service and Works and Transport.

1.3 Chapter Three deals with the gender analysis of the Finance and Planning Sector. It which highlights gender concerns in the sector and the Ministry's efforts to address them. While efforts are generally acceptable, suggestions have been made on how the critical gender issues in the sector can be addressed. The key gender issues in the sector that have an impact on gender include:-

• Improving revenue collection with the focus on progressive taxation,
• Relaxing the inflation target beyond 5%,
• Limiting supplementary expenditures,
• Making responsible use of external resources to boost productive capacity to generate capacity to repay,
• Strengthening government's role in price management,
• Improving financial management and control,
• Strengthening incentives for private sector growth and export promotion

1.4 Chapter Four deals with the gender audit of the Justice and Constitutional Affairs Sector.

It identifies critical gender issues in the sector that are the greatest impediment to accessing justice for vulnerable members of society most of whom are women and children.

These include:

• physical inaccessibility,
• financial constraints,
• Technical complexities involving many trips and complex legal language used in courts and police.

Other critical issues in the sector include but are not limited to:-

• Corruption in the system,
• Lack of access to the justice infrastructure, courts and lawyers,
• Poor quality representation of Government and loss of public resources in court awards,
• Inapplicable and/or obsolete laws,
• Poor records and management systems especially in the Administrator Generals Department.

1.5 Chapter Five analysed the Agriculture Sector. It identifies Agriculture as a sector with the largest employment potential, but a sector that is faced with the following critical concerns:-

• poor agriculture marketing and processing infrastructure
• poor quality seeds and planting material
• high disease and pest infestation
• deteriorating soil fertility
• perennial shortage of water for production
• lack of investment capital/credit and largely subsistence production
• shortage of extension and outreach
• heavy reliance on rain fed agriculture
• poor fishing gears leading to stock depletion

Agriculture is important to women's livelihoods as it is a major source of employment, is relied on for provision of essential food for the family and is also source of income from food crop and cash crop sales. Investment in the sector requires that funding is directed to these areas stated above.

1.6 Chapter Six concerns the Tourism, Trade and Industry Sector. The Sector's mandate is to provide trade facilitation services such as provision of market access and other services such as SACCOS and promotion of Cooperative movements. The Tourism, Trade and Industry sector is mainly dominated by the private sector, with the Government only playing a regulatory and facilitative role. There is very good potential of employment in this sector especially for women.

The key issues in the Sector include:-

• Exploitation of farmers by middlemen,
• Collapsed marketing institutions and cooperatives,
• Lack of value addition and poor storage facilities,
• Underdeveloped SACCOs with an inadequate legal and institutional framework.

1.7 Chapter Seven is concerned with the gender audit of the Education Sector. It was noted that the critical gender issues in the sector include:-

• high dropout rates especially of girls in the UPE and USE sections
• poor pay and facilitation of teachers
• congestion in classrooms
• shortage of funding for Science laboratories and exams
• absenteeism of teachers and pupils
• non-attendance of school by potential students due to various reasons such as house work and lack of compelling legislation
• Poor access to education i.e distance from schools and provision of complementary facilities e.g uniforms, books, food, etc.
• lack of fees for higher education

1.8 Chapter Eight deals with the gender issues in the Health Sector.There has been significant improvement in provision of health services in both rural and urban areas but a number of challenges in the sector still exist such as:-

• Poor pay for medical workers,
• Inadequate funding for reproductive health, drugs and medical equipment,
• Inadequate investment in non communicable diseases,
• Inadequate regulation of both private and public health provision.
• High maternal and infant mortality rates.

The health sector has to a large extent attempted to address gender issues but is constrained by underinvestment in the sector.

1.9 Chapter Nine deals with gender issuesin the Water and Sanitation sector. There has been significant improvement in the provision of clean water in both rural and urban areas but there are still a number of challenges in the sector.

• There is still lack of funds for water stressed areas
• Water remains unaffordable as a result of its cost of production and heavy debt overhang in the sector
• Poor water and environment management strategies coupled with lack of facilities for water conservation and exploitation
• Shortage of clean and reliable water sources

The water and sanitation sector has tended to concentrate on water leaving the sanitation sub sector unattended to the extent that it does not have a clear supervisory department.

1.10 Chapter Ten deals with the gender issues in the Energy and Mineral sector. This is a sector where minimal attention has been paid to gender and equity issues yet it is a very critical. Critical challenges in the sector include:-

• High energy tariffs,
• Lack of clean energy for the majority of the population,
• Poor distribution of energy,
• Dangerous power connections and poor safety management in mining,
• High costs of power generation
• Poor compensation of land owners and complex procedures for land acquisition.
• Inadequate framework for mining especially for Petroleum
• Lack of local capacity in the petroleum and mining industry

1.11 Chapter Eleven deals with the Public Service Sector where several gender and equity issues are prevalent and remain prominent despite attempts to address them. These include among others:

• Inequitable chances for training and employment opportunities and promotions for both women and men.
• Short duration of maternity and paternity leave
• Lack of resources to set up day-care centers for breast feeding mothers at the workplace,
• Lack of transparency in the execution of job transfers in relation to unique gender concerns;
• Weak enforcement of HIV/AIDS workplace policy;
• Lack of a minimum wage policy with informal employees heavily exploited by employers.

1.12 Chapter Twelve addresses the Works and Transport Sector The sector has made some progress in addressing gender and equity issues but there are still some gaps. These include among others:

• Lack of appreciation of the fact that women face more trade-offs than men and transport restricts their economic choices and increases their poverty;
• Institutions, structures and interventions largely prioritize men's needs and view points;
• Bias towards constructing the main trunk roads (national roads) as opposed to district roads and community access roads (DUCAR) which address gender concerns such as access to markets and medical services;
• Highly inadequate modes of transportation in the country.
• Traffic congestion and high transport fares.

1.13 Chapter Thirteen has Conclusions and recommendations that would contribute to enabling sectors attain the objective of strengthening the integration of gender concerns in sector strategies, in compliance with the Government directive contained in the Budget Call Circular of 2010/11. All policy makers including Cabinet and Parliament and Civil Society should rally behind the gender budget cause, as a means of making budgets equitable and improving service delivery.

This book is about the threats to education quality in the developing world that cannot be explained by lack of resources. It reviews the observed phenomenon of service delivery failures in public education: cases where programs and policies increase the inputs to education but do not produce effective services where it counts - in schools and classrooms. It documents what we know about the extent and costs of such failures across low and middle-income countries. And it further develops the conceptual model posited in the World Development Report 2004: that a root cause of low-quality and inequitable public services - not only in education-is the weak accountability of providers to both their supervisors and clients.

The central focus of the book, however, is a new story. It is that developing countries are increasingly adopting innovative strategies to attack these problems. Drawing on new evidence from 22 rigorous impact evaluations across 11 developing countries, this book examines how three key strategies to strengthen accountability relationships in developing country school systems have affected school enrollment, completion and student learning.

The book reviews the motivation and global context for education reforms aimed at strengthening provider accountability. It provides the rationally and synthesizes the evidence on the impacts of three key lines of reform: (1) policies that use the power of information to strengthen the ability of clients of education services (students and their parents) to hold providers accountable for results; (2) policies that promote school-based management-that is increase schools' autonomy to make key decisions and control resources, often empowering parents to play a larger role; (3) teacher incentives reforms that specifically aim at making teachers more accountable for results, either by making contract tenure dependent on performance, or offering performance-linked pay.

The book summarizes the lessons learned, draws cautious conclusions about possible complementarities across different types of accountability-focused reforms if they are implemented in tandem, considers issues related to scaling up reform efforts and the political economy of reform, and suggests directions for future work.

* Making Schools Work: New Evidence on Accountability Reforms; by Barbara Bruns, Deon Filmer, Harry Anthony Patrino. Published by the World Bank, 2011. 

* The book may be purchased here. It may be read online, but not downloaded. Access the online version, here

This handbook constitutes one of the battles being fought by civil society organisations to promote and protect the rights of communities living adjacent to mining areas against the operations of extractive industries, the state and other individuals who violate their Environmental, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (EESCR). Its objective is to assist legislators to further appreciate and build their knowledge on the key issues that they should focus on in carrying out their representative, oversight and legislative role in the extractive sector. The handbook seeks to explain some key concepts in the extractive sector and give policy and legal solutions within the context of recent developments in the sector in Zimbabwe. The main thrust is to promote and protect the EESCR rights of mining communities.

The handbook has a diverse foundational base from which the information was drawn by the authors. Firstly, it is anchored on the results of a research on the impact of extractive industries on the EESCR of communities in Marange and Mutoko where diamond and black granite mining operations are taking place respectively. The research was undertaken by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) in 2009. Secondly, the book is based on lessons learnt by the authors in implementing a project initiated by ZELA to build the capacity of legislators to effectively play their representative, legislative and oversight role in the extractive sector. Thirdly, the authors drew a lot of information from formal and informal discussions with government officials, lawyers, industry officials, bankers, community representatives and donor agencies over the past three years. These discussions were invaluable in gaining insight into the subject of community rights, revenue transparency, corporate social responsibility and environmental justice. Some of the thoughts and discussion points there from are included in this book. Fourthly, the handbook drew some lessons as well from the public interest litigation work of ZELA which has seen the organisation assisting communities affected by the operations of mining companies and state actions by taking legal action seeking for redress. Fifthly, the handbook draws a lot of information from extensive literature on the extractive sector.

The research that was undertaken by ZELA in Mutoko and Marange was meant to provide a platform for civil society to better understand the trials and tribulations of the poor women, men and youths in these resource rich areas caused by mining companies and government action. The research also established the level of legislative representation of EESCR of mining communities by the respective members of parliament. Mutoko has the world renowned black granite that is being extracted mainly for export by 11 local and foreign mining companies. In Marange, diamond mining by state owned companies and foreign investors since 2006 has resulted in a lot of human rights violations. In both cases one of the key research questions was whether the local communities are deriving any tangible economic benefits from mining and what has been the impact of mining activities on community livelihoods from an environmental, economic, social and cultural rights perspective. Consequently, in both cases the research identified some of the major impacts of mining on the communities including environmental degradation, loss of land, water pollution, human rights violations and mere plundering of resources without any tangible benefits going to the communities. Instead when mining companies decide at their own volition to give back to the community, it will be donations of a few bags of food, fuel to local politicians or traditional leaders and other items that do not alleviate poverty.

The research was complimented by advocacy work that was aimed at influencing policy decisions in the extractive sector around community participation in mining, revenue generation and distribution, mining taxation, environmental degradation, corporate social responsibility and respect of human rights in mining communities. The target group for the project were legislators in the Mines and Energy Portfolio Committee and the Environment and Natural Resources Committee. The project sought to increase the legislators' knowledge of the impact of mining operations on communities. In essence, it sought to build a platform for engagement between the legislators and the communities. Legislators have a duty to call government and mining companies to account for their impact on the environmental, economic, social and cultural interests of communities living near mining areas. Therefore, within the above context, this handbook is meant to act as a guide to legislators to effectively play their legislative, representative and oversight role over government action and non-action in the extractive sector. It is also meant to demonstrate and expose cases of environmental, economic and social injustice happening in Marange and Mutoko for action by legislators. The hope is that this may then trigger legislative, political and community action to protect and promote the rights of communities living adjacent to other mining areas in Zimbabwe as the problems in Mutoko and Marange are a lens of the problems obtaining in the whole mining sector.

Drawing from the informal and formal discussions with various stakeholders, literature review and the public interest litigation cases, it is important to note that EESCR have continued to be relegated to the periphery in national discourse, implementation and resource allocation as civil and political rights are a preferred area of intervention in Zimbabwe. This is despite the equality and indivisibility of all human rights. The judiciary for example is not ready to defend the environmental, economic, social and cultural rights of communities as evidenced by the decision of the High Court in a case involving the relocation of Chiadzwa villagers that was dismissed by the court on the grounds that it was not an urgent matter. Further, a number of critical issues in the extractive sector were noted such as lack of transparency and accountability by state institutions in awarding mining contracts, corruption by public officials, a poor and ineffective mining tax regime that has failed to generate enough revenue for the state, absence of a corporate social responsibility framework for mining companies to meaningfully plough back to communities, limited opportunities for community engagement in mining and gross violations of human rights by the state and mining companies especially in Chiadzwa diamond fields. These are issues the legislators should tackle as a matter of urgency if the mining sector is to meaningfully result in community development and national economic growth.

In the above context, the publication of this handbook acts as a strategy that can facilitate more responsible government and private sector actions and deliver justice to poor and vulnerable women, men and youths whose rights are being violated in mining areas. In great part, this is also a contribution to the fight against poverty and vulnerability in the country as it may trigger action for improved enforcement and implementation of environmental, economic, social and cultural rights with the help of legislators. The handbook may also be useful in helping to bring government and other actors to account for their actions. One of the problems this publication seeks to address is the fact that poor and vulnerable women, men and the youths in rural and urban areas, either individually or collectively, often lack adequate knowledge and resources to challenge government actions, decisions or laws as well as private sector actions that contravene their constitutional rights or the country's obligations under international law. Further, when it comes to defending themselves against overreaching government, too many citizens are afraid to call the government and the private companies to account for their actions. Hence the legislator can play a key role in that respect.

In terms of structure, the book is divided into 4 Chapters. The first Chapter outlines the conceptual background of economic, environmental, social and cultural rights and the human rights discourse in the context of the extractive sector. The Chapter positions Economic, Environmental, Social and Cultural Rights (EESCR) as human rights. The contribution of the mining sector to economic development is also outlined in the Chapter. Chapter 2 is a statement of the legal and policy framework on mining taxation, corporate social responsibility, community participation, mining contract negotiation and transparency and accountability and how these concepts interlink with the rights and interests of poor and vulnerable communities living adjacent to mining operations.

Chapter 3 profiles the case studies; the impact of mining operations on Marange and Mutoko communities. It states the major problems faced by these communities especially in the face of operations of extractive industries. More importantly, the Chapter identifies some of the environmental, economic, social and cultural problems being faced by people living in these two mining areas. The Chapter is a demonstration of the problems faced by mining communities across the country and in many other African societies. The relevance of these two case studies is that they can demonstrate to the legislators some of the practical aspects related to corruption, human rights abuses, environmental degradation and inequality in wealth generation and distribution in the mining sector.

Lastly, Chapter 4 states the policy and legal options and recommendations as well as next steps for decision makers especially parliamentarians to focus on. Major policy recommendations and options revolve around the reform of mining laws, promotion of transparency and accountability in the extractive sector, equitable revenue management and distribution and community participation in mining.

The Woreda and City Benchmarking Survey (WCBS) was designed initially as a core monitoring and evaluation tool for the Public Sector Capacity Building Program (PSCAP). But the application of the survey has now expanded to include several reforms and donor supported operations. The survey provides a systematic, empirical and representative assessment of:

• the capacity of local government administrations in terms of management of their financial and human resources;
• involvement of participation of local communities in local government planning, budgeting and review processes; and
• performance for some selected public services.

The survey consists out of several different empirical instruments:

1. Supply-side - a quantitative questionnaire, which addresses local jurisdictions,
2. Demand-side - a quantitative questionnaire based citizen report card (CRC); qualitative Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with selected citizens; and semi-structured Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with selected representatives of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

The selection of jurisdictions and households was based on a multi-stage stratified sampling procedure, based on remoteness and food-security as key stratification criteria. Within regions, jurisdictions were selected in proportion to population size, where size is the data of the national census.

The first round of WCBS was conducted in 2005 and covering 48 woredas and 32 municipalities. The second round was conducted in 2008 covering 239 woredas and 52 municipalities while the third round covered 315 woredas and 69 municipalities and city governments. So, after WCBS III there are roughly remaining 100 jurisdictions in the country that have not been incorporated in any round of the WCBS.

The five reports below are related to the third WCBS that was conducted in 2010 compromising 384 jurisdictions, of which 315 are woredas, 69 city governments of which 20 are municipalities, as well as 10,667 households, 70 Focus Group Discussions (FGD), and 175 Key Informant Interviews (KII) with selected CSO representatives. Each of the documents summarizes findings of the different instruments of WCBS III, namely the supply-side survey, the Citizen Report Card (CRC), Focus Group Discussions (FGD), and Key Informant Interviews (KII). In doing so, areas such as institutional capacity (local government finance, tax administration, IT and technical support, human resources), service provision and perceptions (extension services, solid waste, health), as well as accountability and participation (public information and empowerment, council work and accountability) are covered in the reports.

Woreda and City Benchmarking Survey III Reports:

• Synthesis Report
• Benchmarking Scores
• Citizens' Report Card
• Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussions Report
• Supply Side Report

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• Social accountability and service delivery in Ethiopia: PBS review and documentation

The African Parliamentary Index (API) measures the level of engagement of selected African parliaments with the budget process in their respective countries. The API is a core component of the Africa Parliamentary Strengthening Program (APSP) for Budget Oversight and provides a scientific assessment of the performance of APSP partner parliaments on budget oversight. The Africa Parliamentary Strengthening Program (APSP) for Budget Oversight is working with partner parliaments to strengthen their capacity to carry out their legislative, financial, oversight and representative functions in ways that engender good governance and values of accountability, transparency and participation, especially in the budget process.

Since the PSC meeting in March 2010 the Parliamentary Centre has completed all the key activities as outlined at the PSC meeting. The following activities have been concluded.

• Framework for an African parliamentary index on budget oversight
• Development of the API self assessment tool
• Development of the API self assessment manual, and
• Self assessment in 6 out of 7 APSP partner countries

The framework reviewed relevant literature to inform the development of the assessment tools and the approach to the assessment. The framework for the API expanded the concept paper to provide details on the thematic scope of the API. It provided a basis for discussion on what to include in the index and even the depth of questions on the issues to be included. It also expanded on the methodology and assessment framework, taking into accounts what works and what does not.

The self assessment tool covers 5 core areas - representation, legislation, financial, oversight,  institutional capacity and institutional integrity - related to Parliamentary budget oversight and other core functional areas that directly affect Parliaments' financial and oversight roles. The questions are both qualitative and quantitative, with the latter giving greater clarity of response. Instruments are designed to allow each area of Parliament's responsibility to be assessed separately or in turn. Questions require respondents to make judgement on a four-point scale.

Assessment is done by a select group from parliament, usually members of the budget committee and chairs persons of other related committee. In all country assessment meetings, staffs from the clerk's department and the budget office play a key role in the assessments. They provide members of parliament with reference points from key documents like the standing orders of parliament and the constitution.

Country Assessment Meetings

The assessments have been carried out in 6 (Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Senegal) out of the 7 APSP partner countries.  All the meetings followed the same format; an introduction to the API, done through PowerPoint by the independent assessor, group work session where the actual assessment is done and a plenary where each group presents its assessment to the larger group for validation and also to allow groups to cross fertilize assessments from each group.

The presentation on the API highlighted the purpose and objectives of the project, the broad issues being considered for assessment and how it links to the work of parliament, the indicators and the assessment process. The presentation also explained the group work session to participants and outlined the activities and expectations.

In the group work sessions, participants were randomly selected into four groups. Three groups assess parliament on a number of themes in separate group sessions. A fourth group works on the prioritization matrix. This involves the assignment of weights to determine the relative importance of all the indicators being assessed against each other. The outcome of this session is a system of weights that defines the relative importance of each indicator to a particular Parliament. The weights are used to compute the index.

A plenary session is held where each group presents their assessment to the larger group for discussion. This provides an opportunity for members who were not in particular groups to provide information that may be critical to the assessment. In some cases, the larger group provided detailed information to the group presentation that resulted in a review of their assessment rating of the parliament.

Assessment outcomes

The assessment process has received positive feedback from all the parliaments where it has been implemented. In most cases, members were of the opinion that the process gave them an opportunity to reflect on the work they do in the budget process than ever before. It made them more aware of the responsibilities they have and we believe in most cases will start an agenda for change within these parliaments.

The assessment process is parliament led and driven. The assessment is done by members of parliament; the selection of the independent assessor is done in conjunction with the office of parliament. The Parliamentary Centre only provides the technical advisory needed for the process and the independent assessor provides lead facilitation.

Next Steps

Two validation meetings will be held as a follow-up to the assessment meeting in all the countries. The first would be with the leadership of Parliament. This would provide an opportunity to capture their views in the index. The second one would seek to validate the findings with key stakeholders, i.e. civil societies, who work closely with parliament. The index and individual country reports would be launched simultaneously in all the countries. This would give the index more media coverage and would make it more likely to be captured by the international media houses. The media encounter would engage and coach the media on the use of the indices.

More details on the Africa Parliamentary Strengthening Programme for Budget Oversight (2009-2014) can be obtained here

About the Parliamentary Centre: The Parliamentary Centre is a Canadian not-for-profit, non-partisan organization devoted to improving the effectiveness of representative Legislative assemblies around the world. The Centre has served parliaments and legislatures for more than four decades. Founded in 1968 to strengthen the capacity of Canada's Parliament, the Centre is now a global leader in parliamentary development with projects that support parliaments in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.  By far, the Centre's largest programs are in Africa where about 45 projects have been successfully implemented over the last two decades. Read more at: www.parlcent.ca

The Centre's Regional Office for Africa was officially opened in Accra in April 2004.  The Centre had project offices in Dakar, Senegal; Khartoum, Sudan; and Nairobi, Kenya.  Currently, one project office is operational in Kigali, Rwanda.  The decision to locate the Regional Office in Ghana was largely informed by Ghana's democratic credentials and the long-standing relationship between the Centre and the Parliament of Ghana.   Currently, the Centre, through the Africa Programs, works with about 20 Parliaments on the continent; 7 of which have signed MOUs with the Centre.  These are: Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The Regional Office also serves as a training facility, with a drop-in Resource Centre for MPs, as well as a contact point for activities of the Africa Parliamentarians Poverty Reduction Network, a Secretariat for the Africa Parliamentary Network Against Corruption (APNAC), which the Centre helped create in 1999, and a host centre for a number of programmes and projects.

The Centre focuses its expertise and institutional capacity building programs in the following areas: strengthening committee oversight and lawmaking; supporting regional inter-parliamentary networks; building the capacity of parliamentary secretariats; supporting legislative development at the state and provincial as well as the national levels; strengthening the role of political parties in the legislature; developing parliamentary performance planning and reporting systems.

Note: The ANSA-Africa website carries a number of important and popular reports on issues of parliamentary oversight and accountability and evaluations of the roles of MPs and parliaments. A number are listed below.

• Tanzania: Did they perform? Assessing five years of Bunge 2005-2010
• Tanzania: Do people prefer active MPs?
• Uganda: The Parliamentary Scorecard 2008 - 2009
• Liberia: Beyond the legislative veil - see your lawmakers at work
• Variation in performance among members of parliament: evidence from Ghana
• Do they work for us? Eight facts about MPs in Tanzania
• The Rwandan Parliament's self-assessment exercise: insights and issues
• Financial oversight function of parliamentarians: tools and mechanisms for optimum government budget analysis
• Parliament, the Budget and Poverty in South Africa: A Shift in Power
• African Parliamentarians Network Against Corruption: conference report
• South Africa: Report of the independent panel assessment of Parliament
• A review of parliamentary scorecards in Africa
• Strengthening Parliaments in Africa: Improving support

The last several decades have seen countries around the world decentralizing key services to the local level. Decentralisation has been seen as a way to improve efficiency of state structures, and bring decision-making closer to the people affected by policymakers' decisions. In Ghana, the process of decentralisation began in 1988.

In 1993, the Districts Assemblies' Common Fund was established to give Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies more financial autonomy to actually make decisions at the local level. It has since become an important tool for the achievement of fiscal decentralisation in particular and overall decentralisation in general. To ensure prudent use of the DACF, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, and the Administrator of the DACF set out clear guidelines for the utilisation of the fund by MMDAs to ensure value for money. Some of these guidelines relate to procurement, while others relate to special allocations, such as a 2 percent earmarked to reduce poverty among Persons With Disability and a 7 percent earmark for Members of Parliament to use for development purposes in their constituencies.

While decentralisation has been tried in many countries, the results have not always been satisfactory. Decentralisation has sometimes fallen short of expectations because local governments are given new responsibilities, but insufficient resources to carry them out. Though decentralisation has sometimes been touted as a way to reduce inefficiency and corruption, in some cases, it seems rather to only decentralise corruption and inefficiency to the local level.

The study focused on some of the key elements of the DACF. These include: the extent of community participation in DACF sponsored projects; the level of citizens awareness and access to information on the DACF by communities; the degree to which DACF sponsored projects are awarded in line with National Procurement Law; and finally, the utilisation of 7 percent MPs and PWDs 2 percent share of DACF.

The study was conducted in the second and third quarter of 2010 covering 50 districts across four administrative regions in Ghana. Information for the study was gathered by grassroots civil society actors.

Generally, the findings reveal that there has been non adherence to the guidelines for the utilisation of the DACF funds by MMDAs, particularly the 2 percent share of the fund for PWDs. The use of DACF money is not transparent, and frequently is decided without meaningful community participation. Access to information on and community participation in DACF projects have become very problematic to the extent that responsiveness of MMDAs to the local needs of citizenry has been affected. The main findings of the study are as follows:

1.1 Main Findings

Management and utilization of DACF for PWDs and by MPs

• More than two-thirds of PWDs were aware of their 2 percent share in the DACF.
• Access to the 2 percent-share of the DACF for PWDs from 2003 to 2008 was less than one- third of sampled PWD Associations. Access in the Northern Region was more than 50 percent. However, in the Upper East, Upper West and Greater Accra regions less than one-third of PWDs successfully accessed the funds in 2009. The establishment of the National Council for Persons with Disability could have contributed to the relative high access in 2009.
• About 44 percent of PWDs who successfully accessed the 2 percent share of the DACF between 2003-2009 expended the fund on the celebration of the International Day for the Disabled and attendance of meetings/conferences.
• Contrary to guidelines, about 55 percent of MMDAs sampled do not have the mandated Disability Fund Management Committees in place. Per the new guidelines the existence of these committees is a pre-requisite to accessing the PWD-share of the DACF.
• Nearly two-thirds of MMDAs do not have separate bank accounts for the management of the PWD-share of the DACF. The absence of these bank accounts prevents disbursement of the PWDs' share of the DACF with reference to the new guidelines for the management and disbursement of the DACF.
• Nearly 36 percent of MPs have had conflict(s) with their respective DCEs over the appropriation of MPs Fund since 2005. According to the MPs, this has adversely affected the implementation of projects in the constituencies.

Awareness and Access to information

• More than two-thirds of community leaders have heard of the DACF.
• The study observed that the major source of information on DACF for communities was through the Assembly Members.
  • Radio which in recent times has become an effective channel for communication, particularly with rural populations was the least used by MMDAs.
  • MMDAs are required by Law to prepare Medium Term Development Plans and Budgets to guide the overall development of their areas. MTDPs are means by which citizens needs and aspirations are translated into implementable programmes and projects. Out of the 29 district assemblies that responded to the study more than two-thirds did not provide their MTDPs and supplementary budgets for the period 2005-2009. None of the district assemblies could provide information on DACF expenditure returns.

Community Participation

• The study revealed that about half of community members were involved in the planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of the DACF projects as reported by community leaders. For those community members who did not participate in the planning, implementation and monitoring of DACF projects, the key reasons reported by community leaders was lack of access to information on DACF projects; and ineffective communication system employed by the MMDAs.

Disbursement and Utilization of DACF

• The study observed that about 50 percent of community leaders sampled do not believe that, MMDAs have effectively used the DACF to address their development needs. According to these community leaders, their limited involvement in DACF projects has made it difficult for theMMDAs to be responsive to their needs.
• Though 62 percent of MMDAs recognised the importance of cash flows, 45 percent of them actually prepare it.
• More than two-thirds of all procurements by MMDAs are through Competitive Bidding. According to the MMDAs, this method of procurement is used because contracts are within the threshold of the District Tender Committee. Also, it provides opportunity to ensure that there is value for money.

Recommendation

Based on the findings of our study, we make the following recommendation for policy consideration with a view to improving the access and utilisation of the DACF by the poor and the marginalised.

1. As a matter of priority, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development should ensure that all MMDAs comply with the guidelines for the disbursement and utilisation of the DACF for PWDs by establishing District Disability Fund Management Committees and opening separate bank accounts for the fund to enable PWDs access their 2 percent share of the DACF.
2. District Assemblies should pursue innovative measures that ensure access to information on DACF by citizens to elicit their support and participation in the implementation of DACF projects. Currently, communities rely on their Assembly Members for information which is not very effective. MMDAs should therefore explore the option of relying on community radio station for the dissemination of information on the DACF.
3. To ensure sustainability and community ownership of DACF projects, District Assemblies should increase community participation at all stages of the project since communities are currently dissatisfied with their level of participation in DACF projects.
4. In view of the inconsistencies between projected allocations and actual disbursement of DACF, it is strongly suggested that MMDAs prepare cash budgets to ameliorate the effect of the inconsistencies in implementation of projects.

Download the Policy brief

Prior to the onset of the global financial crisis, Africa had made significant progress toward sustainable economic development. It had achieved five years of growth at an annual average of six percent, an indicator of success seen in many nations across the continent, not just in oil-producing and commodity - exporting countries. Structural economic reforms, an increased commitment to fighting inflation, and promotion of a more favorable international business environment contributed to producing measurable results seen in such benchmarks as foreign currency reserve growth and inflation rate drops to single digits.

Countries in Africa made social gains, as well. Though only Tanzania is on track to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Mali and Burkina Faso are well positioned to meet several of the goals, and at least ten states are on track to achieve the primary education target.

Projections suggest that Mozambique is likely to achieve the child mortality and infant mortality goals, and Senegal is expected to achieve the eighth goal, which relates to a global partnership for developmentwith a special focus on ensuring that sufficient investment goes into development.

The global recession, rising poverty, the food and fuel crises, and the impact of climate change jeopardize ongoing progress in Africa, which also continues to be threatened by political instability and the risk of conflict. Further success toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable peace in the region will depend in part on the implementation of effective capacity development initiatives that reflect and respond to the particular realities and challenges present in fragile, post-conflict African states.

Effective capacity development must begin, then, with comprehension of the root causes of Africa's fragility and conflict; the lingering impact of a colonial legacy of weak, inappropriate institutions; and the tremendous challenge of creating workable solutions on a continent grappling with such a profound diversity of political, cultural, linguistic, and religious identities.

As many development partners have discovered, failure to understand the aforementioned factors goes hand in hand with failure to understand post-colonial state building efforts in Africa. Too often, state building and capacity development have been carried out as technocratic exercises in which fragile states import and institutionalize inflexible formulae.

The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), was founded on February 9, 1991 with a mission to build human and institutional capacity for sustainable growth and poverty reduction in Africa. ACBF is publishing this inaugural edition of its annual Africa Capacity Indicators Report (ACIR) to further its goal of building sustainable, effective institutions and policies to deliver development results for poverty reduction. This Flagship Publication draws on a combination of ACBF's two decades of work, the results of the Africa Capacity Indicators field studies completed during 2010, and technical background papers.

This Report introduces a unique and unprecedented series of data on the state of capacity in Africa. It also examines key issues and challenges confronting in-country and cross-border capacity development. The ACIR will serve as a major diagnostic tool and guide the development of priority actions by providing practical insights and recommendations where necessary.

To this end, the ACIR will form the basis for advocacy on major capacity development issues and bring to the attention of policy makers and other stakeholders the thematic and sectoral factors that might be affecting state and societal effectiveness in the delivery of specified mandates. It will serve as a tool to galvanize capacity development and poverty reduction actions in Africa by providing research-informed data on capacity development from across the continent.

Download executive summary |    Download full report

Born out of the optimism at the new millennium that Africa's time had come, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a tool designed to promote good governance on the continent, is built on the belief that the continent does not lack ideas to advance its development, but that states have struggled to live up to their principles and implement their policies. The APRM rests on the fundamental belief that good governance is a precondition for taking Africa out of its spiral of conflict, underdevelopment, poverty and increasing marginalisation in a globalised world.

Looking in the rear-view mirror almost a decade after the APRM was first conceived, Grappling with Governance: Perspectives on the African Peer Review Mechanism explores how this complex process has evolved from theory to practice in a variety of contexts. In a combination of case studies and transversal analysis, multiple voices from different African civil society actors - mainly analysts, activists and journalists - examine the process from their specialised perspective. The chapters tease out what can be learned about governance in Africa from these experiences, and the extent to which the APRM has changed the way that governments and civil society groups engage.

This book demonstrates that undergoing review through the APRM - literally, grappling with governance - can be messy, haphazard and full of reversals. Like any tool, the APRM's effectiveness depends on the suitability of its design for the task at hand, the situation in which it is used, and the skill of its user. The different authors reflect on these characteristics as users of this tool. While it is ill-advised to draw universal conclusions, this book nevertheless demonstrates that the APRM has added value, sometimes in unexpected ways.

About the editor

Steven Gruzd is head of the Governance and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). He joined SAIIA's Nepad and Governance Project in April 2003, serving as research manager, and he was subsequently appointed head in 2008. Previously he worked as a researcher and then research co-ordinator at the Centre for Development and Enterprise. Steven's research interests include the APRM, South Africa's international relations, African affairs, the Middle East, conflict and peace studies, and sport and politics. He holds an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an honours and BA degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. He co-authored The African Peer Review Mechanism: Lessons from the Pioneers, the first major study of the APRM with Ross Herbert in 2008.

"A timely and succinct exposition of the challenges of evolving state-society relations in Africa though the APRM… adds to the budding literature on the role of civil society in this uniquely African initiative" – Kojo Busia, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

"Essential reading to understand how civil society has perceived and experienced the APRM, and how their engagement has strengthened this organic African governance initiative" – Gabrial Negatu, DirectorL Governance, Economic and Financial Reform, African Development Bank.

See an interview with Steven Gruzd courtesy of Creamer Media's Polity.org.za.

Contents include:

Introduction
Steven Gruzd

The APRM: Assessing origins, institutional relations and achievements
Steven Gruzd

Civil society participation in Uganda's APRM process
Juliet Nakato Odoi

Assessing South Africa's APRM: An NGO perspective
Nick Hutchings, Mukelani Dimba & Alison Tilley

Making the news: Why the APRM didn't
Brendan Boyle

Do think tanks benefit from APRM work? Kenya's experience
Rosemary Atieno, Mohamud Jama and Joseph Onjala

Using representative opinion surveys in the APRM process
Robert Mattes

APRM's economic governance and management standards: What civil society should look for
Colm Allan and Neil Overy

Addressing the APRM's Programmes of Action
Faten Aggad

Common African political governance issues: Insights from six early APRM Country Review Reports
Yarik Turianskyi

Common African socio-economic issues: Insights from six early APRM Country Review Reports
Terence Corrigan

Conclusion
Steven Gruzd

Download the Introduction [.pdf]

Click here to buy the book.

Ghana has made incredible progress in recent years, both in terms of democratic consolidation and development outcomes. In addition to the achievement of an increasingly competitive political sphere and greater macroeconomic stability, successive governments have made important commitments to spending on key social priorities such as health, education, agriculture and social protection.

By the end of 2010, a major influx of oil revenues should start to flow onto Ghana's budget. These revenues have the potential to help Ghana consolidate its middle-income status, with an evolving welfare state. But, as this paper argues, they also have the potential to become a missed opportunity. Ghana needs to undertake key reforms of its financial management systems to improve the transparency and effectiveness with which it spends public money. Without these reforms, Ghanaians will not benefit from the increased revenues and the unique opportunity presented by the Jubilee field will be squandered.

When a government has access to new revenues, two important questions must be answered. The first question is: on what should this money be spent? As always, governments must make trade-offs between key priorities. In order for those trade-offs to serve the best interests of Ghanaians as a whole, we believe that there should be an open, transparent debate about which priorities the government ought to finance. The Ghana Aid Effectiveness Forum calls on the Government of Ghana to join with us in promoting a National Day of Discussion around budget priorities, where government, citizens and development partners can debate and discuss ways to use the new increment in revenues from oil.

The second question that arises from the realization of new revenues is: how will the new money be spent? Will the expenditure itself be transparent? Will citizens be able to monitor it? Will it actually reach the people it is supposed to reach? Will anyone be held accountable for waste or mismanagement? We believe that Ghana needs to make substantial improvements in its approach to managing public funds to ensure that new money is spent wisely, transparently and effectively. We call on government to begin to undertake the reforms detailed in this report immediately.

This report is a call to immediate action. The Ghana Aid Effectiveness Forum, in conjunction with other partners in civil society, including the CSO Platform on Oil and Gas, the Right to Information Coalition, the International Budget Partnership, and Oxfam America, believe that the time is now to make serious reforms in Ghana's budget process and budget priorities. If Ghana's government is to spend new monies wisely, there is no time to waste. The rest of this paper discusses weaknesses in Ghana's budget process, and then makes concrete suggestions for reform. Over the course of the next year, GAEF will build on this work to produce further research on specific areas of financial management reform, as well as a detailed set of proposals for how to use increased revenues to bolster Ghana's social sector.

The key budget process weaknesses we identify are:

Lack of Transparency: Ghana's budget process has become more open in recent years, but the country still scores only a 54 out of 100 on the Open Budget Index. Government of Ghana provides insufficient information on how it is actually spending public money during the year, once the budget is approved, and inadequate explanations at the end of the year for divergences between economic forecasts and actual outcomes. CSOs frequently complain about the inability to access information on actual expenditures during and after the budget year, and some institutions, like the National Health Insurance Authority, are particularly opaque.

Lack of Adherence to the Budget: The key to a good budget process is that once decisions about how to spend money are taken by government and approved by parliament, the government sticks to these decisions. If these decisions, which are captured in the enacted budget, are not adhered to, then budgeting loses its meaning, and money can be spent in ways that are not transparent and that do not reflect the outcome of public debate. Government of Ghana has struggled to adhere to the enacted budget over the past several years, which has led to certain ministries spending more than they have been allocated. The result has been the growth of expenditure arrears, which is essentially a form of debt that is being contracted without public approval. Lack of adherence to the budget therefore leads to lack of transparency and accountability in public spending.

Limited Oversight: Ghana has made great strides in recent years in creating a more effective external audit office to monitor government spending. Nevertheless, the audit service still lacks sufficient funding to fulfill its mandate. Audit reports are also released more than 6 months after the end of the reporting period, and the auditor provides insufficient information about follow up of audit findings.

* Click to download Executive Summary and Full Report

The Mozambican civil society is still characterized by a large number of informal organizations. On the formal side, the National Institute of Statistic (INE) registered 4853 non for profit institutions in 2003, most of which were religious associations.

In a situation where the state faces huge difficulties in meeting basic social and economic needs, most of the population rely on diverse forms of mutual support as their only welfare mechanism. Informal self-help organizations, growing spontaneously on a needs basis, remaining mostly unknown and surviving without external resources, constitute the major part of the Mozambican Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

The experience of implementing the Civil Society Index (CSI) in Mozambique turned out to be an important tool for the analysis of civil society (CS), benefiting donors, government, academics, and of course the CS itself. The implementation was also an important moment of self-assessment for the CS, indicating new alternatives and possibilities for its strengthening.

The impacts of the implementation process – influence in governance programming, the construction of new internal as well as inter-sectoral networks, and the opening of the wider constituency dialogue beyond the usual CSO suspects - were less significant than expected, and there was little follow-up after the release of the index report in April 2008. The underestimation of the national challenges while adapting the work methodology of the CSI, and the lack of a strong implementation agenda, were identified as the main reasons for the reduced impact of the implementation process.

The difficulties in implementing the recommendations of the index after its launch, and the failure to promote its use as a reference for programming and governance, are intrinsically related to the challenges in the country. With this conclusion, it seems clear that future initiatives should take these challenges into account, including a longer period of training and capacity building in the process.

In November 2010, around 100 of the world's leading experts in public financial management (PFM) met in London to debate why more progress is not being made in fragile states. Gathered at the sixth annual CAPE Conference, entitled Accelerating the transition out of fragility, these experts focused on the practical and policy aspects of using finance to support fragile states as they make the transition from fragility to stability, and the implications for Public Financial Management (PFM).

The participants included experts who had travelled to London from Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Tajikistan, Timor Leste, Kosovo, Solomon Islands, South Africa and Zimbabwe, with four Ministers of Finance in attendance. They were joined by practitioners with experience of other countries. Despite years of support for reform in fragile states, there were still differences of opinion on many issues. However, the discussions provided clarity on seven key issues:

1. Donors are not respecting government ownership and are micromanaging aid delivery despite commitments to the Paris aid effectiveness agenda in fragile states. We heard accounts from four Ministers of Finance of the difficulties they have had in managing the donor relationship and were struck by the comment that it was only possible to gain control of the reform process once domestic revenues had reached a high enough level to marginalise the influence of donors.
2. Participants recognised that PFM reform in fragile states requires a major change in management practices and buy in from a wide range of stakeholders in the country, with important administrative and political implications. It is not a technocratic fix. Yet there seem to be few country examples of properly designed and applied change management processes.
3. Current procurement procedures required by the international community are too complex and cumbersome for fragile states. While such processes reflect a valid need for accountability, it seems that the balance between accountability and development progress is insufficiently considered.
4. Inadequate pay levels in the public service in fragile states are having a serious effect on the sustainability of reform. In this regard, the policymakers are faced with a difficult choice between retaining qualified staff and ensuring a sustainable fiscal position, without impeding private sector development.
5. As fragile states move towards more democratic structures the role of Parliaments in the budget process would become more important. While there is no unique model for interfacing with Parliament, more attention needs to be paid to it to enhance budget transparency.
6. Too much time can be spent making legislative changes. Often these are not necessary because administrative regulations will do as well and the implementation capacity often does not exist to back up the legislation.
7. Finally, the conference demonstrated that collectively we are not learning as much as we can from the range of fragile state experience. Bringing together representatives from such a diverse group of countries, all of them struggling with the same problems can be enormously productive.

We, representatives of African women's civil society organisations and African women leaders meeting under the umbrella of "Gender Is My Agenda Campaign" (GIMAC) at the 17th African Women's PreSummit on Gender Mainstreaming in the AU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from January 24-26 2011, convened by Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS) in partnership with United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), African Union Commission (AUC), International Labour Organization (ILO) and IPAS with the support of the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF), Urgent Action Fund, Open Society Initiative (OSI), Nobel Women's Initiative, Agencia Espanola De Cooperacion Internacional, and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Finland, Norway and Sweden;

Welcoming the decision of the African Heads of State and Governments to devote the 16th ordinary session of the African Union Summit to the theme "Towards Greater Unity and Integration through Shared Values";

Appreciating the leadership of the African Union Commission and particularly its Political Affairs Department in ensuring that these important concerns receive the attention of the Heads of State;

Appreciating further the support of our various partners and the presence of Hon. Dr. Olivia Muchena,the Minister of Women's Affairs, Zimbabwe; Hon. Ms Awa Ndiaye, the Senegalese Minister of Gender Affairs, African and International Women's Associations; Hon. Gertrude Mongella former Pan African President; Hon. Mary Robinson, former President of the Republic of Ireland; Hon. Elizabeth Rehn, former Minister of Defence, Finland; and Dr Awa Marie Coll-Seck, Executive Director, Roll Back Malaria Partnership; whose contributions called attention to the urgent need to integrate gender perspectives in key and current issues concerning the African Continent, including the elimination of violence against women, climate justice and women's economic empowerment;

Reiterating the determination and commitment of the African women's movement in keeping women's rights on the African Union's agenda through Pre-summit consultations;

Recalling the commitments of African Heads of State and Government to take all necessary steps to achieve gender equality in Africa;

Recognising the continued desire of the Heads of State and Government in implementing and reporting on the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (2004) as reflected in the increase of Member States that have reported on it and those that have ratified the Protocol of the African Charter on Human and People's Rights and the Rights of Women in Africa (2003);

Commending the African Heads for adopting the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) instrument that promotes shared values of the African Union;

Noting with appreciation the desire of African Heads of State to continue to engage African women and ensure that our voices are heard and our needs effectively taken on board at all times;

Welcoming attempts by the African Union and the United Nations to resolve the conflicts in Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Guinea, Somalia and other parts of the continent;

Reaffirming GIMAC's commitment to monitor, evaluate and report on AU policies on women's rights, especially the implementation of the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (SDGEA) (2003) and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003);

Recognising the efforts of the African Union in declaring 2010-2020 as the African Women's Decade to further promote gender equality and the advancement of African Women in all spheres of life;

The Long-Term Mitigation Scenarios (LTMS), a government-led South African process, approached the mitigation challenge 'from the bottomup'. It involved a broad range of stakeholders who collectively bolted together both best-practice research and human imagination. The position the South African government took, based on the LTMS, was much hailed, both nationally and internationally. The LTMS is now constantly mentioned, and has had a remarkably lasting impact.

This report explores the process design of the LTMS, its implementation and unfolding story, and the lessons learnt. I look at the LMTS as an experiment in building policy through broad consensus-making. I also see the LTMS approach as a way to shape governance that is built on a foundation of social accountability.

I intend this book for a general audience. If you are interested in the challenges that a high-emitting, developing country faces when confronting the almighty task of managing its development path whilst at the same time reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, this book will, in part at least, show possible ways to approach the problem. I hope too that process facilitators, policy-makers and leaders in general find this account useful in other contexts or countries. Because process professionals often don't know much about the technical issues around Climate Change I have not assumed that readers are highly qualified in this area. On the other hand, I apologise to those who are experts, and acknowledge that my own technical knowledge is not always up to the task.

I recommend that this book be read as a companion piece to Harald Winkler's comprehensive book on the technical outcomes of the LTMS, Taking Action on Climate Change (UCT Press, 2009). which is aimed at those qualified and interested in the complex technical issues with which the research teams grappled.

In South Africa, through the LTMS, we achieved a remarkable consensus. This book is the story of how we got there.

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Related resources:

• South Africa: National Climate Change Response Green Paper 2010
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• Economic Governance Programme (Idasa): Response to National Climate Change Response Green Paper 2010
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The Government of Sierra Leone decided to self-assess its capacity to Manage for Development Results (MfDR) using the Capacity Scan (CAP-Scan) methodology to identify its strengths and weaknesses, as well as to develop an action plan to improve delivery of public goods.

Under the leadership of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED), more than fifty government officials from seven strategic public sectors – Energy and Water Resources; Transport and Aviation; Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security; Fisheries and Marine Resources; Education, Youth and Sport; MoFED; and Health and Sanitation – contributed to identify the national MfDR capacity using the CAP-Scan measurement framework adapted to the country context for the following five main areas: Leadership, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), Planning and Budgeting, Accountability and Partnerships, and Statistics. With an average score of 2 on a 4-point scale, Sierra Leone is starting to implement results-oriented approaches, with a need to be adequately equipped to increase its effectiveness and widen its coverage for increased performance.

The strongest national MfDR capacity exists in the Statistics area, as well as in the Planning and Budgeting domain. Specifically, budget consistency with national priorities was recognized as an effective practice by all sectors and stems from the performance-based budgeting approaches implemented within the Medium Term Expenditure Framework. The Finance Ministry is the only sector capable to conduct statistical strategies and plans, while the Health sector is outstanding on linking administrative performance to results and the Transport sector in applying change management.

The scores are fairly low in both the Leadership and M&E pillars. The most serious weakness, as pointed by almost all sectors, is the capacity to manage human resources. Without clear line of responsibilities and staff geared to results, the ability to deliver results is undermined. Continued training, staff retention and incentive mechanism in the civil service are also scored low. Sectors noted gaps in implementing intra- and inter-sectoral coordination, system for measuring user satisfaction and alignment of partners to national priorities. Few sectors also mentioned the lack of staff in M&E units and pointed inconsistencies in donor alignment to national priorities.

Improvement in the capacity to manage for results could be achieved in the short term. Participants prepared recommendations for their own sectors and a national action plan focusing on low cost quick wins to fully implement in the next 18 months. If improved, these results areas could have great multiplier and reinforcing effects on other areas, thereby improving the overall country capacity to manage for results in the foreseeable future. For example, the improvement of the 0.8 scored Human Resource Management component, within the Leadership pillar, is critical as it hinges on the government-wide capacity to deliver results. For the Monitoring and Evaluation pillar, priorities are given to strengthening capacity for M&E in all sectors and increasing the use of the data obtained for evidence-based decision and policy making. In terms of Accountability and Partnerships, civil servants underlined the need to establish guidelines to improve alignment of partners on national priorities and to ease the public access to results. A focus has also been put on promoting intra-departmental coordination and enhancing implementation of statistics strategy for results. The accomplishment of these actions would largely improve the results of this assessment and capacity to manage for development results in Sierra Leone. With inclusive planning and follow-up, these measures could be introduced in the first quarter of 2011.

The CAP-Scan in Sierra Leone is very timely as the Government is on the verge to assuming stronger control over its development and restructuring its public sector with the end of donor's direct involvement in project implementation units. The findings aim to foster delivery of the national objectives set in the Agenda for Change.

A century after Flexner's report on medical education in North America, the main challenge in the 21^st century for the education of health professions resides in the responsibility of educational institutions for a greater contribution to improving health systems performance and people's health status. This will be achieved not only by tailoring educational programs to priority health problems, but also by a stronger involvement in anticipating health and human resources needs of a nation and in ensuring that graduates are employed where they are most needed delivering the most pressing services. A new paradigm of excellence for academic institutions is needed, as well as new sets of standards and accreditation mechanisms to promote and evaluate their capacity for a greater impact on health.

From 10 to 13 October, 65 delegates from medical educational and accrediting bodies around the world met in East London, South Africa to finalize the Global Consensus on Social Accountability of Medical Schools (GCSA) whose agreement follows. This was the culmination of a twoyear process of engagement with an International Reference Group (IRG) of 130 organizations and individuals seen as leaders in medical education, accreditation and social accountability.

Facilitated by a Steering Committee of 20 international experts, the IRG members participated in a three-stage Delphi process over eight months leading up to the GCSA. Initially, forty-three pages of raw data were gathered responding to three open ended questions:

1. How should a medical school improve its capacity to respond to future health challenges in society?
2. How could this capacity be enhanced, including the use of accreditation systems for selfassessment and peer review?
3. How should progress towards this end be assessed?

Through two further rounds and the facilitated meeting, themes were extracted and consensus reached on ten thematic areas. Each area and its contents was thus derived from a grassroots process that ensured the consensus was built up from the experience and expertise of the IRG members through a process of gradual refinement, negotiation and consensus.

Area 1: Anticipating society's health needs
Area 2: Partnering with the health system and other stakeholders
Area 3: Adapting to the evolving roles of doctors and other health professionals
Area 4: Fostering outcome-based education
Area 5: Creating responsive and responsible governance of the medical school
Area 6: Refining the scope of standards for education, research and service delivery
Area 7: Supporting continuous quality improvement in education, research and service delivery
Area 8: Establishing mandated mechanisms for accreditation
Area 9: Balancing global principles with context specificity
Area 10: Defining the role of society

Since the Protection of Basic Services (PBS) programme started in 2006, Ethiopia has made strong progress to expand and improve the delivery of basic services. This resulted in an increased net primary enrollment rate from 68.5 percent (2005) to 83.5 percent (2009), and an improved child immunization rate from 70 percent (2005) to 81.6 percent (2009). It also increased rural access to potable water.  The nationwide programme works closely with the government, organizing multiple donors to support progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and to build capacity of systems to support local government transparency and accountability. Project reviews from the first phase of the PBS are now available.

At the beginning of the Millennium, Ethiopia's human development indicators were amongst the very lowest in the world. The government has committed to significant progress to reach the Millennium Development Goals, supporting decentralized basic service delivery. Despite good progress towards these goals, the outcome and subsequent social unrest following the 2005 elections strained the relationship between Ethiopia and its donor partners, resulting in the suspension of budget support, and posing a significant risk to the continued roll out of the government's targeted poverty spending program. Focusing on joint commitment to reach the MDGs, the Protection of Basic Services (PBS) Program seeks to ensure uninterrupted support to basic services such as education, health, water, and agriculture while strengthening local government capacity and improving accountability in the management of public resources.

Results

PBS is aimed at increasing access and quality of basic services, while building government systems capacity and supporting the government of Ethiopia's decentralization drive. The project has already shown significant results, including the following:

• Net primary school enrollment rate increased from 68.5 percent (2005) to 83.5 percent (2009), by supporting local governments hiring of an additional 264,000 primary school teachers nationwide;
• Child immunization rate increased from 70 (2005) to 81.6 percent (2009) through placement of 35,000 health extension workers nationwide, so that two trained workers are in every new health post in every community in the country and essential immunization materials are available in each of these health posts;
• Rural access to potable water increased from 46 percent (2005) to 61.5 percent (2009);
• Improved transparency as all regions and 90 percent of local governments posted budgets in public places;
• Strengthened accountability and fiduciary systems, as quarterly audits took place for 95 percent of local governments nationwide (730 out of 770).

Due to the excellent results of PBS 1, a follow-up operation (PBS 2) was approved in 2009, following strengthened procedures to promote policy dialogue, build capacity and monitor results. IDA support for the PBS Program through this operation continues to support decentralized provision of basic services, including education, health, agriculture, water supply and sanitation, with the addition of rural roads. Sustainability of the program is ensured since it is a program owned by the government of Ethiopia and financed in large part by its own resources, and by using the country systems while strengthening capacity for improved public financial management and accountability.

• Evaluation and Design of Social Accountability Component of the Protection of Basic Services Project
  Dr Samuel Taddesse, Biraj Swain, Merga Afeta and Gadissa Bultosa
  Infrastructure Professionals Enterprise Global
  June 2010
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• PBS II Social Accountability Program: Phase 2 Implementation Plan
  Dr Samuel Taddesse, Biraj Swain, Merga Afeta, Gadissa Bultosa, Dr Renu Khosla and Sidhartha Patnaik
  Infrastructure Professionals Enterprise Global
  October 2010
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• Social Accountability: the Ethiopian Experiment
  Dr Samuel Taddesse
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• The Wealth and Gender Distribution of Rural Services in Ethiopia: A Public Expenditure Benefit Incidence Analysis
  Tewodaj Mogues, Carly Petracco and Josee Randriamamonjy
  International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
  January 2011
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Further reading: Readers might be interested in an ongoing debate between Human Rights Watch and donors active in Ethiopia over the extent to which donor programmes, such as the PBS, are constrained by broader governance and political issues in the country.

• Human Rights Watch: Donor aid supports repression
• DAG statement in response to Human Rights Watch report: statement
• Human Rights Watch: Donors should investigate misuse of aid money
• Development Assistance Group Ethiopia: the DAG website provides additional information on the PBS and other donor programmes.
• The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development: The website includes a PBS page where users can also access the PBS programme manual (266 pages)

This report presents the findings, conclusions and recommendations of an independent evaluation conducted of the PBS I Social Accountability Program which was piloted across Ethiopia between January 2008 and June 2009 following comprehensive knowledge sharing and planning. The evidence gathered from selected woredas, towns and cities where the social accountability program was implemented, show how the activities, facilitated by civil society organizations (CSOs) in cooperation with citizen groups and local government officials, introduced selected tools such as Community Score Cards, Citizens Report Cards and Participatory Budgeting for assessing (a) access and quality of basic services and (b) effectiveness and efficiency of the use of public resources. The Government of Ethiopia recognizes that the program has enhanced the knowledge and understanding of relevant stakeholders regarding social accountability tools, mechanisms, approaches and best practices.

Based on their findings, the evaluators have also concluded that the social accountability activities have enhanced the quality of basic services where they were applied. Their basic premise is that the interface meetings between the service providers and service users that reviewed the status of specific services resulted in joint actions for service quality improvements. They further argue that interface meetings, seen as breakthrough platforms by citizens and service users, resulted in increased citizens’ awareness of their rights, entitlements and responsibilities as well as enhanced understanding among service providers of their accountability to citizens/service users.

However, the positive results of the Pilot Social Accountability Program did not take place in a vacuum: it’s my belief that the program would not have materialized without the Government of Ethiopia’s commitment and wider activities to enhance governance and accountability in the context of devolution and empowerment. These activities created an enabling environment for social accountability.

The evaluators had a challenge attributing the positive results to the exact interventions, with GOE governance reforms, including the public sector capacity building program, civil service reform and democratic institutions program, taking place in parallel with the PBS I social accountability activities. An important lesson to take away for the next phase of the PBS social accountability program, which will be rolled out in the first part of 2011, is therefore the need for a strong M&E component so we can more easily learn what type of accountability measures are effective in our country.

I hope the findings of the evaluation will serve as an inspiration to practitioners and policy-makers interested in effective and accountable service delivery.

Mekonnen Manyazewal
Former State Minister of Finance and Economic Development (now Minister of Industries)
Chairman of the PBS Social Accountability Steering Committee (2006-2010)

This document outlines the design and implementation of the Social Accountability Program under the Protection of Basic Services (PBS) II. The Sub-program C, part 2 (C2) on Social Accountability, hereafter referred to as Phase II - Social Accountability Program (Phase II-SAP), is based on a review of the implementation of and lessons from PBS I Component 4 (C4) that was piloted across Ethiopia between January 2008 and June 2009.

The rationale for scaling up the social accountability program comes from the very successful implementation of the pilot social accountability project that demonstrated how appropriate social accountability mechanisms overlaid on Government of Ethiopia's (GOE's) accountability framework and synergized with its civil service reforms and capacity building efforts, can work in Ethiopia with beneficial outcomes for the actors involved and for improving the quality of basic service delivery. Simple social accountability tools such as Community Score Cards (CSC), Citizen Report Cards (CRC) and Participatory Budgeting in the PBS I social accountability program, have served as powerful instruments of accountability as they are easily understood and capable of being applied by local communities. It has also established that it is possible for citizens groups and service providers to constructively engage in joint reviews of service delivery effectiveness, quality and equity, and to develop plans for addressing service deficiencies. In addition, social accountability can build community ownership and mobilize community contributions and resources such as time and labor for operation, maintenance and upgrading of services; an unprecedented and invaluable change in citizens' attitudes and behavior towards partnering with government institutions.

A second impetus for rolling out the social accountability program comes from the GOE's continued focus on social accountability. Recent changes in the legal framework defining Civil Society Organization (CSO) initiatives notwithstanding, the GOE has positioned social accountability as an important and intended objective within basic services' provisioning framework.

The Design of Phase II - Social Accountability Program

Guiding Principles: As in Phase I, the guiding principles for Phase II-SAP will be:

• Recognition of civil society and government roles, mandates and responsibilities in Social Accountability;
• Government and Social Accountability Implementing Partners (SAIPs) working together with deeper understanding of the Social Accountability framework;
• Commitment from all actors (Government and SAIPs) to make joint efforts in building woreda level capacity;
• Inclusion and engagement of diverse civil society actors and citizen groups, and building partnerships among them;
• Localization of Phase II social accountability activities to the context, where tools and mechanisms are adapted and agreed at the local level;
• Transparency at all levels and from all stakeholders involved and non-partisanship on the part of SAIPs; and
• Focus on the local/woreda level; the core of social services delivery.

Phase II-SAP is designed to deepen and broaden the accountability initiatives under basic services' programs. It targets both men and women, including those living with HIV/AIDS and/or disabilities. It is designed with the objective of "strengthening the use of social accountability tools, approaches and mechanisms by (a) citizens and citizens groups, (b) civil society organizations (CSOs), (c) local government officials, and (d) service providers (SPs) in order to make basic service delivery more effective, efficient, responsive and accountable". Phase II-SAP will ensure the effective implementation of social accountability tools and mechanisms to achieve the following five outcomes for effective, gender-sensitive, inclusive, efficient, responsive and accountable public basic services delivery.

• Outcome 1: Increased awareness of citizens and citizen groups of their rights, responsibilities and entitlements to contribute to and demand better quality public basic services.
• Outcome 2: Increased empowerment and involvement of citizens and citizen groups and communities in the planning, budgeting, implementation and monitoring of the quality of, access to, and quantity of basic public services.
• Outcome 3: Increased capacity of Social Accountability Implementing Partners (SAIPs) to empower citizens and citizen groups on multiple social accountability tools, approaches and mechanisms.
• Outcome 4: Increased capacity of woreda officials and public basic service providers to respond to community and citizens’ needs and preferences and be accountable.
• Outcome 5: Improved quality of basic services in the PBS sectors (i.e., education, health, agriculture, water and sanitation, and rural roads) attributed to the social accountability program.

Zambia's large mineral reserves are its richest natural endowment. Copper mining is the main source of foreign exchange earnings and an essential part of the country's developmental plans. This paper, based on a series of public discussions held in 2010, highlights public concern over how much Zambia really benefits from its copper wealth, and calls for the mining tax regime to be reformed to collect more revenue.

• Zambia's mining tax regime is strongly focused on attracting foreign investment through low rates and an assortment of incentives. But this needs to be balanced with the urgent need to raise more revenue from mining in order to invest in infrastructure and the country's economic development. The optimal balance between these two objectives has not yet been struck. It is time for the Government to devise a strategy for all Zambians to participate in the benefits from their country's mineral reserves.
• The revenue-based windfall tax, repealed in 2009, is a simpler way to tax windfalls than the existing variable profit tax, which has not yet delivered any revenue. Had it remained in force, the windfall tax could have contributed many hundreds of billions of kwacha to government coffers. Given the limited capacity of the Zambian authorities to assess mining companies' claims on profitability levels, the windfall tax should be re-introduced, at least until such a time that Zambia is able to administer a profitsbased tax effectively.
• Mining companies should not be allowed to offset hedging transactions against income. Fixing this loophole would be a simple and effective measure to raise revenue and should be one of Government's first moves.
• It is crucial that those who bear the brunt of mining's social and environmental impacts see a fairer distribution of mineral royalties. Mining operations take a toll on the local infrastructure and fuel rapid urbanization, so the local administrations need specific support to address these challenges.
• Public discontent is fuelled by the secrecy of government relations with mining companies, dating back to the Development Agreements which have never been publicly disclosed. It is imperative that the Government and mining companies subscribe to international best practice in extractive industry transparency.

Ghana's progress in improving delivery of public services, including education, has been consistent with its achievements in consolidating democracy and respect for the rule of law since the restoration of civilian rule in 1992. The strong national focus on education, even during the periods of military rule, was maintained by the Kufuor administration, in office from 2001 to 2008, and enrolment rates at primary and secondary levels have increased at unprecedented rates. Yet Ghana remains behind in fulfilling the right to education, advanced in international treaties and its constitution, and may not achieve the Millennium Development Goal target of universal primary school completion by 2015.

This report examines some of the reasons for those shortfalls in the governance of the public education system in Ghana; the mundane support processes of statistics collection and utilisation, strategic planning and implementation, financial and resources management, human resources management and development and oversight of all these functions. Though two of the primary reasons for Ghana’s failure to achieve the best education delivery result, remains the lack of consistent policy implementation and the lack of funds, especially to provide critical resources and train and reward the staff needed to supply quality teaching. There are indications that much can be done to improve management of education policies and deployment of the funds that do exist. Improving those systems will, in turn, increase the confidence of those who are in a position to support increased budget allocations to the sector.

Even though development partner contributions to the national and discretionary budget remains relatively high, around 20% in recent years, their recorded share of the education budget is much less, declining to around 5.5% in 2007. Evidence in the field, however, points to a higher donor contribution to education, much of which is masked by the fact that many of such assistance to NGOs and CSOs are not planned for, or captured, in official documentation and returns are not publicly filed for analysis.

Perhaps the more valuable contribution by development partners is the extensive expert advice and qualitative inputs made through technical assistance and capacity building of various kinds, which go to enhance national and education sector capabilities on a more sustainable basis, especially from the DFID, UNESCO, and UNICEF. It is obvious that even if donor contributions in loans and grants are discontinued, for any reason, there will always be the need for their expert inputs, indispensable in keeping up the level of Ghana's education to international standards, for purposes of cross-border comparability and transferability of skills and knowledge within the global village.

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After a focus group discussion with the evaluation team¹, Ato Lemma, a schoolteacher in Hakim, Hararge asked rhetorically, "What do I want for my family and myself? And what do my friends and neighbors want? What do you want for your family and yourself?" and answered his question by saying, "Isn't it a healthy, happy and prosperous life."

How can this be achieved? To have a healthy, happy and prosperous life one would need to have access to clean water, good basic education, good healthcare, clean air, food, shelter and income generating opportunity. Most of all one needs to have the freedom to choose. This is true regardless of whether one lives in the developed or developing world.

Water, education, healthcare, clean air and land are shared resources and in most countries governments control their provisions and availability. Government's produce and supply or regulate these resources. However, in most developing countries availability, quality and access are constrained by lack of government resources, weak supervision and management of government resources or corruption and indifference.

It is also constraint by citizens' incomplete understanding of their citizenship rights, responsibilities and entitlements to public basic services. Around the world, including Ethiopia, citizens fear public officials and civil servants. Many citizens are afraid to challenge these public officials and public servants regarding their service delivery performance.

Likewise, public officials and civil servants have incomplete understanding of their duties and accountability to citizens. Community involvement in the planning, budgeting and implementation of public basic services delivery is at best limited or absent. Public forums where public officials, public sector service providers and citizens meet tend to be dominated by public officials speech making. No serious and systematic attempted is made to gather data on the problems and priorities of citizens neither do public officials provide useful information that citizens can use to address their service needs.

1. The evaluation of the Pilot Social Accountability Project was carried out by Dr. Samuel Taddesse, Team Leader, Biraj Swain, Social Accountability Expert, Merga Afeta, Project Design, Implementation & Management Expert, Gadissa Bultosa, M&E Expert under contract with IPE International, New Delhi, India and the World Bank, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Sihdartha Patnaik provided program management support from New Delhi, India.

Comments on this paper can be sent to the author at

The fifth issue of Anti-Corruption Research News contains  recent insights and activities in anti-corruption research, synthesised for scholars, policy-makers and anti-corruption practitioners. This newsletter is part of the Anti-Corruption Research Network (ACRN), an initiative by Transparency International to build a knowledge community and information service for anti-corruption research.

To inform the writing of the African Report on Child Wellbeing 2011, a number of technical papers on budgeting and related topics were written by ACPF experts and other renowned scholars who are knowledgeable on the subject. This publication entitled "Budgeting for Children in Africa: Concept and Framework for Analysis" is one of such papers.

We believe that this publication, along with the others, will contribute to the body of knowledge and inform the work of researchers, policy makers, as well as governments and non-government organisations that deal with children’s issues in Africa, and elsewhere.

As part of its effort to carry out informed advocacy on the rights and wellbeing of children in Africa, The African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) decided to produce a report on a specific theme every other year. The first of these reports was the 2008 African Report on Child Wellbeing that mainly focused on measuring child-friendliness of African governments. This report is a major contribution in promoting good governance and child wellbeing, as well as being an important source of information on children in Africa. It has also informed programmatic development of a number of organisations in Africa and elsewhere.

The second report in the series, The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2011 is on the theme 'budgeting for children'. This theme was chosen, inter alia, in appreciation of the fact that childhood – being a stage of vulnerability – always carries with it a sense of urgency which demands immediate and concrete action on the wellbeing and rights fronts, wherein the budget is the linchpin.

"Budgeting for Children in Africa: Concept and Framework for Analysis" reviews pertinent and emerging issues related to budgeting for children from a child rights perspective. The paper also concentrates on the management of practice and the task of putting policy into practice to make a difference in the lives of children in Africa.

It is hoped that this publication will not only fulfill the vital function of providing up to date information, but that it will also enable us, in partnership, to evaluate and coordinate Africa-wide efforts to increase budget allocations to sectors that greatly affect and impact on the rights and wellbeing of children in Africa.

David Mugawe
Executive Director

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Donors and the Government meet in December 2010 for the General Budget Support (GBS) Annual Review. During this review achievements of the past year will be considered and commitments for next year made. If all goes well, donors will pledge hundreds of millions of dollars in budget support to the Treasury. Will this money help Tanzania achieve results?

Several studies released in 2010 suggest that the country made progress in some areas. GDP growth was reported to be around 6 percent, infant and child mortality continue to decline, and mosquito nets are being adopted widely. In other areas progress has eluded Tanzania's citizens. In this brief we focus on two such areas: management of public resources and quality of basic education. There are many important challenges facing Tanzania; we choose to focus on these two because effective public finance management is needed to align resources with results, and better education is essential for developing a capable human resource base.

Regarding public resources, the Open Budget Survey 20101 demonstrates that Tanzania's budget process lacks adequate transparency, leaving citizens in the dark about how tax and donor money are used. Moreover, audit reports from the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) show how the Government has failed to manage public resources well and taken little action to respond to audit queries. Regarding primary education, studies by Uwezo, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and the CAG sketch an alarming picture of children learning little, of teachers not showing up at school, and of financial resources not reaching school in accordance with policy.

The Performance Assessment Framework (PAF) for the GBS should take the successes and challenges facing Tanzania into consideration. Similarly newly elected Members of Parliament (MPs) need to take up these issues as part of their oversight role on behalf of citizens. In this brief we ask the Government, MPs and donors to reflect upon the challenges and to take bold steps to address them. At the end of the day the effectiveness of the GBS Annual Review should be judged not by who participated, what was discussed or process indicators achieved, but by how well it triggers public resources to be used better to develop a more capable and confident citizenry.

The secondary schools bursary scheme was introduced by the Government in the 1993/1994 financial year to enhance access, ensure retention and reduce disparities and inequalities in the provision of secondary school education. In particular, the bursaries are targeted at students from poor families, those in slum areas, those living under difficult conditions, those from pockets of poverty in high potential areas, districts in Arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL), orphans and the girl child. In 2008, the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research conducted a pilot survey in 49 public secondary schools in Nairobi province. The results of the pilot survey indicated that only 43 percent of those that applied for the secondary education bursary were able to access bursary funding, with 84 percent of them getting Ksh.5,000 and below and a paltry 0.4 percent receiving the maximum allocation of Ksh. 15,000.

The data collected from schools further revealed that a significantly higher number of beneficiaries, 62 percent got funding from other bursary providers. Further, the Nairobi survey revealed that the students were not assured of continuous funding and that the disbursement of the bursary funds was not aligned to the school curriculum. Also revealed from the Nairobi survey is poor record keeping that resulted in seven percent of the money not reaching the targeted beneficiaries. In 2009, IPAR embarked on a national survey of the remaining 202 constituencies. Findings from 184 constituencies and 189 schools reveal that the bursary is experiencing a number of challenges, notably: inadequate funds disbursed from the Ministry of Education to the constituencies with more than 61.5 percent of the demand unmet; poor use of allocation guidelines resulting in more than 83 percent of the beneficiaries getting the minimum allocation of Ksh. 5,000 and inconsistent support to needy students which disrupts the learning programme. Further the findings indicate that there is poor keeping of records at the constituency level. The survey recommends for allocation of more funds to constituencies and financing of a few beneficiaries adequately to completion; disbursement of funds to constituencies in line with the academic curriculum; and revision of the guidelines to address the application procedures and submission of comprehensive reports, among others.

Social Audit – An introduction

What is social Audit?

Social Audit is an independent and participatory evaluation of the performance of a public agency or a programme or scheme. Social Audit enables the civil society to assess whether an agency lives up to the shared values and objectives it is committed to. Social Audit also helps to rectify the deficiencies in a programme to redesign the objectives, focus and mode of implementation. Social audit has become one of the most popular social accountability tools used across the country.

What are the Objectives of Social Audit?

The key objectives of Social Audit are:

• To ensure proper implementation of the scheme under audit
• To ensure accountability in implementing the scheme
• To ensure participation of all the stakeholders
• To ensure community participation and help them realize their rights and entitlements
• To identify and resolve gaps and mismanagement

Principles of Social Audit

There are three important guiding principles of social audit. They are,

1. People's participation and multi-perspective approach: Social Audit adopts an integrated approach, where the views of the various stakeholders involved are taken into consideration and unified and reflected. In addition to this, all individuals and institutions that are directly or indirectly involved in the process of social change are also involved. Social audit process provides opportunity to individuals and institutions to debate and deliberate, and put forth their ideas and perspectives. Further, stakeholders can also represent and express their views freely on a social audit forum.
2. Regular and recurring activity: Social audit must be a regular and recurring process. Social audits must be planned, scheduled and undertaken regularly. Occasional or sporadic social audits do not yield the required results. Planned and regular implementation of social audits and information sharing can result in both the implementers and the beneficiaries becoming socially accountable.
3. Information Availability: Information is vital in the process of social audit which aims in attaining transparency and accountability. Information pertaining to various projects undertaken under both BSUP & IHSDP programmes recorded in various registers should be made available to the social audit teams for social audit.

What are the Steps involved in a Social Audit Process?

The social audit process involves the following steps.

1. Collecting the information for audit
2. Verifying the information collected and cross-checking it through field visits
3. Collating and consolidating information into simple and understandable formats for public understanding
4. Identifying gaps and discrepancies in the implementation of the process
5. Convening a Public Meeting
6. Follow-up action and resolutions

Need for Social Audit for monitoring BSUP and IHSDP Projects

Considering that the focus of JnNURM is on community participation and developing inclusive cities, it is important to initiate a formal process and mechanism for reviewing/evaluating the social impact of the mission and its relevance from the point of view of the target groups, citizens and the society. Therefore, institutionalizing the social audit process will ensure capturing these social impacts and also ensure collection of feedback from the beneficiaries to regularly monitor and improve the project. The usefulness of integrating social audit to monitor JNNURM projects can be achieved at two levels viz., at the community level and at an organizational (ULBS) level.

1. Usefulness of social audit at community level
   1. Builds peoples’ confidence & trust in the institutions
   2. Ensures participation and involvement of various sections of the society
   3. Provides a forum where people can demand what is rightfully theirs from Government, Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)
   4. Creates awareness and spreads accountability
   5. Prevents corruption and curtails misuse of government funds and resources.
2. Usefulness of social audit at organizational level (ULB)
   1. Making organisations popular and credible
   2. Helping in program planning & implementation
   3. Helping in sensitizing Government, CSOs, media and the community
   4. Acting as a novel and innovative tool to assess the performance of BSUP and IHSDP programmes in a cost effective manner
   5. Prevents corruption and curtails misuse of government funds and resources.

The Scope of the Social Audit

The scope of the social audit will focus on obtaining feedback of the beneficiaries and the community on the process of implementation of BSUP and IHSDP projects. The scope primarily covers following three key issues, namely,

1. Quality of the constructed infrastructure
2. Effectiveness of pro-poor basic services provided and
3. Satisfaction of the targeted beneficiaries and the community

As a poor developing country recovering from civil war, Angola relies heavily on revenues from oil which accounts for two-thirds of the government's income. But civil society groups, the International Monetary Fund and other observers have long raised concerns about lack of transparency in the government's management of these revenues.

A well-documented history of severe official corruption in Angola has meant that revenues which could have been used to promote the country's development have been siphoned off or wasted. Global Witness has published a series of reports since 1999 raising concerns about corruption in the oil sector. The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) Angola has long worked for more open and accountable government.

Since 2004, the Angolan government has responded to concerns about its lack of transparency by publishing large amounts of official data about oil production and exports in Angola, and the revenues that flow to the state from oil. The government has taken further steps since signing a three-year, US$1.4 billion loan agreement with the IMF at the end of 2009, notably the publication for the first time of the audited accounts of Sonangol, the powerful state oil company which dominates the public finances of Angola.

This report assesses the extensive official data published by the Angolan government in order to answer the question: do these data provide concerned Angolan citizens with a comprehensive and reliable picture of how much revenue the government earns from oil? Without such a picture, it is impossible for citizens to monitor the flow of revenues and press the Angolan government to use these funds in their long-term interest.

The simple answer is that the official data on oil production, exports, domestic sales, prices and above all, revenues, are not reliable. None of the figures appear to be independently verified (with the partial exception of Sonangol's accounts, which are audited by an international accounting firm). Thus even in cases where different agencies' figures are consistent with each other, there is no external assurance that the figures are accurate.

In fact the figures from different agencies show numerous gaps, discrepancies and anomalies which are hard to explain, based on the available information. This report does not allege that the figures show evidence of corruption and fraud and it is possible that, with independent verification, at least some of them could be confirmed as accurate. But at present, there are too many problems for the official data to be accepted as reliable or comprehensive.

The report examined the most detailed reports produced by Angolan government agencies, which include annual oil sector reports from the Ministry of Petroleum, detailed month-by-month oil export and revenue figures from the Ministry of Finance, an annual statistical bulletin published by the same ministry and the audited financial statements of Sonangol. All the data used were from 2008, the most recent year for which all these sources were available at the time this report was completed in late 2010.

The report also examines a key revenue stream, signature or other bonuses paid by oil companies, for 2006 (because several billion dollars were reportedly paid in bonuses in that year, though the sums since then have been much smaller). The report also cites some external sources, mostly agencies that analyse the international energy market, to compare them to the government's figures.

Global Witness has written to the Angolan Ministries of Finance and Petroleum to ask them how their published figures are constructed, and has written to Sonangol on various occasions seeking comment about oil industry issues in Angola, but has not received a response. OSISA Angola and Global Witness would welcome a public discussion with the Angolan government on the findings of this report.

The main findings of this report are that:

• Angola's official figures for oil production and exports in 2008 are not independently verified. The Ministry of Petroleum's figures are roughly comparable to estimates by external agencies. The Ministry of Finance reports a massive 87 million fewer barrels of oil exports than the Ministry of Petroleum, which is not plausible.
• The government publishes several average prices for oil sales in 2008: the price from the Ministry of Petroleum is close to that of credible external estimates but the Finance Ministry has two average prices, one nearly US$10 a barrel higher than the other.
• Sonangol and the ministries publish different figures for the volumes of oil sold by the state oil company, which is Angola's single biggest source of revenue. There is a massive gap, with a nominal value of US$8.55 billion, between the ministries.
• Sonangol's own export data, by volume and value, imply an average oil sale price in 2008 of less than US$49 a barrel, when other agencies were reporting average prices above US$90 a barrel. Sonangol's exports were worth less than US$12 billion or more than US$22 billion, depending which sale prices and exchange rates are used.
• Signature and other bonuses paid by oil companies to the government appear to be poorly reported in official documents. In 2006, the media reported that Angola earned more than US$3 billion in signature bonuses, but a Finance Ministry report only records “oil bonuses and premiums” of just under US$1 billion.
• Sonangol reported earnings of more than a billion dollars in 2008 from price cap excess fees, which are levied on oil companies in Angola when oil prices are higher than expected. These earnings are not separately recorded in government reports, making them impossible to track.
• There is a gap with a notional value of more than a billion dollars between the reports of the Finance and Petroleum Ministries on oil income tax and gaps with a notional value of several hundred million dollars between the ministries' reports on production and transaction taxes paid by oil companies. These figures appear unaudited in any case.
• Sonangol reports that it paid US$436 million in dividends to its shareholder, the Angolan government, in the 2007/8 fiscal year. Neither ministry reports the receipt of dividends on anything like this scale.
• In some cases, figures for oil revenues are published but the underlying data, which determine the size of these flows, is confidential. For example, the government does not appear to publish the fiscal prices at which oil companies' taxes are calculated, or the findings of its cost and tax audits of oil companies.

Summary recommendations

This report recommends that the Angolan government:

1. Commissions and publishes an independent review of the findings of this report.
2. Ensures much more detailed and comprehensive reports on the oil sector by Angolan government agencies, which are independently verified by third parties.
3. Fosters an atmosphere of public debate about the oil sector in Angola, including greater scrutiny of Sonangol by legislators and the public.
4. Scales back the role of Sonangol, to focus on its core activities of oil production and marketing, and creates an independent regulator for the Angolan oil sector.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals are approaching their deadline of 2015 but progress to date has been insufficient. Public expenditure on health – both domestic and official development assistance – have increased over the past few years in most low-income countries but results have been slow. As the public health system remains the backbone of national health policy and the main beneficiary of international aid, it is most likely part of the problem. In too many countries, the public health system does not meet user needs and demands. It is inefficient due to resource leakage and worker absenteeism. Equity, in terms of utilization and contribution, is unsatisfactory and public spending often benefits richer groups disproportionately. Ministries of health and their international advocates often cite insufficient funding as the underlying cause of low performance. Others argue that it also stems from a lack of accountability within public health systems. Although many observers and users likely share this view, few proposals for reform have been put forward. Our opinion is that performance-based financing, as it is being developed in several sub-Saharan African countries, is a strategy that could help address the structural problems plaguing health systems.

Performance-based financing can be defined as a mechanism by which health providers are, at least partially, funded on the basis on their performance. Performancebased financing can be contrasted with the line-item approach, which finances a health facility through the provision of inputs (e.g. drugs, personnel). Haiti is the first lowincome country in which health service providers (national nongovernmental organizations) were contracted and remunerated according to their performance (which was measured by the attainment of some coverage rates). In Cambodia, performancebased financing was applied to the public sector. However, despite promising results, it did not materialize into a national policy. This breakthrough did, however, take place in Rwanda. Several pilots initiated in 2002 allowed for a better understanding of major issues, then the country rapidly adopted performance-based financing as its national policy and scaled up the approach to the entire country in 2005.

The Rwandan experience has attracted a lot of attention. It has rapidly inspired neighbouring countries like Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and has consolidated an interest in performance-based financing at regional and global level. Today, more than 20 countries are in the process of introducing or scaling up performance-based financing in Africa. Performance-based financing also fits into the Millennium Development Goals aid paradigm and global efforts for rapid progress on a few key indicators. Yet several authors have expressed concerns about this wave of enthusiasm. Our assessment is, however, that their critique reflects a view of performance-based financing as solely a provider payment mechanism and overlooks the potential of performance-based financing to reform health systems. These critiques can't see the forest for the trees.

Related article/s:

• Efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure in Uganda: Evidence from a public expenditure tracking study in the health sector

Introduction
ACODE is undertaking a Public Expenditure Tracking Study (PETS) in the health sector, with the objective of enhancing sound public expenditure management system in Uganda. The PETS is tracing the flow of budgetary resources from the Ministry of Health (MoH) to a sample of health centers for the last three financial years (2006/07, 2007/08 , 2008/09 & 2009/10) and will collect information on sources of income for the facilities, expenditures on basic services, and the practices of accountability at various levels. The study involves interviewing the administrators and facility heads to be able to capture the problems they face, how these problems may be resolved, and the quality of primary health care services and impact of the delivery of public services.

The PETS is not be an audit of the public financial management systems but rather focuses on identifying areas of improvements in the efficiency of the administrative system. Similar studies have been carried out in other countries and they seem to have created an impact on the way public funds are used. Therefore, assessing whether the amount of funds appropriated actually reached intended beneficiaries will be as important as the objective of finding out whether the system in place consistently allowed for this amount to reach facilities in a predictable and timely manner, and was accounted for.

The survey will be undertaken from June – September 2010. The sampling details are discussed under the methodology.

Background and rationale
It is increasingly being acknowledged that there are weak links in the chain from public spending to actually making basic services available to poor people especially in countries with poor accountability and weak institutions (Dehn, Reinikka and Svensson. 2003). Simply increasing budget allocations to essential services such as health and education is not enough to ensure that quality services are indeed delivered (Gupta, Gauri and Khemani. 2004). Reasons being that: government may spend on the wrong goods or the wrong people. Even when government spends on the right goods or the right people, the money may fail to reach the frontline service provider. Even when the money reaches the frontline service provider (i.e. primary school or health clinic), the incentives to provide the service may be weak. Even if the services are effectively provided, households may not take advantage of them (Dehn, Reinikka and Svensson, 2003).

Empirical evidence (that the impact of public spending on basic health depends upon the overall governance environment) provides an important explanation for the observed weak relationship between public spending and outcomes (Gupta, Gauri and Khemani. 2004). The role of institutions and incentives in the public sector to translate budgeted resources into actual outcomes is therefore vital. These issues are particularly important for the public delivery of basic health services in Uganda.

Despite government commitment to improving health outcomes, health expenditure as a proportion of government’s discretionary expenditure has stagnated at around 9.6% during the last ten years, yet the population increase and health care needs have been increasing, hence outstripping the per capita expenditure7. Such funding is inadequate to provide the Uganda National Minimum Health Care Package (UNMHC) in all facilities as envisaged: the per capita cost was estimated at USD 41.2 in 2008/09 and will be rising to USD 47.9 in 2011/12; yet budget allocations in the medium term estimation was at USD 12.5 in 2008/09, demonstrating a shortfall of almost USD 29. This trend has important implications for service delivery of health care in Uganda (MoH, 2009).

The challenge of investing in the promotion of people’s health will require the commitment of more public resources to the health sectors but more importantly, progress will depend largely on the efficiency in regards to the way resources are mobilized, allocated and used. For instance, the MoH headquarters continues to command a big chuck (over 50%), of the entire health sector budget, which is bigger than the entire allocation to decentralized services under Local Governments who are the key implementers of most programmes where the majority of the poor live. In addition, funding for national and regional referral hospitals remains inadequate and has remained fairly constant [at less than 20 percent of the entire health sector budget] for the last six years. With meager resources, most health institutions are increasingly finding it difficult to provide reasonable primary healthcare services. The situation is worsened by the weak capacity and corruption at local government levels to implement primary health care services.

There is still doubt whether institutions and incentives in the health sector in Uganda can actually allow large spending programs to effectively deliver basic services to the people. Key questions still persist regarding: what actual outcomes in service delivery can be achieved with the current public spending? Are public resources actually reaching their intended destinations? And how accountable are public service providers to their expected beneficiaries? This study will provide some answers to these questions through the analysis of extensive data on health care expenditures and service delivery processes and outcomes that will be collected through a survey including the central government, local governments and public primary health care facilities in Uganda.

By use of micro-level survey tools (especially the PETS) we shall be able to do a deeper investigation of actual outcomes in service delivery at the frontline and the impact of broader institutions of governance and financing arrangements on these outcomes beyond the aggregative tools of public expenditure analysis.

This PETS exercise will build on previous similar studies that have been undertaken in Uganda to assess the efficiency of public spending flows (see Reinikka and Svensson, 2001; Reinikka and Svensson, 2003; Reinikka and Svensson, 2004). In their 2001 study, Reinikka and Svensson found that on average during 1991-95 schools received only 13 percent of the central government's allocation for the schools' nonwage expenditures. There was considerable variation in grants received across schools that was determined more by the political economy than by efficiency and equity considerations. Larger schools and schools with wealthier parents received a larger share of the intended funds (per student), while schools with a higher share of unqualified teachers received less. These survey findings had a direct impact on policy in Uganda. As evidence on the degree of leakage became public knowledge, the central government enacted a number of changes: It began publishing monthly transfers of public funds to the districts in newspapers, broadcasting them on radio, and requiring schools to post information on inflow of funds. Consequently, when a similar study was conducted again by the same researchers in 2003, they found that on average schools received 82% of central government spending.

Objectives
There are six objectives of this study. These are:

1. Examine the estimates and actual flow of public funds in health and establish to what extent they reach the primary health care facilities.
2. Assessing whether there are delays and leakages in budget transfers within the health sector
3. Assessing the level of utilization (absorption capacity) and accountability (financial) of the budget transfers at the health care facility
4. Understanding the service provider attitudes and incentives in the provision of public health care services.
5. Examining the role of key actors and the accountability mechanisms at different levels (at national, local government and community level) in ensuring effective delivery of public health care services.
6. Assessing the level of community / citizen participation in demanding for effective delivery of public health care services.
7. Increase awareness and civic consciousness about the budget and public expenditure

Given these objectives the study will exclusively focus on the performance of public health facilities, focusing both on the supply and demand side determinants of actual outcomes (improved health indicators). It is important to note that the study is neither designed to address issues of public-private partnership in delivering basic services nor issues of household demand and responsiveness to public initiatives.


Contact details
Daniel Lukwago is a Research Fellow at ACODE. He has more than 7 years working experience with Civil Society Organisations as a Policy Analyst. He has reviewed and analysed Uganda's economic and development policies (especially macro and fiscal policies) from a pro-poor perspective. He has produced and peer reviewed over 15 papers on key public policy issues on development, poverty, governance, macroeconomic and fiscal policies. He has also done research assignments with the World Bank in Washington D.C and NGOs in Uganda. Daniel holds a Master of Public Administration (Programme in Economic Policy Management) degree from the School of International and Public Affairs; Columbia University in the City of New York, USA and a Bachelor of Science in Quantitative Economics degree from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. Daniel is committed to working to improve human development through research and advocacy to ensure that public policies are pro-poor.

• Readers can contact Daniel Lukwago for further details on the project and its progress at: 

Related article/s:

• Performance-based financing: just a donor fad or a catalyst towards comprehensive health-care reform?

Kenyan citizens feel so strongly that they have not been involved in the procurement processes at Local Authorities (LA's) as per applicable laws, a new survey report commissioned by Kara and supported by Usaid/PactKenya now reveals.

Majority (76%) of members of the public in all LA's sampled had not seen a copy of the Public Procurement and Disposal Act 2005 and Regulations of 2001/2006.

The study conducted in Nairobi, Machakos, Mombasa and Nakuru further discovered that 90% of the respondents believe that LA’s are not transparent on procurement and disposal issues.

94% of the respondents indicated that their respective LA's have not taken time to educate them on the reformed public procurement system.On the other hand, 89% of those interviewed indicated that they are not involved by their respective LA’s in procurement activities.

84.8% of the respondents think that corrupt practices regarding public procurement and disposal are still rampant at the Local Authorities. The Kara research spearheaded by a seasoned governance scholar, Prof. Peter Lewa, was conducted as part of the activities under a program supported by Usaid through PactKenya.

The program seeks to enhance procurement and disposal service delivery at the LA’s by identifying gaps relating to public participation and oversight role in the existing public procurement and disposal procedures. It also aims at ensuring that citizens are more effectively monitoring and holding the LA’s accountable with regard to public procurement and disposal services.

The purpose of the research was to understand the extent of involvement of citizens in the public procurement processes in Local Authorities (LA).

This study was carried out by ActionAid International-Kenya (AAIK) whose key role in the People's Participation towards Equity (PPE) program is to enhance community participation in p verty reduction efforts. At the sub-national levels, there is a special focus on ensuring the participation of marginalized groups such as, persons with disabilities, women, children the youth and indigenous peoples towards poverty eradication.

The findings show that there has been an increase in the funds allocated to communities through the CDF, LATF and line ministry budgets. Also, the allocation of the funds has not translated into improved wellbeing of intended communities particularly in ensuring food security and availability of essential services such as infrastructure, electricity, water and healthcare...

Objectives of the study
The three objectives of this public expenditure review were to:

1. Ascertain the rationale in allocating the decentralized funds at National and Subnational levels.
2. Establish the absorptive capacities of districts, constituencies and counties.
3. Identify the impact(s) of the identified allocative rationale and absorptive capacities on eradicating poverty and inequality.

The study assesses the allocative rationale by looking at the basis of allocation of funds. It explains how CDF, LATF and line ministry budgets are apportioned to various development projects from the national to the local level. Utilization is explained in the use, form, manner or expenditure of the funds while absorptive capacities are expressed as ratios or percentages of amounts used on particular projects over the total allocations. The percentages or ratios have been used to do comparisons and assessments in this study. Analysis of allocative rationality and absorptive capacity are based on the existing government regulations and priority sectors in the Vision 2030. Analysis of the impact of devolved funds on the livelihoods of communities at the sub national level, has been done to establish their observable and non-visible effects on the beneficiaries at the sub-national level, conducted in eight sampled districts where ActionAid Kenya operates. They included Kuria (Kehancha), Busia (Budalangi), Mandera West (Takaba), Ijara (Masalani), Narok South (Ololunga), East Baringo (Tangulubei), Malindi (Lango Mbaya), and Tana River (Wenje) districts.

Methodology
The study was designed to gather information at two levels of observation: the national and sub-national level. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through personal interviews with various key informants (District Commissioners, District Accountant, District development Officers, District Education Officers, District Agriculture/Livestock Officers, District Gender/ Women Official, District Procurement Officers, District Youth Officers, District Medical Officers and Local Authority representatives) and focused group discussions in 8 districts.

Field work activities involved a survey to collect information on allocation and utilization/absorptive capacities of line ministry budgets, Constituency Development Fund (CDF), local authorities Transfer fund (LATF) and establish the amount of money returned to Treasury annually. In addition to evaluate the impacts on poor and excluded people, local equity, service delivery and poor development trends.

Additional data from financial reports was used to complement and validate the findings. Secondary data was used to complement the survey data for the districts, constituencies and counties. While quantitative data was used for statistical analysis, every attempt was made to gather and incorporate qualitative data to complement the analysis of the allocation, absorptive capacities/utilization and the impacts of these funds in the community.

Informed consent was obtained from all respondents before being interviewed. Comparisons were made across the districts. In order to examine the impacts the study assessed awareness of funds, public participation in funds, accountability and transparency issues, operationalization of the funds, and challenges. In order to ascertain allocative rationality, utilization/absorptive capacity ratios, percentages, tables and figures were used. The ratios derived as percentages of utilization are the measures of absorptive capacities.

However, obtaining adequate financial data at the district level was challenging and calls for policy changes in information sharing on public funds especially in the line ministries. Most of the District Officials declined to give the information on financial aspects of the study. Therefore, the study used information from Government Budget estimates for analysis on development expenditures because they give a clear picture on line ministry priorities in the selected districts.

Key Findings and recommendations
The study assessed the allocative rationality and absorptive capacities in regard to line ministry budgets and devolved funds. It also examined the impacts of these funds on the livelihoods of communities at the sub national level. This was possible through literature review and primary data obtained from key informants and focused group discussions in the respective districts.

Though the devolved funds are strategic and are supposed to be effective in improving the national response to poverty, inequitable resource distribution and general livelihoods of Kenyans, the number of people living below the poverty line has increased. The findings of this review indicate that there was a 30% increase of people living below the poverty line despite CDF and LATF funds. According to the Kenya Integrated Household Baseline Survey (KIHBS) 2005/06, Malindi had 65% of the people living below the poverty line in 2009 compared to 61% in 2006, while 83% of people in Galole were living below the poverty line in 2009 compared to 42% in 2006. In Mandera 90% of people were living below the poverty line in 2009 compared to 60% in 2006.There was, however, a marginal reduction in Budalangi from 70% in 2006 to 69% in 2009.

The increased poverty levels can be attributed to persistent challenges, such as lack of effective participation of local communities in selecting,prioritizing and implementing development projects, poor public finance management at national and sub-national levels, lack of institutional monitoring and evaluation mechanisms particularly those that involve the participation of Civil Society Organizations, and the fact that budget monitoring remains a bureaucratic process. These challenges can be addressed through capacity building at all levels of government; community empowerment in budget monitoring and evaluation, stipulation of adequate safeguards for local government funds, rigorous implementation of fiscal responsibility, public procurement and other strategic policies to strengthen economic management.

Allocative rationality/efficiency
This study examined the extent to which the allocation of decentralized funds is consistent with policy priorities of the Vision 2030, and the key economic, social and political policies of priority to the Government.

The Government increased CDF allocations by 67% from 2003 to 2008, while LATF allocations increased by 60.6% from 1999 to 2009. The recurrent expenditure in the ministries of education, health and agriculture increased by 46%, 40% and 97% respectively. Development expenditure allocations increased by 209%, 153% and 380% in the respective ministries, which shows that the government is committed to achieve its development objectives through these funds.

The government expenditure estimates on social services has increased over the years from Kshs. 128.9115 million in 2005/2006 fiscal year to 216.13057 million in 2008/2009. Expenditure on education increased tremendously by 57% from Ksh. 96,027.43 million in the year 2005/06 to Ksh. 151,676.85 million in 2008/2009. This is attributed to communities' demand for improved education access through school infrastructure support by the government to achieve the MDG objectives.

At the sub-national level, budgetary allocations made during the review period were consistent with national priorities in terms of allocative efficiency. The allocation criterion was designed to ensure that funds are allocated in a predictable, transparent and fair manner as defined in the rules and regulations of the CDF and LATF Acts. The line ministries allocation criterion relies on district committees, which comprise of all stakeholders in respective sectors generating Annual District Work plans that outline the priority areas and the budgets which are sent to ministry headquarters for funding.

This study has established that there is unequal sectoral allocation. For example, key sectors like agriculture, water, health, roads and environment had low allocations in the CDF, with 2.9%, 10.4%, 10.3%, 6.4% and 0.3% respectively while education was allocated 44% of the total CDF funds in the sampled districts. A balance between health, education, and food security is vital for development. For a child to perform better in school he/she should be in good health, and have proper nutrition. The sectors that affect women such as agriculture, health and water received low allocations.

In the line ministries, sectoral allocations were erratic in that some sector programmes such as agricultural extension services were allocated 100% of the funds verses 0% in the management of food security . Poor prioritization in fund allocation has negative implications on food security and health services, and contribute to unequal sectoral development which subsequently reduces the pace of achieving the Vision 2030 and MDG objectives.

From the study 63% of the respondents said that CDF projects were initiated by the community members, 22.2% felt that the projects are initiated by area Members of Parliament, while 14.8%, credited their councilors for initiating CDF projects. Also, 45.4%, 31.8%, 18.2% and 4.5% of the respondents credited community members, local councilors, local authority officials and district officials respectively for initiating LATF projects. Further still, 38.5%, 7.7%, 7.7%, 7.7%, 30.8% and 7.7% stated that educational projects are initiated by community members, MPs, local councilors, local authority officials, district officials and the government respectively. This indicates low levels of community involvement in project prioritization. CDF scores higher in allocative efficiency due to its bottom-up approach in its project cycle management (identification, prioritization, implementation and community ownership). These components lack in the line ministry projects where the approach is top-down.

Policy Recommendations

1. To improve allocative efficiency in the line ministries, the adoption of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) that links policy, planning and budgeting and the adoption of Programme-Based Budgeting (PBB) are recommended. Community awareness and participation in the line ministry projects at the sub-national level should be encouraged with a bottom-up approach in project management adopted.
2. Continuous capacity building for fund managers and the community social audit groups should be done on planning and priority setting, budgeting, administration, effective supervision, monitoring and evaluation. These should be set up at the district level to train communities in fundraising to supplement Government budgets.
3. To encourage efficiency in project identification, financial reporting, project planning, evaluation and supervision, standardization of designs, technical and financial parameters, and cost indicators for the frequently requested projects should be done. This will simplify documentation requirements to reduce bureaucratic procedures in the line ministries and LAs. Standardized annual work plans for infrastructure and procurement such as model plans for hospitals built by CDF funds should be used country wide for efficient control of budgets, absorption, and monitoring, and this will curb fraudulent project costing.
4. There should be a transparent and merit-based criteria for selecting funds committee members. Committee members should be competent, have integrity, ethics, good governance practices, accountability and strategic leadership skills. Regular audits in liaison with community audit teams should be done to increase transparency in the use of project funds, and audit findings made public.
5. All devolved funds including those of line ministries, districts and constituencies should be consolidated for consistency and harmony in projects implementation, to avoid duplication and double funding.
6. Increased budgetary allocations should be proportionate with the poverty levels, population size and geographical location. This will ensure availability of critical inputs like materials and equipment at the district level. The delays in disbursing funds and AIEs to the districts should also be addressed to ensure prompt disbursement of funds the district level. Allocations should be based on budgets prepared at the district level. Work plans should be generated from the grassroots level and provisional project plans validated before implementation to prevent inflated budgets.
7. Simple performance indicators for monitoring and evaluation should be developed to define and measure progress in achieving developmental goals and assess the effectiveness of the decentralized funds. The indicators could include public awareness and participation, frequency of public board committee meetings, supervisory and monitoring meetings, collection and banking as a percentage of collection, among other indicators. These should be published and reviewed periodically to compare inter district and sectoral performance.

Utilization and absorptive capacity
In this study, absorptive capacity is defined as the extent to which line ministries, CDF and LATF managers can utilize the decentralized funds, in an effective and efficient manner.

Absorptive capacity has two connotations:

1. Financial absorptive capacity, is the ability to co-finance programs and projects supported by line ministries, CDF and LATF, to plan and guarantee these national contributions in multi-annual budgets, and to collect contributions from the partners involved in various programs and projects.
2. Administrative capacity is the ability and qualifications of central and local authorities to prepare appropriate and timely programs and projects, fund and monitor their implementation, ensure coordination of partners involved, comply with administrative and reporting requirements.

Utilization of CDF
The study shows that 81.2% of the fund managers were satisfied by the way CDF is utilized, with 18.7% partially concurring, which is a good performance. While those interviewed on LATF only 23% felt the funds were utilized to their objectives, 38.5% failed to agree and 38.5% agreed partially which is a poor performance.

The education sector absorbed the largest share of total sectoral expenditure with an average of 44% followed by water (10.36%), health 10.25%, roads/ bridges 6.39% and others 7.73%. There are, however, challenges in the use of the devolved funds:

1. The absorptive capacity at the sub-national level is low and the effect is that the funds allocated do not positively impact in the short-term.
2. There is low public awareness and participation.
3. Inadequate technical capacity of local project committees for managing the funds and their activities.
4. Inadequate funding, delays in disbursement of funds, and weak legal and institutional framework for accounting of funds and resources. Accounting is done manually by locals who lack prerequisite accounting skills. This has encouraged misappropriation of funds and embezzlements.
5. Higher levels of corruption in revenue collection in the LAs has affected service delivery.
6. Political interference in committee appointments, are other challenges experienced.
7. Conflicting policies- for instance, the criteria followed in awarding CDF bursaries is different from that of ministry bursaries. Also, procurement procedures are flawed and there are difficulties in identifying priority.
8. There is also over-dependency by communities on CDF whose attitude is that CDF is free money from the government.

Utilization of line ministry funds
The study found out that an average 44.5% of the fund managers were satisfied with line ministries fund utilization. In health/medical services, 44.4% felt the utilization was partial and the other 11.1% did not agree on the manner in which the funds have been utilized. In Agriculture/Livestock/Fisheries, 50% felt the funds were utilized well, 14.3% did not agree and 35.7% partially agreed on how the funds have been used. In education, 50% agreed that the funds were utilized to their objectives and the other 50% partially agreed.

According to the fund managers there were problems with budget execution. These include:

• Cash flow bottlenecks such as inadequate funding and delays in disbursement of funds and A.I.Es and slow procurement which comes in the way of utilization of the funds.
• Under-staffing and inadequate technical capacity for managing the funds and their activities.
• Weak institutional frameworks for accounting for the funds.
• Lack of mechanisms to sanction decisions against the funds' mandate. Hence line ministries development spending was lower than budgeted for, partly because the funds available to promote growth and poverty reduction were underutilized.
• Poor prioritization at the ministry level. Furthermore much of the funds are not utilized in the acquisition of non-financial assets in the line ministries. For example, in the Ministry of Agriculture, agricultural extension programmes utilized 100% of the allocations in Ijara, Tana River, Malindi, Busia, Baringo and Kuria and did not utilize any amount in promoting food security, among thefood-poor districts.

Policy Recommendations
To improve on the absorption capacity of line ministry budgets, LATF and CDF, the government should take the following measures:

1. Strengthen administrative capacity of personnel in line ministries and devolved fund agencies.
2. Ensure greater transparency in fund management by providing comprehensive information of public interest, and eliminating excessive bureaucracy and corruption in awarding financing for projects.
3. Standardize the rules governing access to decentralized funds, particularly application requirements to hasten the approval process.
4. Ensure completion of audit reports on the implementation of Operational Programs by the Sector Work Groups (SWG), so that they can be approved by the Exchequer by the end of each financial year, as a condition for starting the reimbursements.
5. To increase the rate of decentralized funds absorption, the Central Government and Fund Management authorities should reduce the period for evaluating, selecting, contracting and approving funds for projects.

Also, the legislative oversight on Ministry Development Agencies (MDAs) budgets is weak. Similarly, the civil society is weak in researching and scrutinizing government fiscal operations and related budgetary matters. The capability of the government and civil society in monitoring public finance needs to be enhanced.

The absorptive capacity at the sub-national level is low that the funds allocated do not impact positively in the short term. From the findings education on average utilizes 44% of the total CDF allocations in the sampled districts. On average it takes 17 years or more to educate a child from primary level to tertiary level for him/her to be ready for employment.

The impacts of the funds
All the funds show an increase in the amount allocated over time, which cumulatively should have a positive impact in the fight against poverty and inequality. In the financial records, allocation regulations have been followed, although the implementation of these budgets is not satisfactory. For example, there are anomalies in procurement procedures (such as in Galole CDF health center) with fraudulent cost variations, construction of sub-standard structures, alleged bribery in procurement of materials and contractors, unequal sectoral percentage allocations and poor prioritization.

The study established that 64% of the respondents were in agreement that infrastructure has notably improved through LATF funds. For example, markets are better equipped with sanitation facilities, slaughterhouses, health facilities and water projects. 6% attributed the clearance of council debts and timeliness in paying staff salaries to the existence of the fund. Another 6% of the respondents were convinced that there is better public participation in decision making especially with the use of public meetings (barazas) in discussing community projects while a further 6% credits LATF for creating employment opportunities to the local community. 18% of the respondents felt little or no impact because they lack information regarding the funds.

In addition, 25% of the respondents acknowledged that health services have improved, due to the construction of health centers in previously neglected areas and acquisition of ambulances. 17.5% recognized increased enrolment, retention and completion of school by students due to construction of classrooms, laboratories, desks, as well as supporting and equipping youth polytechnics. 25% noted an improvement in service delivery where with communities benefiting from access to water and irrigation projects by CDF especially in ASAL. There is, however, concern over prioritization of projects in that some regions and sectors are still neglected.

The study also established that 78% of the respondents acknowledged better health facilities and services compared to previous years, while 11% felt there has been positive change in terms of restructuring and infrastructure development in health and sanitation. 46% of the respondents felt that there has been an improvement in the socio-economic status of communities through agriculture/livestock funding in the districts while 18% felt that there has been diversification of the agricultural sector activities to incorporate crop and livestock farming and increased community participation in farming and livestock production. 6% noted that the funds assisted in restocking livestock after drought, and the remaining 6% noted no impact. Conversely, 11% felt that there has been no impact to be noted.

Policy Recommendations
Based on the study findings the following interventions that target line ministry budgets, CDF, LATF and CBF are recommended:

1. Establishing efficient and adequate communication channels to enlighten local communities on the objectives of each fund. District and constituency information centers should be set-up where information on projects and funding details can be disseminated and shared. The district and constituency information offices should be principal in providing information on devolved funds and line ministry budgets. Websites highlighting district project development should be established to enable the public to follow up project progress.
2. Continuous capacity building for community social audit groups and other members, on planning and priority setting, budgeting, administration and effective supervision, monitoring and evaluation should be set up at the community level. Also, communities should be trained on fundraising to supplement government budgets.
3. Equity in fund allocation and participation of stakeholders in identifying projects at the local level should be done to integrate interests, activities and strategies of donor, private sector and NGOs within the district. This calls for restructuring the district fund committees to allow joint planning, budgeting, supervision, monitoring and evaluation of the district development projects. The recent initiative in the health sector of the district stakeholders' forum in Kuria district and the Narok County Council is a move in the right direction as it allows stakeholder participation.
4. There should be transparent criteria for selecting funds committee members. This should be merit-based with minimum qualifications being first degree or equivalent. Committee members should demonstrate competence, integrity, ethics, governance and accountability skills, and strategic leadership. Project funds should be audited frequently in liaison with community social audit teams, and the audit findings made public.
5. A single unit of development should be established at the local level to handle all the budgets. All devolved funds plus line ministry funds for the districts/constituencies should be consolidated to ensure consistency and harmony in the project implementation.
6. The district fund offices should be equipped and properly staffed to improve their capacity to deliver quality services.
7. The structuring of fund utilization should factor in cultural/ traditional practices such as nomadic lifestyles to ensure that men and women have equally participate in the project implementation.

Financing from official development assistance and national budgets is clearly not sufficient to close the financing gap in the water and sanitation sector, the African Development Bank (AfDB) says, on the eve of the 3^rd Africa Water Week, calling for more innovative sources of funding. As evidenced by an update carried out by the AfDB on the costs for achieving the Africa Water Vision, there are still significant gaps in water financing, a fact corroborated by the results of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic Study.

An estimated USD 45-60 billion is required annually to meet Africa's water infrastructure requirements, of which drinking water supply and sanitation represents some USD 11 billion.

In order to promote more innovative approaches in tapping non-traditional sources of funding, the African Development Bank is leading a thematic session on "Financing Investments in Water for Growth and Development", during the 3^rd Africa Water Week (November 2010).

The AfDB will also launch two major reports. The "Water sector governance in Africa report during the 3^rd Africa Water week" finds that poor governance has been a major reason for the poor record of sustainability of water and sanitation services affecting millions of Africans.

The "Guidelines for User Fees and Cost Recovery for urban and rural water and sanitation" touches on a very critical issue for all water sector investments: how to ensure that water and sanitation services are financially viable, in addition to being environmentally and socially sustainable? A side event will be dedicated to sharing the findings from the country status overviews from 32 African countries. The reports track sector performance and constraints, clearly identifying barriers along the service delivery pathway, to inform relevant policy actions for sector reform and accelerate progress of the water and sanitation Millennium Development Goals. The AfDB has supported the process in 4 countries – Chad, Gambia, Zambia and Nigeria (3 States).

The 3^rd Africa Water Week will be held on the theme "Implementing the Africa Water Vision and the MDG target: Challenges and opportunities in water and sanitation".

The Africa Water Week has become an annual event in the regional water and sanitation agenda.

The AfDB successfully hosted the 1^st African Water Week in Tunis in March 2008 which resulted in the Tunis Ministerial Declaration, a key input for the Sharm-El Sheikh Commitments on Accelerating the Achievement of Water and Sanitation Goals made by Africa's Heads of States Summit held that year. The 2nd African Water Week was hosted by South Africa in Johannesburg in November 2009, where the AfDB lead the thematic session on "Financing Water and Sanitation Infrastructure".

The Tunis Declaration on Accelerating Water Security for Africa's Socio-Economic Development foresees AfDB and WSP undertake the second generation of country status overviews on water and sanitation to expose bottlenecks and compare country progress in achieving the MDG targets. The Sharm El-Sheikh Summit of Heads of State requested AMCOW to annually report on progress made in the implementation of commitments on water and sanitation, a task which AMCOW requested the AfDB to support it to implement.

The AfDB's role, during and beyond these events has brought together sector professionals, technocrats and civil society to define actions to address the challenges governments face in pursuing their water security agenda, and make available its knowledge resources to support them.

A key contribution of the Bank to the agenda has been the preparation of the Action Plan and Framework for Reporting Actions to the African Union, which is a guide for countries to report their water security actions.

• Volume 1: Theory and Practice
• Volume 2: Assessment Guidelines

* The full suite of reports can be accessed from the African Development Bank's website

The World Bank is inviting comments on its newly released draft strategy for Africa, Africa’s Future and the World Bank’s Role in it, aimed at steering its policies and operations in the Sub Saharan region for the next five years.

The draft strategy lays out three, interdependent themes: (i) competitiveness and employment, (ii) vulnerability and resilience; and (iii) governance and public-sector capacity, and the challenges and opportunities that exist within each. The Bank’s intervention in each country will be guided by these themes as a framework but certainly not limited by it.

The competitiveness and employment theme, as presented, captures the various inputs from stakeholders that Africa be seen as a destination for business; and a growth pole with development assistance as catalyzing investment. Harnessing private sector opportunities for wealth creation within this framework has implications for agricultural productivity, the empowerment of women, innovative approaches to improving the business climate and infrastructure development. They remain key drivers for facilitation of Africa’s growth and competitiveness in a manner that leads to job creation.

“Since it is the most often-cited constraint, improving infrastructure services is the highest priority,” the strategy reads. “The infrastructure financing gap (estimated at $48 billion a year for the continent) can only be filled by a combination of domestic, public and private funding. To attract private funding and to improve services more generally, there needs to be reform of infrastructure policies and institutions.”

The vulnerability and resilience focus of the strategy acknowledges the inevitable shocks that often have immediate impacts on living standards. Among them: macroeconomic shocks; idiosyncratic shocks, such as those related to individuals’ health (AIDS, malaria, maternal mortality, road accidents); natural disasters; and conflict and political violence. A major policy option promoted in the strategy is the adoption of social safety nets as a remedial measure for dealing with macroeconomic and certain idiosyncratic shocks; public health interventions for health and disease related shocks; climate adaptation policies to address natural disasters associated with climate change; and, to prevent conflict and political violence, peace and institution building initiatives.

Across the continent, strong views were expressed about governance as a major constraint to development outcomes; and the need to strengthen accountability at all levels of society. The strategy attempts to capture these sentiments by positioning Governance and Public Sector Capacity as a foundation on which the preceding two pillars must be built. This focus will leverage the growing political openness across Africa and civil society’s increased involvement in demand-side governance. “The use of CSOs upstream in monitoring government processes will be promoted and evaluated. Greater attention will be given to building the capacity of the legislative and judicial branches of government, as well as sub-national governments,” according to the strategy.

To implement its Africa strategy, the World Bank will rely on traditional implementation instruments - finance, knowledge and partnerships - but proposes to reverse the order. “The main instrument of implementation will be partnerships - with African society and with other development actors. We will mobilize the development community to support a “Marshall Plan for Africa,” aimed at relaxing the financing constraint to reach the MDGs (and beyond).”

The Bank will use knowledge to contribute an evidence - based approach to debates about Africa’s development; and flexible and innovative financing to support countries’ financial needs. “In the new strategy, the goal will be to leverage the Bank’s financing to crowd-in other sources of financing,” the strategy reads.

“We heard from a diverse range of people from all walks of life in many different countries, who all have a stake in Africa’s development,” said Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank’s Chief Economist for Africa. “We carefully reviewed their inputs and produced what we think is a strong draft of a plan that will help carry the Bank forward as it supports Africa’s unprecedented transformation and growth.”

The World Bank is seeking feedback on its draft strategy. Stakeholders, including those who may already have contributed online or in-person during phase 1 of the consultation process, are encouraged to use the Online Feedback Form to offer fresh opinions. Views will impact the final strategy due for publication in March 2011.

To receive e-mail updates about the World Bank Africa Strategy Consultations, please click here

Background

Corruption remains an impediment to development and a barrier to poverty reduction in Uganda and in many other African countries. This study has defined corruption as “abuse of office for private gain” and recent surveys, coupled with nationally produced data, indicate that corruption in Uganda is a problem, both at national and local government levels. Corruption manifests itself as bribery, financial leakages, conflict of interest, embezzlement, false accounting, fraud, influence peddling, nepotism, theft of public funds or theft of public assets. With the discovery of oil and the prospect of substantial windfall oil revenues coming on stream in the relatively near future, Uganda is bound to face major challenges with regard to the problem of corruption.

The Data Tracking Mechanism

The Data Tracking Mechanism was launched in 2009 to address a growing concern about the lack of credible tools and methods to track corruption. The initiative aimed to develop a tool, the DTM, to monitor corruption trends in Uganda on an annual basis. The current study provides a baseline for tracking progress over time. Altogether, the DTM comprises 71 indicators which are used to track corruption.

Data Collection

The choice of the 71 indicators was agreed in a workshop of 7 April 2010 in Kampala. The EPRC was designated the DTM Manager and EPRC collected and analyzed data associated with the 71 indicators. Some of the data sources were from Uganda including the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, the Office of Auditor General, the Inspectorate of Government, Budget Monitoring and Analysis, Procurement Performance Management System, and Uganda Police Force. The rest of the data was sourced from international organizations that collected and compiled data from Uganda, including Global Integrity and Transparency International.

Findings and Recommendations

1. A Large Implementation Gap. Uganda has made great efforts at establishing systems to fight corruption. By 1970, the Prevention of Corruption Act (1970) had been enacted; then the Inspector General of Government Statute (1988), the Anti-Corruption Act (2009) and the Enforcement of the Leadership Code of Conduct Act (2002) were also put in place. However, the implementation of corruption prevention and detection and of anti-corruption enforcement has been particularly weak. In a recent study of 114 countries, Uganda was found to have had the largest implementation gap, in which it was scored very highly (99%) on having a very good legal framework but was awarded 45% for having weak implementation record, giving an implementation gap of 54% (Global Integrity Report, 2009). Further evidence of the existence of this implementation gap is given in the subsequent sections of the Report.
   
   Recommendation: To tackle the challenge posed by anti-corruption enforcement, the Government of Uganda should consider adoption and implementation of good enforcement practices similar to those of other countries which have made a serious commitment in this area: Bangladesh has adopted a 60-day timeline for handling corruption prosecution in Bangladesh; Ghana has established a “fast-track” court for corruption cases in Ghana; and use of speedy and effective prosecutorial methods, including the protection of whistleblowers in Singapore. We would recommend that government study these examples and adopt at least one of the mechanisms as a way to accelerate prosecutions.


2. Weak Performance related to Enforcement of Political Financing Disclosure. On Regulations governing Political Financing of Parties and Individual candidates, Uganda rates “very weak” in critical areas of political financing which include; (i) Regulatory effectiveness related to political governance, and (ii) Citizen access to information for financing of political parties and individual candidates campaigns. However, regulation of conflict of interest appears more promising and this can be seen against Uganda’s “strong” track record for establishing laws and regulations. But as further evidence will reveal, Uganda has been less successful in implementing its laws and regulations and this has given the country the distinction of having the largest implementation gap in the world.
   
   Recommendation: Enforcement of Political Financing Disclosure – Although no modern state has eliminated corruption from its party and campaign finances, the Government of Uganda could seek to reduce the scope for corruption by strengthening the enforcement of disclosure laws and regulations. There is need to ensure that disclosure laws include clear enforcement guidelines and penalties for non-compliance. In addition, within three months, the Electoral Commission should take the steps necessary to enforce disclosure of financial records of individual candidates and political parties as stipulated by law, and such information should be made publicly available.


3. Substantial Improvement needed to ensure a Safe and Open Climate for Reporting on Corruption. There are two notable findings related to the role of media in combating corruption.
   • On censorship of corruption-related Journalism, two elements are assessed to determine if media are able to report on corruption: (i) Whether the government or media owners/distribution groups encourage self-censorship of corruption related stories, and (ii) The extent to which there is no prior government restraint (pre-publication censoring) on publishing corruption-related stories. On the first element, Uganda was “strong” in 2007 but dropped to a “very weak” rating in 2009. On refraining from censoring publication of corruption-related stories, Uganda’s rating fell from “very strong” in 2006 to “very weak” in 2008 but improved marginally to “weak” in 2009.
   • On Imprisonment of journalists investigating corruption, Uganda had a poor record between 2007 and 2009. On physical harm to journalists investigating corruption, Uganda’s record was good during the four assessment years 2006-2009. On killing of journalists investigating corruption, Uganda’s record was consistently clean.


4. Bribery Continues to be a Factor of Citizen Interactions with Government Officials: The Afrobarometer data chosen for DTM on the extent to which households had to pay a bribe, give a gift, or do a favor to government officials in respect of obtaining permits, getting water or sanitation and avoiding problems with the police show that bribery in the three areas cuts across sectors and functions equally, affecting one out four households in the country.
   
   Recommendation: The Prime Minister’s Office should direct individual MDA’s responsible for the administrative procedures identified in this report to initiate business process reviews with the aim of reforming functional processes that are subject to bribery and corruption which impact citizens and enterprises. The Prime Minister’s Office would monitor progress on the reviews and reforms. The functional processes might include starting a business, securing a construction permit, registering a property, making tax payments, enforcing contracts, securing a driver’s license, obtaining an educational certificate, securing a land title, and connection and disconnection of utilities.


5. Auditing can be Improved, Particularly as it relates to Involving Citizens. Uganda is doing well In terms of auditing annual expenditures in a timely manner, but there is still room for improvement. Secondly, there is a positive trend in the release of public audits of extra-budgetary funds – and this could indicate a willingness to improve; however, areas that reflect poor and sometimes very poor performances exist and they increase opportunities for corruption to take hold and continue. These areas include: actions related to the auditing of actual outcomes, maintaining formal mechanisms of communication with the public, reporting to the public on actions taken to address audit recommendations, releasing public audits of extra-budgetary funds and public reporting related to tracking of executive actions to remedy audit recommendations. Nearly all these areas of weakness refer to communication with the public; so Uganda has got to improve on giving and receiving information from the public in budget matters.
   
   Recommendation: Institutionalize Citizen Participation, especially with Auditing – As has been proven in Indonesia, combining auditing with citizen participation can be an important means of strengthening anti-corruption efforts. We recommend that the Auditor General commence a regular process of announcing audits of public infrastructure projects to national and local communities, and hold community-level town meetings to discuss audit findings upon completion of infrastructure projects. Over the next year, we recommend that the Auditor General conducts 20 audits which include the citizen participation approach described above. Results of the audits should be announced in the papers in the relevant district, and this information should be posted at the District’s notice board.


6. Need for Improvement in Quality of Budget Information Provided to Public, and More Citizen Consultation. Open Budget Initiative’s budget-related indicators attempt to evaluate the quantity of information available to the public in Uganda’s budget documents; the opportunities for public participation in the budget process; as well as the ability of key oversight institutions of Government to hold the Executive accountable. The analysis reveals that there is substantial room for improvement for the government of Uganda to make available high quality, user-friendly relevant budget reports to the public of Uganda, and to consult its citizens in the budget process.
   
   Recommendation: Based on the evaluation results we recommend as follows: (a) There is substantial room for improvement to make available high quality budget reports to the public and (b) The Uganda Government should do more by way of consulting its citizens in the budget process.


7. Improvement of Parliamentary Scrutiny of External Audit Reports, yet Need for Executive Follow Through. Legislative scrutiny of external audit report includes three areas of assessment: (i) Timeliness of examination of audit reports by the legislature (for reports received within the last year); (ii) Extent of hearings on key findings undertaken by legislature; and (iii) Issuance of recommended actions by the legislature and implementation by the executive. The results from Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) covering 2005 to 2008 showed consistent poor performance in respect of (i), steady improved performance in respect of (ii) and decline in performance in respect of (iii). However, since 2008 the PAC of Parliament has made notable progress. It has reviewed and adopted recommendations for Central Government reports from 2001/02 to 2006/07, and for Local Governments from 2001/02 to 2004/05. The Public Accounts Committee should be commended for addressing this backlog.
   
   Recommendation: Currently, there is need for MOFPED to issue Treasury Memorandum to implement these findings of the CAG and Parliament. We recommend a target of no more than six months for the issuance of this memorandum.


8. Lack of Available Data to Assess Anti-Corruption Efforts in Procurement. PPDA was asked to provide information related to the following two procurement indicators (from the PPMS system) which relate to corruption in this area: % of sampled contracts subject to open competition, and % of procurements with disclosed evaluation criteria actually applied. These two criteria are critical components of fighting corruption in procurement. Unfortunately, the data provided was not responsive to this request.
   
   Recommendation: Bolster Competitive Procurement Efforts – PPDA should continue to ensure that procurement processes are transparent and competitive by publishing regular reports to the public at least annually on the status of contractual activity in the government using the PPMS system. Reports should be posted on the PPDA website to ensure accessibility to the public. This reporting should address the extent to which procurements are open and competitive, and the level of procurements which include evaluation criteria. Normally, these practices help reduce corrupt practices and increase the chances of obtaining value for money in public spending. In addition, PPMS should provide to the public and the press a list of all contractors awarded a contract in a given period, the amount of the contract, and the contract purpose. This information should be provided on a quarterly basis.


9. Budget Monitoring Data can be improved to assess Corruption in Roads and other Public Works Projects. For this report we selected two roads projects from the Budget Monitoring and Analysis Unit (BMAU) Reports of 2008/9 and 2009/10. These were the Kampala Northern By-Pass and the Soroti-Dokolo roads projects. At the time of reporting on them, both had a weighted physical progress of 90% or more. The data showed that the Northern By-Pass was 22 months 11 days beyond the initially agreed completion time of 30 months. It developed cracks along the shoulder and a dispute also arose which led to works stoppage. The projected overrun was 30% of the original price of UGX 83.9 billion (excluding VAT). The Soroti-Dokolo road was ahead of schedule with 26.1% of the contract time remaining to finish 10% of the remaining road works. By that time 90.6% of the revised contract price of UGX73.9 billion had been paid. The original contract price had been revised from UGX 70.6 billion to UGX73.9 billion; and then another revision from UGX73.9 billion to UGX96.1 billion was made; this latter revision was excessive in the light of the good progress made already. Information like this on roads construction did not necessarily point to a specific practice of corruption; however, cost overruns and high per unit costs are flags for the possibilities of corruption and merit special attention.
   
   Recommendation: Curb Corruption in Public Works – A first step for improving data in this area is for BMAU to start immediately to collect data associated with the following indicators for all of its infrastructure project evaluations (including roads, hospitals and other public works): (i) unit prices for construction components at entry (based on the amount at the contract signing) and exit (exit costs include variation of quantities and amendments of contract, etc); and (ii) project costs and the unit costs estimates included in detailed engineering studies (DES).


10. Need for More Data Assessing Corruption in Key Sectors such as Agriculture, Health, Education, and Transport. Numerous sector indicators reveal notable problems with corruption in education, health, the business environment, as well as with sub-county and local council institutions.
    • Education, Health, Sub-county and Local Council II Institutions
      Uganda Bureau of Statistics (NSDS 2008) provided valuable baseline data related to; (i) Misuse of funds in targeted public institutions; results showed that 8.4 % of sub-counties had been involved in misuse of public funds and in 23.1% of those involved no action taken on the culprits; (ii) Enforcement actions related to misuse of funds in these public institutions and facilities; the health sector showed the highest percentage of institutions that were involved in misuse but where no action was taken.
    • Health – Sale of Drugs
      Uganda Bureau of Statistics (NSDS 2008) assessed the extent to which patients in government health facilities paid for drugs; the results showed that 15.5% of patients at government health facilities paid for drugs. This information serves as a useful baseline for tracking corruption in the health sector.
    • Business Environment –Enterprise Bribery
      Ugandan Data from Doing Business suggests there is substantial room for improvement to eliminate bribery in doing business; streamlining processes and reducing them would minimize opportunities for bribery. In particular, the number of procedures associated with starting a business and registering a property in Uganda far exceed the neighbors’ and sub-Saharan averages.


11. Public Data related to Reporting and Enforcement of Administrative Corruption is Weak and Fragmented. Anti-corruption efforts reveal that substantial improvements can be made as reflected in the comments below.
    • The National Integrity Survey (NIS)
      The National Integrity Survey (NIS) of 2008 provides data on: (i) Number of corruption cases reported in governmental organizations over last four years; the data showed an increase; 16.1% in 2004 and 28.1% in 2007 indicated one or more cases of corruption were reported in their organization; (ii) Number of corruption cases that resulted in suspension or dismissal; data also showed an increase; 22.5% in 2004 and 33.4% in 2007; (iii) Number of reported cases of corruption taken to courts of law which resulted in conviction of culprits; 7.1% in 2004 and 14.3% in 2007.
      
      The success of the anti-corruption campaign will depend on the number of corruption cases comprehended and on which action is taken. However, NIS data does not give actual numbers on reported cases, suspensions, dismissals or convictions. It is therefore recommended that Government designates an appropriate entity to manage the collection of this information across government institutions, so that DTM can track actual cases.
    
    
    • Inspectorate of Government (IG)
      The IG provides data on corruption to parliament twice a year. However, the reporting from IG needs to be revised to show more clearly the number of cases that were brought forward and the length of time a case has spent at the IG; it is also not clear from the IG data whether there is a system to track the outcome of IG cases that are referred to other institutions. The high proportion of cases “still going on” suggests that the IG needs to do more to clear these cases on a biannual basis.
      
      Recommendation: Generate Accurate Data on the Outcomes and Duration of Anti-Corruption Cases – The IG has made great strides to report routinely on its activities related to investigating and prosecuting of corruption cases. Nevertheless, the efforts of the IG could be improved. The IG Reports to Parliament would benefit from improving data accuracy, rigor, and integrity. Additional information which focuses on the outcome of corruption cases over time would be beneficial. This type of focus would assess how long it takes (on average) for corruption cases to be resolved, and the likelihood of a culprit to be sanctioned, administratively or judicially. Determining the outcome of cases over time is of particular importance because many corruption cases unfold over a multi-year period.
    
    
    • Uganda Police Report: The 2008 and 2009 Uganda Police Force Annual Crime Reports show data on (i) Number of corruption cases that were reported to the police; results showed these doubled from 46 cases in 2008 to 95 in 2009; (ii) The percentage of corruption cases reported to police and taken to court - 87% of the reported cases in 2008 were taken to court, but the percentage in 2009 dropped substantially to 38%. More information would be needed – for example to explain the decrease in reported cases that were taken to court; whether it was due to a lower commitment to enforcement or lack of capacity to handle increased workload; or whether it was because of a shift in the type of corruption cases, or another factor. Recommendation: Strengthen Efforts to Collect and Make Available Corruption Data - Numerous governmental entities generate information which is useful to the DTM. These entities include the IG, the Auditor General, BMAU (MOFPED), the Police (including the Criminal Investigations Division), DPP, Anti-Corruption Division in the High Court, DEI, Public Service Commission, Local Government Commission, Inspectorate of Courts, and UBOS. The data helps citizens understand the nature of governmental efforts to combat corruption, and the areas where corruption is greatest. These entities should be more proactive to collect consistent and frequent data related to corruption, and they should make available their reports or surveys on the Internet for a ten-year period. A specific example of how government can be more pro-active in this area would be for UBOS to collect data on stock-outs in health facilities, a problem which appears to have a linkage to corruption (in addition to other factors) in the health sector.


12. Information related to Outcomes and Duration of Anti-Corruption Cases is Poor, partially due to Weak Coordination amongst Anti-Corruption Entities. This study has established that there are multiple government agencies involved in the collection of corruption-related data. However, their efforts are not well coordinated, limiting our ability to understand the effectiveness of government anti-corruption efforts, particularly related to public sector corruption.
    
    Recommendation: Ensure all Anti-Corruption Entities Provide Useful Information on Public Sector Corruption – The government should support efforts to ensure that all anti-corruption entities in the government are generating regular and comprehensive reports to the public related to outcomes and performance associated with public sector anti-corruption activities. Activities (or cases) involving public sector officials or resources should be distinguished from strictly private sector corruption activities. The reports should be based upon consistent and frequent data collection. If the entity is involved with anti-corruption cases (such as the IG, CID, DPP, and the Anti-Corruption Division of the High Courts), its reports should emphasize data which reveals the outcome of cases and the average length of time associated with resolution of a corruption case. If the entity is involved in broader efforts to combat corruption (such as DEI, PSC, the Local Government Commission, and the Inspectorate of Courts), data should focus on anti-corruption outcomes. If not already being conducted, annual reports should be developed and posted on the Internet for public dissemination. Reports should remain available on-line for a ten year period, in order to track progress over time. The IG and DEI should conduct specialized broadcasts to disseminate report highlights to rural areas.

Absence of a formula based approach to budget allocation at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation has led to large inequities for water access in Kenya, with the poor paying more compared to the rich, and millions going without adequate access everyday. This finding is contained in a new analytical brief released by Twaweza titled "It's Our Water Too! Bringing Greater Equity in Access to Water in Kenya." Uwazi analysts have aggregated facts from a range of credible sources that demonstrate that persistent inequalities in access to water services in Kenya can be quickly reduced if an approach that links investments and resource allocation to needs rather than political weight is adopted and implemented. Fortunately, key data for such a formula are now available from the 2009 population census and the national poverty maps. Click here for more details.

Without information about budget allocations and execution, citizens are left clueless on how their tax money is spent. Public scrutiny of the budget process is an important element of any system of checks and balances. How do countries in East Africa fare in this regard?

To assess how accessible or 'open' budget processes are to citizens, the International Budget Partnership (IBP) has implemented the Open Budget Survey (OBS) for several years now. This survey follows a rigorous methodology of measuring budget practices and presents the only available independent and comparative measure of government budget processes. The survey comprises two sets of questions, totaling 123 altogether. The first set (92 questions) assesses the transparency of a country's budget to citizens and collects information about the availability, timeliness and comprehensiveness of budget reports. The remaining set of questions assesses the strength and effectiveness of institutions that oversee the budget process, the Legislatures (Parliaments) and the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs).

Using data from three OBS survey rounds (2006, 2008 and 2010), this brief presents eight facts on budget openness in East Africa, covering Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda (information for Burundi is not available). The brief reveals a trend towards more openness, but also shows that the level of budget transparency remains poor and that oversight institutions are weak. It is further found that governments fail to publish key budget documents and that the documents that are published provide only limited information.

It is clear that countries of East Africa could significantly improve their budget transparency. Doing so does not have to be difficult. Some measures are as simple as making public documents that are already produced for internal government use or for donor agencies. Other measures, such as strengthening the role of oversight institutions, Parliaments and the Supreme Audit Institutions may be more challenging, but successful East African examples can provide guidance on how to go about it.

2010 is an important year for Africa for various reasons. Of these, perhaps the most important is that firstly, this year marks the beginning of the decade in which most of its countries will celebrate 50 years of independence, and secondly, it is the starting point for the new AU/NEPAD African Action Plan (AAP) 2010–2015. This official statement of Africa's priority programmes and projects aims to consolidate the global partnerships and relationships necessary to drive the continent's development in a sustainable manner.

2010 also leaves five years before the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) are due to be met, and perhaps most importantly, this is also the year that will forever be remembered for South Africa's hosting of the FIFA World Cup^TM, an event that focused the world's attention on Africa.

"While Africa has made significant progress it has not yet achieved the necessary transformation ... the job is not yet done."

Lastly, a number of commitments for Africa's development expire in 2010, including the Gleneagles Agreement to double aid by 2010, the EU-Africa partnership (in which the former committed itself to increase aid to developing regions, including Africa), and the 2010 targets for aid effectiveness as contained in the Paris Declaration, to mention a few.

There is widespread consensus that Africa has made significant progress in its bid to right the socio-economic burdens that have crippled it for so long, but it has not yet achieved the transformation that is necessary in terms of governance, economic and social development. To complete the job, many more resources are required, the source of which may unfortunately dwindle due to the current fi nancial crisis in the North - most prominently in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain - which not only suggests a potential decrease in the flow of development fi nance but has a mixed impact on the willingness of donors to fully meet their commitments, including those due to expire this year.

On the one hand, this impediment provides the impetus for fresh demands on development partners to provide additional support, while on the other, this is an important signal for the continent to focus on better utilising its external resources and seeking more indigenous solutions to its development challenges. It is important that these in turn are informed and owned by Africa's wider population and the public in the West.

During 2010, African Monitor and its partners organised a number of what it terms "Citizens' Consultations" throughout the continent. The goal of the forums, which focused on gathering the input and opinion of the grassroots population, was to thereby create an agenda that truly reflects African views, captures its voices and aspirations and ultimately shapes the continent's policy agenda for the forthcoming decade. Bishop Denis Singulane of Mozambique echoed it thus: "There are many who want to talk about poverty in the absence of the poor," which suggests that Africa's leaders have something to hide. The continent cannot afford to continue with development strategies and programmes that have suffered relevance, legitimacy and ownership challenges.

Related document/s:

• The Citizens Manifesto: A National Synthesis Report

On July 16^th 2010, following the completion of the 20^th session of the Bunge, the President of Tanzania dissolved the 9^th Parliament. This event marked the end of the term for Members of Parliament who were elected during the 2005 general elections. Now that the last session has been completed it allows us to look back and to consider how MPs performed during their tenure. Did they participate actively and represent their constituencies by asking questions and making interventions, or were they silent backbenchers?

The Bunge is the Supreme Legislature of Tanzania. The Bunge grants money for running the administration and oversees government programs and plans. The Bunge oversees the actions of the Executive and serves as watchdog to ensure that government is accountable to its citizens. To achieve all this, Members of Parliament pass laws, authorise taxation and scrutinize government policies including proposal for expenditure; and debate major issues of the day. For the Bunge to effectively carry out its oversight role, active participation by Members of Parliament is critical. MPs can be active by making three kinds of interventions: they can ask basic questions, they can ask supplementary questions and they can make contributions during debates.

This brief follows earlier briefs, the last of which was released in August 2010. It presents seven facts on the performance of MPs, including rating who were the most active and least active MPs.

The information in this brief was retrieved from the public Parliamentary On-line Information System (POLIS) posted on the Tanzania Parliament Website (http://www.bunge.go.tz) in August 2010. The full data set can also be downloaded from the Uwazi website (http://www.uwazi.org).

Related documents:

• Do people prefer active MPs?
• Uganda: The Parliamentary Scorecard 2008 - 2009

The UNDP Oslo Governance Centre (OGC) and Civil Society Division are seeking a consultant to author the introductory chapter to a forthcoming publication on social acccountability and governance issues. This comparative experience publication will be divided into six sections: an introductory chapter, and five regional chapters covering Asia-Pacific, Arab states, Africa, Europe/CIS and Latin America and the Caribbean. It will analyse the regional context and illustrate experiences in using social accountability principles and tools for MDG tracking and monitoring and how they have contributed to improving MDGs strategies and programming, as well as contributed to overall improvements in democratic governance.

Background: The outcome document of the 2010 MDG summit, 'Keeping the Promise: United to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals' acknowledges that many of the successes in achieving MDGs have been made possible through inclusive national ownership, civil society and community involvement, among others. The document reiterates the need for replicating and scaling-up policies and approaches that promote community-led strategies, and improve institutional implementation capacities. Overall, it stresses the crucial role of governance in not only promoting economic growth but also in improving access to services, and empowering people to participate in decision making processes.

However, except for a few oft-quoted cases, other examples of successful social accountability initiatives around the world are few and far between. This is partially because little attention has been paid to assessing the impact and effectiveness of such initiatives. Indeed, much is not yet known about whether and how the use of social accountability tools lead to improvement in service delivery and the achievement of MDGs. However, evidence does suggest that change or improvement in service delivery can only be possible if the application of these tools are linked to state institutions or existing governance processes that could lead to appropriate policy and institutional implementation changes at both national and local level. Thus, if adequate attention is paid to the process of developing social accountability initiatives and the implementation of the tools, social accountability initiatives can be tapped to be mechanisms for stimulating broader civic engagement for MDGs,  and transforming governance processes. In addition, they could potentially inspire a local value system related to participation, accountability and transparency.

Given this potential of social accountability initiatives, the UNDP Oslo Governance Centre and the Civil Society Division of Partnership Bureau will produce a comparative experience publication that will explore the linkages between social accountability initiatives, governance and MDGs in different regional contexts. The publication will specifically seek to capture experiences from across regions and contexts where either elements of social accountability tools were adopted or new initiatives have been successfully developed to promote two-way dialogue between citizens and state, address social exclusion and increase engagement of citizens, including that of marginalised and excluded, in MDGs achievement and enhance state responsiveness.

Purpose of the publication: The purpose of this publication is to provide strong illustrative experiences from southern CSOs on how social accountability can be mainstreamed into programming and to expand the thinking within UNDP around strategic partnerships. It will showcase good southern experience, enhancing UNDP's learning in this area. Specifically, given the renewed focus to accelerate achievement, the publication will be aimed towards informing the new generation of MDGs policy and programming where mainstreaming of social accountability principles and tools can serve as a practical means to strengthen civic engagement for MDGs, build responsive and capable institutions and improve service delivery (and meet MDGs) at the local and national level.

Target Audience: This publication is aimed at all development practitioners interested in promoting community-led strategies for achieving MDGs. It is also aimed at governance practitioners to encourage them to adopt MDGs as entry points for promoting participatory governance processes and strengthening institutions.

Structure of the publication: This comparative experience publication will be divided into six sections: an introductory chapter, and five regional chapters covering Asia-Pacific, Arab states, Africa, Europe/CIS and Latin America and the Caribbean. It will analyse the regional context and illustrate experiences in using social accountability principles and tools for MDG tracking and monitoring and how they have contributed to improving MDGs strategies and programming, as well as contributed to overall improvements in democratic governance.

Duties and Responsibilities: The OGC and CSD are seeking a consultant to develop the first chapter of the publication-Introduction: Tracing the linkage between social accountability, MDG and governance. This chapter will draw on existing materials and publications to provide the overarching conceptual framework for the publication as a whole, also highlighting the themes to be addressed in the regional chapters (to be developed separately).  The chapter will draw on a diversity of sources, including UNDP strategies around acceleration towards achievement of the MDGs, and the output will be one chapter of 10-15 pages.

• Preparation (including review of the relevant literature on social accountability and MDGs) - 5 days;
• First draft of the report - 7 days;
• Second draft (integration of comments) - 3 days.

The consultant will be supervised by the Democratic Governance Advisor, Oslo Governance Centre, in close liaison with the Acting Director, Civil Society Division

Competencies:

• Excellent analytical and organisational skills;
• Proven research skills;
• Strong verbal and communication skills;
• Excellent writing skills;
• Ability to perform tasks in timely manner.

Required Skills and Experience: The consultant should demonstrate the following minimum requirements and qualifications:

• Seven years of relevant development experience in the areas of Participation or Governance, with particular emphasis on social accountability.
• Strong publication record in the field of participation or social accountability.
• Advanced university degree in relevant area such as International Affairs, Development Studies, Law, Public Policy, or equivalent.
• Experience or knowledge of UNDP; its mandate and work in democratic governance, civil society, social accountability and MDGs.
• Fluency in written and spoken English.

Note: Interested persons can access the application form here.

For long citizens have been passive and reactive actors in the political process in general and in deepening electoral democracy in particular. Through the CM - an initiative that is defined both as a process and an output, citizens have taken the foundational steps to reversing their passive and reactive stance in politics. This national synthesis report is evidence of the growing pro-activeness of Ugandan citizens who are working together for a better governed country, a country where every Ugandan feels happy to be part of and a country where every Ugandan is patriotic to. This National Citizens Manifesto Synthesis Report is a culmination of a year of reflection, consultations and consensus building that took citizen Manifesto Partners to every region of Uganda to consult with ordinary Ugandans about their dreams and aspirations for the country. In this national synthesis report, a diagnosis of Ugandan's major social, economic, political and policy challenges is done from an ordinary citizens' perspective and key demands and proposals made of how Uganda can overcome some of the systematic challenges it faces.

This synthesis report is an output document that explains the CM Initiative, the process it took to develop it and highlights key emerging priority issues from regional and interest group reports. From this National Citizens Manifesto Synthesis Report, a Final Citizens Manifesto - a concise statement of principles and demands is derived. The purpose of this Synthesis Report is therefore to provide the evidence base about the final CM so that all who engage with it know it is a product of an extensive consultative process.

The report is written with a number of audiences in mind. The primary audience is Ugandan citizens in their diversity - those that participated in the process and others that will interact with it in one way or another. It is this group that hold the ultimate power to make the idea of the Citizens Manifesto, a reality by using it to engage with one another and with aspiring politicians. The second audience targeted are actors in political society and in particular Political Parties, aspiring politicians offering themselves for different leadership positions in the forthcoming election. The third audience is the next government - there are important demands that both technocrats and politicians working in the next government must heed to. Finally, this report is also useful to other development players that are engaged in democracy promotion in Uganda. To partners that support development in Uganda, it is important that this voice of Ugandan citizens inform your work and priorities.

This National Synthesis Report is divided into 4 parts. Following this introduction is a section that explains in detail what the CM is, its rationale; its objectives and expectations. A section on the process of developing the Citizens Manifesto concludes Part 1. Part II are outcomes of the Citizens Manifesto comprising a Vision for Uganda, values and principles that should underpin governance and development in the country, a citizen perspective on what should constitute Uganda's national interests, the top 10 development concerns that emerged from various consultations and analyses, this is followed by key demands and aspirations in areas of politics, society, economy and policy (including foreign policy). A synthesis of common expectations and demands for each elective position concludes Part II. Part III is a brief on the role of different actors in Uganda's development scene. Part IV presents 19 matrixes highlighting regional and interest group specific issues from the different consultations.

• Download Citizens' Manifesto Summary [861 KB]
• Download full document [4.3 MB]
• Cover pages [504 KB]
• Introductory pages [82 KB]
• Part I: Genesis of the Citizens Manifesto and Overview of Process [476 KB]
• Part II: Outcomes: Emerging Development Concerns, Aspirations and Demands [1 MB]
• Part III: Conclusion and the Role of Different Actors [298 KB]
• Part IV: Regional and Interest Group Summary Matrixes [716 KB]
• Annex I: Question Guide for Community Consultations [129 KB]

Related document/s:

• Citizens' agenda for Africa's development: A report on African citizens' consultations

The Government of Kenya is spending considerable resources at the constituency level. In 2009/10 at least 73billion went towards decentralised fund spending. This averages into Ksh 350million per constituency for local development. Through the CDF, LATF and ESP alone approximately 50billion was spent amounting to roughly Ksh 200million per constituency. However, the findings of this study uncover a myriad of challenges which mirror concerns raised by similar reports in the past.

Social Auditing is an approach to accountability that relies on the engagement of citizens. The driving force behind social auditing is the obligation of duty bearers to take responsibility for their actions. It is a rights based approach to accountability based on the fundamental principle that citizens have the right to demand accountability and public officials have an obligation to account. It is rooted in the work of the Indian organisation Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghthana (MKSS).

Social Auditing is important because it promotes civic engagement and empowers people; reduces corruption and ensures effective development is realised; increases transparency and accountability for the promotion of good governance. Social auditing also offers mechanisms and structures to promote and protect the right of citizens to development.

The Nairobi Social Audit campaign was jointly undertaken by The Institute for Social Accountability [TISA], Shelter Forum and Ufadhili Trust between May and September 2010. The campaign targeted three decentralized funds: The Constituency Development Fund [CDF], The Local Authority Transfer Fund [LATF] and The Economic Stimulus Programme [ESP], in four Nairobi constituencies; Embakasi, Kasarani, Langata and Westlands.

60 ward representatives drawn from the four constituencies were identified and capacitated with knowledge and skills on how conduct social audits. The social audit public launch kicked off with a public meeting held at Babadogo, Nairobi in July 2010. The social audit teams thereafter undertook field work and complied field reports by the end of August. These were then analyzed and prepared into the first draft of the social audit reports and shared directly with official stakeholders and the public through public validation meetings in each constituency.

The output of the validation process has been complied and synthesized into this final report for public dissemination with the view to strengthening local governance in Kenya. In total 72 projects were sampled.

This report makes specific fund recommendations to relevant institution heads, as well as national policy recommendations with a view to informing ongoing reforms under the New Constitution of Kenya with a view to securing citizen engagement, transparency and professionalism in the County government structure.

We urge Parliament and other reform institutions to be bold, selfless and proactive in creating strong and accountable Counties and believe that this report will make a valuable contribution to the reform process.

Since 1997, the Government of Uganda has implemented the Universal Primary Education Policy. This followed closely the promulgation of a Constitution in 1995 that established education as a right for all. These reforms were also in consonance with the global education reforms as espoused in the 1990 Jomtien World Conference on Education for All (EFA) which called for increased access to education as well as an improvement in learning achievement. In 2000, we had the Dakar Framework of Action that reinforced all these global and national reforms as seen in Goal 6 that calls for "improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognizable and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills". These goals have been assimilated in the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and MDG 2 now specifically speaks to Universal Primary Education.

In Uganda, since the introduction of UPE, effective ways and means to make tangible improvements in both UPE service delivery (teachers, curricula, facilities, inspection and support supervision) and outcomes (learning) have been of focus. The Government of Uganda and development partners through the Ministry of Education and Sports have made enormous investments in the primary sub-sector to improve quality in terms of curricula, infrastructure and learning environment, teaching/learning process and learning achievements. The UPE policy in Uganda received a major boost with the enactment of the new Education Act, 2008 by Parliament which makes primary education compulsory for all children. In addition, the sector adopted the Quality Enhancement Initiative (QEI) - a flagship program within the UPE program for the improvement of primary education specifically targeting the twelve districts with the worst education indicators in the country. The sector also adopted other support policies to guide its efforts to provide quality primary education, including the instruction in local language policy which is intended to support the on-going implementation of the thematic curriculum in lower primary. However, the subsector continues to register low learning outcomes.

The Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) has since 2003 been conducting annual national assessments of literacy and numeracy competencies at primary 3 and 6 level. The recent National Assessment of Progress in Education (2009) indicates that in terms of proficiency in Numeracy and Literacy of children in the sampled classes of P.3 and P.6 still stands below 50%. Notwithstanding the strong government commitment major constraints and challenges remain, and these include:

• Low community participation and ownership of education activities
• Inadequate capacity particularly at the district level
• Inequity in primary education provision particularly due to a wide variation in access to preprimary education in the country
• Slow recruitment and deployment of qualified teachers
• Inadequate school inspection services
• Poor communication between the districts and schools
• Inadequate provision of instructional materials for implementation of the thematic curriculum at lower primary
• Inadequate training of teachers in the delivery of the thematic curriculum
• Inadequate institutional capacity for planning, implementation and management particularly at the school level
• Inadequate infrastructure in primary schools due to low funding
• High attrition of teachers
• High repetition and drop out of pupil

The Uwezo initiative responds to this context. Uwezo, meaning "capability" in Kiswahili, is a four year initiative to improve competencies in literacy and numeracy among children aged 6-16 years in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda through an innovative, civic-driven and public accountability approach to social change. Uwezo intends to enable policy makers as well as ordinary citizens - i.e. parents, students, local communities and public at large - to become aware of actual levels of children’s literacy and numeracy, and build on that awareness to stimulate practical and policy change across East Africa.

In Uganda the initiative is hosted by the Uganda National NGO Forum (www.ngoforum.or.ug) and regionally within Twaweza (www.twaweza.org). Uwezo is a citizen-led assessment that complements education assessments conducted by Government. It is based on the concern that educational assessment studies have increased across East Africa but the use and impact appears to be limited. Further, assessments tend to be overly technocratic and complex in nature, and are difficult for most people to understand. Access to their findings remains limited to small circles, and their dissemination seems to have failed to stimulate the public imagination or lead to policy and social change.

Uwezo seeks to fill this gap by generating household based data on children’s literacy and numeracy across East Africa, in a manner that informs the public, stimulates countrywide debate, and creates demand for policy change from the bottom-up. Uwezo builds its design and methodology from the pioneering approach of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER, www.asercentre.org) in India.

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Au Sénégal, l’extraction minière artisanale et à petite échelle de l’or fait vivre entre 30 et 50 000 personnes (réparties sur 87 sites), avec une production annuelle d’environ une tonne estimés à 10 milliards de FCFA. Il jouit actuellement d’une très grande attention de la part des pouvoirs publics et de l’ensemble des Parties Prenantes en général à travers des programmes d’encadrement et de formation, de modernisation des méthodes de production, de renforcement institutionnel et organisationnel, d’information/ sensibilisation et de facilitation de l’accès au crédit.

Cependant, le secteur demeure confronté à plusieurs défis d’ordre juridique, économique, sociaux et plus préoccupant encore environnementaux, notamment lié à l’usage du mercure.

Le Partenariat Mondial pour le mercure a été lancée par le Programme des Nations Unies pour l’environnement (PNUE) en 2005 afin de prendre en charge cette problématique au niveau international. Or, des études ont montré que l’exploitation minière artisanale et à petite échelle de l’or est en tête en matière de demande de mercure au niveau mondiale.

Ainsi, l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour le Développement Industriel (ONUDI) qui agit en tant que leaders du volet orpaillage du Partenariat, se propose de réduire de 50% la demande de mercure dans l’exploitation minière artisanale et à petite échelle de l’or d’ici 2017.

Dans cette même perspective, l’Agence Américaine pour la Protection de l’Environnement (USEPA) a organisé à Dakar (Sénégal) en septembre 2008 un atelier de sensibilisation sur les risques liés à l’utilisation du mercure dans l’orpaillage, en partenariat avec la DMG et le CSE.

En décembre 2009, l’ONUDI et ses partenaires ont organisé à Bamako (Mali), un atelier sous régional (Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinée, Mali, Niger et Sénégal) d’information et de sensibilisation sur le mercure, à l’issue duquel l’élaboration de Plans d’Actions Nationaux sur la question a été retenue.

C’est dans ce cadre qu’un atelier pro-bono avec toutes les parties impliquées (Ministère en charge des mines, Ministère en charge de l’environnement, ONGs, Association des orpailleurs...) a été organisé à Kédougou le 15 septembre 2010 dans la salle de conférence des locaux abritant l’ONG« la lumière ».

Aussi pour finaliser et valider le Plan d’Actions Stratégique National sur l’Orpaillage (PASNO), toutes les structures précédemment impliquées sont conviées encore une fois à un atelier , le mercredi 27 octobre 2010, dans la dite salle de conférence.

Objectifs de l’atelier:

2.1 Objectif général L’objectif général est de présenter le projet de Plan d’Actions Stratégique National sur l’exploitation artisanale et à petite échelle de l’or aux structures impliquées dans l’activité d’orpaillage, pour étude et validation.

2.2 Objectifs Spécifiques:

1. Recueillir les observations des parties prenantes sur le projet de Plan d’Actions Stratégique National sur l’exploitation artisanale et à petite échelle de l’or;
2. Améliorer et compléter les informations essentielles du Plan d’Actions Stratégique National sur l’orpaillage;
3. Procéder à la validation du Plan d’Actions Stratégique National sur l’orpaillage par l’ensemble des parties prenantes;

Méthodologie:

L’atelier se déroulera en 2 temps : Présentation du Plan d’Actions Stratégique National sur l’exploitation artisanale et à petite échelle de l’or par l’expert de l’ONUDI; Discussions et commentaires des participants ; Réponses et interactions de l’expert avec les participants.

Modalités:

L’approche « pro-bono » utilisée par l’ONUDI requiert la participation des Etats aux frais d’organisation des ateliers, comme preuve de leur engagement dans le processus d’élaboration du PASNO. Ainsi, hormis le remboursement des frais de transports des représentants des orpailleurs, aucune autre forme de prise en charge n’est prévue.

Irene Grootboom brought the first successful socio-economic rights case to the Constitutional Court. The case tested the Court. We had adopted a Constitution which deliberately included social and economic rights, in recognition of the fact that full democracy is more than the right to vote: it also implies social justice, in the form of access to the basic necessities of life which enable us to lead our lives with dignity, and to achieve our full potential as human beings.

Quite obviously, the first job of the courts is to enforce the Constitution and the rights which it contains. A person whose home has been destroyed and who has nowhere she can legally live, has no access to housing and is denied one of the most fundamental necessities of life. A court cannot fold its arms and say that this is bad luck, it is the consequence of apartheid, and one day things may change. The question is not whether the court should do something. Rather, it is what the court should do.

Judges often find this a difficult question. They point out that where there is a large-scale failure to meet the needs and rights of people, one of the questions which has to be answered is "who first?" If you cannot serve everyone at the same time, whose needs should enjoy priority? And there are questions of "how much?" If the right is a right of access to adequate housing, or to education, what quality of housing or education has to be provided before it meets the constitutional standard? How do you assess that when giving more to one may mean giving less to another?

The Grootboom case showed that this is not the first question. The first question is whether there has been a breach of constitutional rights. If there has been a breach, the first duty of the courts is to say so. This is important in itself. It vindicates the complainant, it puts the government on the spot for its failures, and it educates and informs us about our rights and obligations.

The Court declared that the failure of the government to create a programme for emergency relief for those who are in a desperate situation is a breach of the Constitution. The Constitution requires that the government’s housing programme must be reasonable. It is not reasonable to say to someone who is homeless that she must wait, homeless, to be provided with a full house in twenty years’ time.

But having done that, the questions remain: "who first?", and "how much?" Courts which are faced with these questions usually give two answers.

The first is that the court is not competent to answer those questions. The only people before the court are the complainants and the government: other homeless people, who also have claims, are not there, and are not able to place their facts and their demands before the court. The judges are limited to the information which is placed before them in the case – they cannot rely on any other source of information. And the judges have no skill in formulating housing policy. They do not know what is practically achievable, and how to achieve it.

The second answer which is given is that these decisions should be made by people who are democratically accountable for their decisions. No-one votes for a judge, and a judge who gives a bad decision cannot be voted out of office. These decisions, it is said, should be made by those who are democratically accountable.

There is truth in both of these answers. However, neither of them is a complete answer.

In the first place, the question whether Ms Grootboom should receive a house, or whether the children in mud schools in the Transkei should receive a decent school building, is in truth never the subject of an electoral process. We vote twice every five years, and it is an all or nothing vote. You cannot say I support the ruling party, and I vote for it, but I vote against its policy on emergency housing, or its policy about funding allocations to schools. To suggest that these decisions are subject to a democratically accountable process is rather overstating it. You have to ask yourself the simple question: when did anyone vote against the provision of emergency housing for homeless people? Which party said that children should continue to learn in mud schools in the Transkei, and who voted for that policy?

The claim that government is democratically accountable for these decisions is therefore something of a fiction. We do not vote for these details, and we are never given the opportunity to do so.

Secondly, most of these decisions are not taken by elected office bearers. In the Grootboom case, the government had never made a decision not to provide emergency housing – there was simply a gap in the policy. The housing policy was constructed by officials and experts, and perhaps approved by the Minister. It was never considered by a democratically accountable deliberative body. Similarly, the decisions on what funding to allocate to school buildings are not made by a democratically elected Parliament. They are made by officials and senior politicians, sitting in an office. They are the people who allocate resources. They do the best they can, behind closed doors. They usually do not have to account publicly for those decisions.

Judges sit in public. They have to listen to argument, and they have to give reasons for their decisions. This is a strong form of accountability. I have sat as an acting judge, and I have worked as a government official. I can truthfully say that the pressures of accountability which I felt as a judge were greater than in respect of most of the decisions which I had to take as the head of a government department.

So the argument about non-accountability of judges has to be taken with a pinch of salt. It is true that they are not elected, but it is also true that they have far more direct accountability than many of the people who make the decisions which affect people in their daily lives.

There are, however, valid questions about the competence of judges to make decisions about competing claims to the allocation of resources. I would certainly not want to live in a country run by the judges.

What, then, should judges do when they find a breach of rights, but it is not possible or appropriate for them to decide the detail of the remedy? The key to this is to promote accountability. The principle of accountability for the exercise of power is fundamental to our Constitution.

The first thing the courts can do once they have found a breach, is order the government publicly to state what it has done to remedy the breach, what it will do in future, and when it will do it. This creates the opportunity for the public to hold the government accountable. If the government’s programme is inadequate, it creates the space for public debate and campaigning, for mobilisation and organisation, which will seek to compel the government to do better. The people are given the information which enables them to hold their public representatives to account.

And when the government says what it will do in the future, it creates a benchmark against which its conduct can be tested. If it fails to meet that benchmark, and cannot justify its failure, it may find itself back in court, or it may find itself in the court of public opinion, having to justify its actions to the people. Again, participation and democracy are deepened.

The second thing the court can do is require the government to report to it on its plans, and on the implementation of those plans, so that the court can judge whether this satisfies the constitutional standard. This is sometimes referred to as a structural interdict. The government is given the space to decide how best to give effect to the right, and the court is then asked to decide whether what the government has chosen to do, meets the requirements of the Constitution. This enables the courts to avoid having to decide questions which are beyond its competence, while ensuring that what is done does in fact meets the constitutional standard.

The third thing the Courts can do is make an order which promotes participation and accountability "on the ground".

For example, the Constitutional Court has held that a municipality which wants to evict people has to "meaningfully engage" with them before bringing any proceedings for eviction. The Olivia Road case showed how this can work. In that case, some hundreds of people were living in the inner city in Johannesburg in truly dreadful privately owned buildings. The buildings were unsafe – there was a high risk of fire, and there were very real health dangers.

The City applied to court to have the people evicted. The people said that they would not go, because they needed to be in the inner city where they earned a modest income – there was nowhere else for them to go, and they would rather stay in those buildings, with all of those risks, than be consigned to the outer darkness of the urban fringes, where they would starve.

What was the Court to do? Was it to order the eviction, knowing that this would likely cause terribly suffering and hardship, or should it allow the people to stay where they are, knowing that this too was likely to cause great suffering and hardship?

The Court did neither. It ordered the parties first to "meaningfully engage" with each other on the solution to this problem, and then to report back to the Court. Now, for the first time, the City had to deal with the residents as equals. Both sides knew that they would have to go back to Court and explain themselves. Both knew that if they acted unreasonably, there was a risk that the Court would make an order against them. The previous inequality between the all-powerful City and the powerless residents was suddenly changed.

The result was remarkable. The City agreed to make some immediate improvements to the buildings, to limit the risk of fire and health hazards. It found other buildings in the City to which the residents could move, once they had been renovated. The residents agreed to leave their homes. They agreed to pay rent if they were able to do so. An apparently intractable situation had been resolved.

What the Court had done, was promote democratic accountability. It made the City account to the residents for its actions, and justify and explain them, and if necessary justify and explain them to the Court. It transformed the residents from people pleading for government largesse, into the holders of rights who were in a position to negotiate with the government because they held rights. That, of course, is the very purpose of rights: it is to transform and regulate power relations.

Fourteen years after the adoption of our final Constitution, deep inequality and poverty continue to mock our efforts to build a democracy based on social justice. The Constitutional Court has shown that there are ways in which the courts can help us to achieve our highest goals by broadening and deepening democratic participation, and promoting the accountability of power.

Lecture by Geoff Budlender, 11 October 2010

The Ghana Integrity Initiative, has launched the Africa Education Watch (AEW) project report on Ghana.  The report focused on three municipalities and three districts in the Upper East, Greater Accra and Ashanti regions. The report found that the areas lacked basic school infrastructure like classrooms, blackboards, chairs and tables, noting that this situation had affected the performance of pupils. The report indicated that only about 38 schools out of total of 60 monitored between 2007 and 2010 were well equipped with basic infrastructure.

Launching the report in Accra, Mr Vitus A. Azeem, GII Executive Secretary, said the Africa Education Watch (AEW) was a three-year programme (2007-2010) supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation through the Transparency International Secretariat (TIS). He said the overall goal of AEW was to contribute to improved access to quality of primary education and equity through a more effective use of resources.

Mr Azeem said the AEW in Ghana monitored cost and quality of education, cost of teaching and learning materials, implications of school feeding programme, teacher population and qualification, access to financial information, availability of school infrastructure, average class size and school governance systems.

He explained that based on the report the AEW recommended that education authorities provided more classrooms and furniture, opened new schools and trained more teachers to make up the current shortfall and provided standardized training for non-professional teachers.

The report also recommended the sensitization of parents, particularly, members of school management committees and Parent-Teacher Association executives, on their rights and roles in school management so as to enable them to participate more actively in school governance. It also suggested the training of SMC members in basic planning and financial management to contribute to school plans and track the application of school resources to reduce leakage and corruption. The AEW report identified the urgent need to provide a sustained training for school heads to ensure proper record keeping and efficient use of school resources.

"Head teachers who fail to keep proper records to ensure transparency and accountability in school financial management must be sanctioned," the report indicated.

GII said the intermediate outcomes of AEW included a creation of awareness among stakeholders, including NGOs and media, to ensure that they became more knowledgeable and concerned about waste, leakage, corruption and accountability mechanisms in primary education. It also sought to increase and prioritize demand for action on transparency and accountability in primary education and to empower education and finance officials to deal more proactively with transparency and accountability in primary education.

Presentation 1 [759 KB]

Presentation 2 [706 KB]

Some 60 parliamentarians together with partners have come up with a plan to transform the pledges made to maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) into action. The commitments came at a special meeting called by the Pan African Parliament and organized by Africa Public Health, with support from the PMNCH and several partners aimed at implementing Decisions from July's African Union Summit on 'Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa'.

The meeting preceded the Pan African Parliament (PAP) October Assembly meeting, bringing together Chairs of Finance /Budget Committees of National Parliaments and PAP Commissions of Health, Gender and Finance to discuss potential activities which Parliaments and they themselves can take to lead to improved health outcomes for women and children.

With 27 countries represented through Senators or Deputies, the session yielded strong recommendations outlining actions for PAP and National Parliaments. Policy makers committed to:

• Hold multilateral consultation sessions in country involving parliamentary committees and ministries of health, finance, gender and other relevant social determinants to discuss key issues that need to be addressed;
• Define strategies for parliamentary action on MNCH in countries based on:
  • Support for the development of national health plans which include comprehensive packages of essential interventions and focus on health system strengthening – in particular human resources for health
  • Budget support for the implementation of these plans based on percentage and per capita targets
  • Advocacy to Executive bodies
  • Development of legislation in support of healthy women and children
  • Implementation of accountability mechanisms to ensure full impact;
• Implement a process to report on these activities within PAP committees and African Union Assemblies.

The recommendations reiterate the AU commitment to reaching the target of 15% of GDP expenditure for the health sector, but also encourages incremental annual increases targeting the achievement of adequate per capita health spending. It emphasizes: risk pooling measures to protect populations, better use of indicators, performance-based financing and in particular the use of innovation to increase fiscal space available for health spending. Parliamentarians outlined a need for capacity building in terms of key MNCH indicators, budget assessments and legislation development with an eye towards improving health outcomes for women and children.

The recommendations are predicated on global and regional agreements such as the Campaign for the Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa, the Maputo Action Plan, the Africa Health Strategy, The Paris Declaration, the Accra Agenda for Action and the United Nations Secretary General's Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health.

The meeting was organized by the Africa Public Health and was supported by The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, World Vision International, DFID, The Global Fund, UNFPA, GHWA, UNAIDS and GAVI.

Documents and presentations

Agenda [pdf 223kb]

Summary concept note [pdf 609kb]

Parliamentary Policy & Budget Action Plan for African Union Summit Decision [pdf 737kb]

Investing in Maternal Health: Appropriate Use of National Resources for Africa's Development [pdf 403kb]
Dr Akinyele Eric Dairo, Regional Adviser, UNFPA African Regional Office

Finance and resources needed to prevent MTCT in Africa [pdf 703kb]
UNAIDS

Bilateral Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to Health [pdf 720kb]
Tony Daly, DFID, Regional Maternal Health Adviser

Health care professionals for maternal and newborn health: some reflections on the gaps and the way forward [pdf 493kb]
Prof Eric Buch, Board member, Global Health Workforce Alliance

Equity issues are again attracting attention from academics and policy analysts concerned with taxation. This book makes a substantial contribution to this new awareness by emphasizing the important role that gender, like other social stratifications such as race and income, often plays in determining the impact of taxation on well-being.
Richard Bird, University of Toronto, Canada

This groundbreaking volume examines the gender dimensions of tax systems in seven developing and one developed country and is the first systematic treatment of its kind. The conceptual framework that it poses should be part of the toolkit of policy professionals, donor staff, and gender specialists in years to come.
Manuel F. Montes, Development Policy and Analysis Division, UNDESA, USA

This highly original book is essential reading for everyone concerned with equality in taxation. It provides a powerful conceptual framework that goes beyond comparing male and female headed households and sets out detailed empirical findings on the gender dimensions of both direct and indirect taxation.
Diane Elson, Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation, University of Essex, and Chair of Women’s Budget Group, UK

Around the world, there are concerns that many tax codes are biased against women, and that contemporary tax reforms tend to increase the incidence of taxation on the poorest women while failing to generate enough revenue to fund the programs needed to improve these women’s lives. Because taxes are the key source of revenue governments themselves raise, understanding the nature and composition of taxation and current tax reform efforts is key to reducing poverty, providing sufficient revenue for public expenditure, and achieving social justice. This book presents original research on the gender dimensions of personal income taxes, value-added excise and fuel taxes in Argentina, Ghana, India, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, Uganda, and the United Kingdom. It will be of interest to postgraduates and researchers studying public finance, international economics, development studies, gender studies, and international relations, among other disciplines.

Caren Grown is Economist-In-Residence at American University, Washington, DC, USA.

Imraan Valodia is Associate Professor at the School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Table of contents

1. Taxation and gender equality: A conceptual framework Caren Grown 2010


2. Methodology and comparative analysis Caren Grown and Hitomi Komatsu 2010


3. Gender equality and taxation in Argentina Corina Rodriguez Enriquez, Natalia Gherardi, and Dario Rossignolo 2010


4. Gender equality and taxation in India: An unequal burden? Pinaki Chakraborty, Lekha Chakraborty, Krishanu Karmakar, and Shashi M. Kapila 2010


5. Gender analysis of taxation in Mexico Lucia C. Pérez Fragoso and Francisco Cota Gonzalez 2010


6. An investigation into the gender dimensions of taxation in Ghana Ernest Aryeetey, Isaac Osei-Akoto, Abena D. Oduro, and Robert Darko Osei 2010


7. Gender equality and taxation in Morocco Ahmed El Bouazzaoui, Abdessalam Fazouane, Hind Jalal, and Salama Saidi 2010


8. Gender equality and taxation in South Africa Debbie Budlender, Daniela Casale, and Imraan Valodia 2010


9. Gender equality and taxation in Uganda Sarah Ssewanyana, Lawrence Bategeka, Madina Guloba, and Julius Kiiza 2010


10. Gender equality and taxation: A UK case study Jérôme de Henau, Susan Himmelweit, and Cristina Santos 2010


11. Conclusion and policy recommendations Imraan Valodia 2010

This study was commissioned by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland (MFA) in order to summarise the most important theoretical and practical lessons learnt on corruption in two of Finland’s long-term development partner countries, Nicaragua and Tanzania. In addition to providing an overview on corruption issues, the study also analyses the linkages between corruption and poverty, and summarizes the relevant debate on gender and corruption. It is based on the literature and relevant public documents, supplemented with interviews and first-hand observations in both urban and rural areas in Nicaragua and Tanzania.

The study supports the hypothesis that corruption and non-delivery of services in key sectors such as health have gender-specific poverty consequences. Corruption drains public resources and diverts them from the development of crucial infrastructure and social services. As such, corruption supports, stabilises and deepens inequality within societies. Corruption can, therefore, be seen as a mechanism that produces and perpetuates social and economic inequality; it constitutes a regressive redistribution of resources from the poor to the non-poor.

In the case of basic public services such as healthcare and primary education, the impact of corruption is felt disproportionately by women and the poor, who are most dependent on public services, and have no alternative even when facing corrupt practises in a life threatening situation, such as complicated birth delivery. This concern was expressed in the interviews with both public servants and civil society representatives in Nicaragua and Tanzania, who emphasised the need to strengthen sectoral oversight mechanisms and transparency. The latter is crucial for making civil servants better accountable to service users.

The socio-political and historical contexts of Nicaragua and Tanzania differ substantially from each other. In Nicaragua, political corruption is manifested in the clientelistic political culture, which is reinforced by a culture of spoils in which political power is understood as a legitimate source of personal enrichment. Corruption in Nicaragua – as perceived by citizens – is not characterised by everyday corruption, but more by corruption at the level of the political system. In Tanzania, the current situation in terms of incidence of corruption is subject to debate. While everyday corruption in Tanzania seems to have declined since the worst years of economic crisis, it continues to be the form of corruption felt directly by the majority of Tanzanians, even if high level political corruption is receiving more attention in the media. The perceived high prevalence of corruption on all levels in many developing countries is linked to what is known as the ‘state crisis’. This crisis affected the state-led development model of the 1980s, and was manifested in the massive employment of unproductive civil servants and subsequent bankruptcy of the employer-state. It has contributed to the exposure of corruption in high places, and the incapacity of the state to control everyday corruption at lower levels. The expansion of corruption has produced a kind of ‘corruption culture’ with a tendency to permanence. Development aid has often failed to address the problems corruption is causing in partner countries, and has in some cases even strengthened it by inducing an inflow of assistantship and clientelism favourable to corruption.

In both Nicaragua and Tanzania, the main focus of donor support to anticorruption work has been on the executive, while democratic oversight institutions on both the national and local levels have been left with a marginal role. There are various examples of vociferous, but often hollow, rhetorical anti-corruption campaigns by the executive, which seem to have been set up merely to appease the donor community or to discredit and eliminate political opponents. Anticorruption strategies very often stem from a presumption that all citizens have equal access to anticorruption bodies. This not the case in most of the developing countries. It is worth mentioning here that the new aid modalities, especially budget support, provide a real opportunity to strengthen the role of oversight institutions and to focus on the poverty reduction aspects of anticorruption activities.

The donor community has also had problems in finding a common response to the occurrence of corruption, especially in politically difficult environments. Recent initiatives, for example the EU’s Governance Assessments, World Bank anti-corruption strategies, and Nepad’s African Peer Mechanism, are a very welcomed effort to harmonise the approach of the donor community towards good governance. They also provide an excellent platform for a constructive dialogue to discuss the challenges corruption is causing to the partner countries and their citizens. Such initiatives are also bringing the donor community to realise that accountability in development is not only the accountability of the partner countries to the donor countries, but also the accountability of the partner countries to their own citizens.

Effective anticorruption work cannot rely on ephemeral ‘champions’ or the transient political rhetoric of the day, but must be anchored in permanent, democratically elected, institutions such as the parliament and local councils. Democratic governance includes, among other things: the involvement of citizens in choosing and overseeing those who govern them, respect for the rule of law and access to an independent justice system, effective institutions, and access to information. While good governance means more than tackling corruption, corruption is a serious symptom of bad governance and the lack of a closed network of social capital on the national level. The problem of the formation of negative, bonding social capital in the practice of corruption is an important element that has so far been neglected in anticorruption strategies.

Studies of corruption and gender have mainly focused on the relation between the number of women in public office and the level of corruption, while less attention has been paid to the differential impact of corruption on the well-being of men and women, and how the gender differences are addressed in anticorruption strategies. While bringing more women into politics and public office is important for advancing gender and social equity concerns, what matters is not the simple access of women to power, but the means of their access and the nature of the institutions in which they function. Merely increasing the numerical presence of women in decision making bodies, for example through quotas as in Tanzania, does not necessarily have a tangible impact on policy making and implementation if the structures of accountability are lacking or flawed.

1. Budget Manual is a compendium of general provisions and procedures relating to Budget making to be followed by all offices in the Union Government which are involved in the budgeting exercise and dealing with matters relating to Budget. This Manual is an attempt to cover the existing void faced hitherto due to the lack of a comprehensive guidebook on the subject matter of Budget process in the Central Government. An attempt has been made to incorporate all the issues related to Budget so as to make it a comprehensive one stop guidance material.



2. The purpose of this Budget Manual is to provide a guidance material and a training tool for the managerial and supervisory staff and above all to the employees dealing with the Budget and Budget related issues. It provides a comprehensive outline of the processes of budgeting, and other related issues along with various legislative and administrative policies, principles and practices which outline the budgeting system in India. The effort has been to draft this Manual in the form of a simple and usable document and as far as possible, to comprehensively outline the procedures and practices in vogue including the detailed check-lists and the mechanisms involved in its operation. The Manual attempts to outline in a linear fashion the entire chain of events leading to the presentation of Union Budget and passing of the related Appropriation Bills.



3. Chapter I is introductory in nature and brings out the meaning and importance of Budget, the important Constitutional provisions related to Budget, the various Budget documents and their composition and the recommendations of the Estimates Committee on the Form and Contents of Demands for Grants. Chapter II of the Manual deals with the Organizational aspects bringing out the roles and responsibilities of the Parliament and the Parliamentary Committees and the responsibilities of various wings of the Executive in the Budget making process. Chapter III of the Manual deals in a comprehensive manner with the Structure of Government Accounts and the classification system. This is very crucial for any budgetary process since the budgetary and accounting classifications follow a common pattern and their clear understanding is crucial for any analysis on Budget and the related provisions. A detailed analysis of the three Funds viz. the Consolidated Fund of India, the Contingency Fund of India and the Public Accounts of India has also been dealt with in this Chapter.



4. Chapters IV and V are the core of this Manual. Chapter IV brings out the entire chain of Budget preparation process right from the issue of the Annual Budget Circular. It deals in great detail with the process of estimations relating to receipts and expenditure and the consequent compilation of the Statement of Budget Estimates. All the related formats of estimation have been dealt with briefly in this Chapter in a sequential manner. Chapter IV also deals with the process of Pre-Budget meetings and the various instructions relating to furnishing of information by the Ministries/Departments for the preparation of Budget Statements. Chapter V of the Manual brings out the calendar of Budget activities and timelines including those in the Parliament. This Chapter also brings out in minutest detail the duties and responsibilities relating to various Budget documents/statements explaining alongside the process of their compilation. The checklists used internally for the preparation of various Statements in the Budget documents have been made a part of this Chapter for easy reference and understanding by all users. This Chapter also brings out the process of Budget related security arrangements including the system of Lock-in and the processes and check-lists for the preparation of State Budgets while under President Rule.



5. Chapters VI and VII of the Manual deal with the issues relating to Budget Implementation and their Reporting and Evaluation respectively. Chapter VI apart from others outlines the role of Departments in spending and control, cash management and the much in use processes of Reappropriations, Supplementary Demands for Grants and the related provisions in the General Financial Rules and the Delegated Financial Powers Rules. This Chapter also deals with some common Budget related irregularities which can be avoided by taking precautionary measures. The last Chapter of the Manual brings out the main Budget related Reporting and Evaluation processes including the Act provisions, guidelines and instructions relating to FRBM Statements, Outcome Budget, Mid-term Evaluation of Plan Schemes, Audit Reports of C&AG and the reviews by the Public Accounts Committee. The Manual also includes a number of Annexes wherever required for providing a more holistic perspective on the subject matters dealt with in the related Chapters.

Este documento foi comissionado pelo Departamento de Desenvolvimento Internacional do Reino Unido (DfID) com o objectivo de ajudar a desenvolver, em todo o governo britânico, uma melhor compreensão dos desafios à paz e à segurança em Moçambique. O documento foi concebido principalmente para contribuir para o desenvolvimento da política do governo britânico (e correspondente estratégia de influência) em relação a Moçambique, bem como para aprofundar a consciência dos riscos potenciais inerentes às abordagens adoptadas pelo governo britânico para a prestação de assistência no sector de desenvolvimento. Embora o documento se baseie, em grande parte, na Análise Estratégica de Conflitos de 2006 – e embora muitas das suas conclusões sejam semelhantes – a verdade é que tem um âmbito muito mais extenso. O documento contém uma análise de vários aspectos do conflito embora conste, de uma maneira geral, de uma análise de riscos políticos focalizando um ambiente político e económico variável. Como tal, cobre assuntos de interesse para a comunidade governamental britânica em geral, propondo ainda sinergias entre esta e o programa de desenvolvimento. O documento cobre apenas as principais questões estratégicas e proporciona um ponto de partida para discussões intra-governamentais sobre linhas de acção que sejam tanto possíveis como apropriadas.

Esta investigação teve início em Fevereiro de 2010, com um período de revisão da literatura. A seguir, em Março do mesmo ano, os autores visitaram Moçambique, onde entrevistaram doadores, funcionários do governo, membros de partidos políticos e de organizações da sociedade civil, académicos e outros interessados, à procura não de dados mas sim de impressões e perspectivas. As suas conclusões preliminares foram apresentadas em Maputo, em Maio de 2010. As investigações foram lideradas por Jeremy Astill-Brown e Markus Weimer, com a ajuda de Carolina Hunguana e Alex Vines. Os termos de referência deste projecto cobrem oito áreas de interesse, as quais se encontram reflectidas na estrutura do documento:

• Natureza, dinâmica e causas do conflito em Moçambique, incluindo as características estruturais e institucionais do mesmo;
• Natureza do assentamento político, formato da adaptação do mesmo e impacto tanto actual como futuro provável do mesmo sobre a redução da pobreza em Moçambique;
• Influência de factores continentais, regionais e intercontinentais, incluindo o tráfico ilícito de drogas e o comércio transfronteiriço ilícito, o terrorismo e o fundamentalismo;
• Principais ameaças à paz e segurança em Moçambique, as quais poderão enfraquecer os princípios fundamentais da constituição e o compromisso assumido pelo governo em relação à democracia multipartidária, aos direitos humanos e ao estado de direito;
• Interligações e dinâmicas entre os principais desafios à paz e à segurança;
• Impacto actual e potencial do conflito e outras ameaças à paz e segurança sobre a redução da pobreza e o êxito dos objectivos do PARPA, incluindo sobre as modalidades de assistência;
• Papel das forças externas, incluindo das modalidades de assistência dos doadores, nos factores que influenciam a paz e a segurança em Moçambique; e
• Abordagem à prevenção, gestão e resolução de conflitos, ncluindo a melhor maneira da comunidade internacional de doadores em Moçambique considerar o conflito no planeamento de programas de desenvolvimento em sectores como a governação democrática e outros.

A situação política, social e económica em Moçambique é dinâmica e, por conseguinte, a interacção entre a mesma e a assistência ao desenvolvimento também está constantemente a mudar. Assim, este documento oferece apenas uma imagem instantânea e temporária. Dada a natureza política das relações entre os doadores e os recipientes em geral, bem como especificamente em Moçambique, talvez seja indicado que os programas de assistência ao desenvolvimento incluam, nas suas operações quotidianas, uma certa análise funcional contínua do risco político.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that there is growing interest and concern about what actually happens in the classrooms since the Government of Kenya successfully implemented the Free Primary Education (FPE) policy in 2003. Teachers may be well-trained and yet effective learning still fails to take place. This study provides the first opportunity in Kenya to understand whether classroom interactions, including aspects such as ‘Opportunity to Learn’ and teacher subject knowledge explain why some schools are consistently ranked at the top while others dominate the bottom performance ranks in Kenya’s KCPE1. Research evidence has shown that an important aspect of quality education is the teaching and learning processes that go on in the classrooms. For APHRC, this is ground breaking study that complements its other education research studies which have focused on assessing the impact of FPE on access for the poor residents of the slums of Nairobi.

The study uses cross-sectional data and involved several steps to obtain the sample. Firstly, using KCPE examination results for 2002 to 2005, districts which have consistently been ranked within the top 10%, middle 20% and bottom 10% were indentified. Secondly, from this pool of identified districts, two were randomly selected from each of the three categories. Thirdly, a pool of schools that have consistently been ranked in the top and bottom 20% categories respectively in the KCPE results between 2002 and 2005 in the selected districts were identified. These schools were selected taking into consideration stratification by type so as to include both public and private schools. Finally, 12 schools in each district were randomly selected for the study based on the following criteria: six schools that have consistently been ranked in the top 20% in the district and another six that have been ranked at the bottom 20% in the KCPE results. To ensure proportional representation of both public and private schools, weighting was done according to the number of public and private schools in each of the selected districts. Using this step-by-step process, the following six districts were sampled for the study: Baringo, Embu, Garissa, Gucha, Murang’a and Nairobi. The selected districts represent Western, Central, Eastern, Rift-Valley and Nairobi regions of Kenya. It can therefore be said that the schools included in this study constitute a nearly nationally representative sample.

The instruments for data collection were developed in collaboration with researchers and practitioners with expertise in classroom observations, curriculum development, primary school teaching and assessment. The instruments were piloted in six primary schools, which enabled improvements to be made on various aspects of the questionnaires.

Data collection included the use of video recording and a classroom checklist to capture classroom interactions during lesson teaching; survey instruments for the teachers, head teachers and students; teacher numeracy assessment tool; and a learner numeracy assessment tool. Sixteen field interviewers were trained on how to administer the instruments and in the use of the video cameras.

The first round of field work was carried out between the months of May and July 2009 in 72 primary schools. 211 teachers, 72 head teachers, and 2,437 primary grade 6 pupils participated in the study. The second round of the field work was carried out during the months of February and March 2010. The video clips were analyzed by two experts using a video analysis rubric and the questionnaires were used to develop the analytical dataset on teaching practice and quality of learning in the visited schools. As is required of us by the Kenya Government, the National Council for Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education issued the requisite research authorization for the study, and the draft report has been shared with the Ministry of Education, Kenya.

Summary of key findings and policy implications

• The mean pupil score in Mathematics is 46.89% which is below 50% usually considered to be the pass mark.
• With the exception of Baringo district, girls in the other five districts have on average scored slightly higher (between 0.3 and 3.6 percentage points) than boys.
• The difference in maths mean scores is large (23.83 percentage points) between the top and bottom performing schools in Nairobi and smaller (4.9 percentage points) between top and bottom schools in Garissa.
• The maths mean score for teachers is 60.5% which is only slightly above the average pass mark of 50%.
• Male teachers from top-ranked schools scored higher than male teachers from bottom-ranked schools by an average of 7 percentage points.
• There is a linear but weaker relationship between pupil mean score and teacher score in the bottom ranked schools – which is to say, teachers in the bottom-ranked schools made some difference in the performance of their pupils in Mathematics wheras in the top-ranked schools, this relationship is non-existent. Individual seatwork was a dominant teaching activity in Mathematics lessons; recitation is the dominant activity in English lessons; and whole-class responses was the dominant activity in the Science lessons. However, in the bottom schools, whole-class responses was dominant in both English and Science lessons.
• Use of relevant teaching aids such as a manila paper illustrating a concept and placed on a classroom was found to be important in teaching and learning.
• Learners exposed to more interactive classrooms, for instance recitation with question and answer activities, scored higher marks.
• High performing schools (and by implication students) had higher gain scores than low performing schools (students).
• There is need to increase the availability of non-basic teaching materials through working in subject teams so that the developed materials can be shared across streams and that their effectiveness is evaluated by the subject team.
• There is need for a clear school policy on the development and utilization of teaching aids with a view to ensuring the availability of effective aids in the classrooms.
• There is need to encourage the head teachers, deputy head teachers and senior teachers to institutionalize lesson observation, feedback and professional guidance at school level.
• There is need to periodically assess teachers’ level of competency in the subjects they teach; and to review the policy on teachers teaching all subjects so that teachers can teach subjects they are competent in.
• On social relations, more parental and teacher/head teacher interactions should be encouraged, including parental involvement in what happens in the classroom.
• In low-performing schools, teachers may require more pedagogical skills-upgrading with a view to enabling them shift their lessons to more learner-centered approaches.

* Persons wishing to know more about the study can contact Dr Moses Ngware, African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, at:

Across Tanzania, huge progress has been made in basic education in the last decade. Enrolments are up in both primary and secondary education, and millions of children are able to go to school. Tanzania is ahead of schedule in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to education access and gender parity. Tens of thousands of classrooms have been built and tens of thousands of teachers recruited. The budget for education has tripled over this period; the Government now spends over a billion dollars annually or about 20% of its budget on education. Parents too have scrambled to cover their share, for even free education is never quite free, with costs of uniforms, books and pens, extra tuition, transport and whatnot.

These achievements are no easy feats; they have required significant political commitment. The key question is: what have these massive efforts and investments yielded? To what extent have these achievements translated into concrete improvements in children’s competencies? The point of schooling is to enable children to develop the knowledge and wherewithal to thrive in the world – starting with basic skills in literacy and numeracy that form the foundation of the ability to be curious, think, listen, ask questions, analyze, synthesize, and communicate with confidence. Are our schools succeeding in this responsibility? Are our children learning?

Uwezo seeks to answer this key question. This report presents the findings of its first assessment. Uwezo, meaning capability in Swahili, is a four year initiative to monitor the quality of learning in schools by assessing the basic literacy and numeracy skills of children aged 5-16. The initiative is housed within TEN/MET (Tanzania Education Network, www.tenmet.org) in Tanzania, and it is part of an East Africa wide effort also involving Kenya and Uganda coordinated by Twaweza (www.twaweza.org). The assessment is based on a proven methodology developed by the ASER Center in India, and it uses scientific methods to obtain a random sampling of households around the country. Trained Uwezo volunteers visit the households to assess the mathematics and reading (Kiswahili and English) skills of each child using a short, Standard 2 level assessment. The Standard 2 level is chosen because according to both Tanzanian and international Standards, by the end of the second year of primary education children should have acquired basic skills in literacy and numeracy.

The first Uwezo Tanzania assessment was conducted in May 2010 after extensive preparation and pre-testing. It involved 38 out of 133 districts. In each district 30 villages were randomly selected, and in each village all children aged 5-16 in 20 households were assessed. In total, 42,033 children in 22,800 households were assessed. The six key findings are presented below.

1. One in five primary school leavers cannot read Standard 2 level Kiswahili

   Even though Kiswahili is the national language widely spoken across the country, a large number of children are not able to read it fluently. In our sample, less than half (42.2%) of the children surveyed were able to read at the story level. Whereas all children in Standard 3 should be able to read at the Standard 2 story level, less than 1 in 3 (32.7%) can. Most children do not learn to read a simple story until Standard 5 or 6. By the time they complete primary school, however, 1 out of every 5 children still cannot read the Standard 2 level story. These children will likely never learn to read, and despite spending seven years in primary schooling, are likely to remain illiterate for life.

2. Half the children who complete primary school cannot read in English

   English is by far the hardest subject for children. Even though all children in Standard 3 should be able to read the Standard 2 story level, less than 1 in 10 (7.7%) can. Progress in English is slow; by Standard 5, only 1 in every 4 children can read a story. Nearly half cannot even read short English words. Many children reach Standard 7 without any English skills at all. By the time they complete primary school, half of all children (49.1%) still cannot read a Standard 2 level English story, and far fewer are likely to be able to read at the Standard 7 level. This means that the vast majority of children who enter secondary schooling are unable to read in the English language, the medium of instruction in secondary education.

3. Only 7 in 10 primary school leavers can do Standard 2 level Mathematics

   Although multiplication is in the Standard 2 curriculum, hardly any Standard 2 children can multiply. In fact, more than half of them cannot even add. By the time they reach Standard 5, most children can add and subtract, but the majority still cannot multiply. Most children master basic mathematics skills by the end of primary school. However, 3 out of 10 (31.5%) children in Standard 7 still cannot do Standard 2 level multiplication. One in 10 children complete primary school with no mathematics skills at all; they cannot even do basic addition. This likely means that the majority of children entering secondary school do not have an adequate foundation in mathematics that is essential for learning and analysis, particularly in science and commerce.

4. Urban-based children perform better than rural-based children

   Children in urban areas score about 7-10 percentage points higher than children in rural areas in l subjects. The difference is largest in Standards 2-4, when urban-based children begin to master basic skills while their rural counterparts fall behind. Rural children seem to catch up the Standard 2 level eventually by the time they are in Standards 6 and 7, but in fact may be falling further behind at being able to read at their own level.

5. Girls do slightly better than boys

   Girls performed better than boys in all subjects tested, although the differences are very small. Of all children tested, 43.5% of girls were able to read at the story level in Kiswahili as compared to 40.7% of all boys. For English and Mathematics the differences were negligible, as can be seen in the table below. Nonetheless these findings counter the widely held notion that girls do less well than boys, and raise questions about why there is marked gap in favour of boys in the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE). Overall, however, the slight differences between abilities of girls and boys should not mask the larger reality, namely that too many of both lack basic competencies in both languages and mathematics.

6. Children with educated mothers perform better

   Children whose mothers attended secondary school perform dramatically better than other children. For instance, in Standard 3 and 4 these children are five times more likely to be able to read a story in English and more than twice as likely to be able to multiply and read a story in Kiswahili. Even children whose mothers have attended only primary school seem to have a small but significant advantage above children whose mothers have not been to school. The gap in performance begins in Standard 1 and continues through Standard 7, which suggests that mother’s education remains important for children at all levels of schooling.

Conclusion

The key findings summarized above and that are further elaborated in the following chapters reveal that there is a crisis in education in Tanzania. By the time they enter Standard 3, 100% of children should have basic competencies in literacy and numeracy. The reality is that by Standard 3, 7 out of every 10 children cannot read basic Swahili, 9 out of every 10 children cannot read basic English, and 8 out of every 10 children cannot do basic mathematics. Even by the time they complete primary education, large numbers of children cannot do what they should have mastered five years earlier in Standard 2. Breakdowns by districts reveal large disparities, with some districts performing far below the national average.

The stark reality is that, despite the enormous advances in education made possible by investing trillions of shillings each year, the vast majority of children in Tanzania are not learning.

What can be done about the situation?

First, we need to pause and make the effort to fully absorb these results and analyze what they mean. Rushing to explain them away or come up with quick solutions may not help, and it may lead to improper diagnosis and ineffective responses. It may also require, politically unsound as it may seem, to temper the enthusiasm with current achievements. Celebrating new buildings and higher enrolments is dangerous folly if its effect is to mask the reality that too many children in Tanzania complete primary schooling without the ability to read and count.

Second, while major challenges are inevitable whenever an education system is expanded rapidly, one can still ask the question: are the strategic policy and political objectives focused on the right things? At present, in Tanzania and elsewhere, much of the focus is on the provision of educational inputs, such as classrooms, laboratories, books and teachers, rather than learning outcomes, such as literacy, numeracy, writing, critical thinking and creativity. Since the evidence shows that the inputs are not being translated into learning outcomes, there is a need to realign focus system-wide on achieving learning outcomes within ministries responsible for education, training institutions, curriculum development, examinations, teacher and school assessment, measures of progress, and political commitments.

Third, there is a need to focus on what happens at the school, rather than in national aggregates alone. Studies across the region suggest that the teaching and learning process may be severely compromised. Two of the most common problems appear to be that insufficient funds are reaching schools (ie increasing education budgets are being used up for other things than school level improvements) and teachers are both poorly motivated and not teaching (ie ‘time on task’ is very low). It may make sense to pay greater attention to these two issues and how to improve them, as well as to rigorously study the relationship between resources at the school level and teacher time on task on one hand and learning outcomes on the other.

Fourth, greater transparency may spur reflection and action among both policy makers and citizens alike. Uwezo is committed to sharing its findings widely to contribute to this purpose. But the Government could take things much further by enabling data from every school to be available online and through mass media, so that every local government official, teacher, parent and student can compare how she or he is doing in relation to others. Technological innovations and the spread of mobile phone in particular make possible information sharing that was unimaginable a few years ago.

Fifth, instead of doing more of what has been done harder or faster it may be time to do something different. Our analysis and studies worldwide suggest that a core part of the puzzle may be to realign incentives – so that key actors system-wide are recognized for promoting learning. One idea worth trying and already endorsed by President Kikwete is called Cash on Delivery (www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/codaid). Its basic premise is that additional funding in education should be predicated on and paid on the achievement of an (independently audited) agreed learning outcome, such as literacy and numeracy (eg for every child who completes primary education with agreed ability $200 would be provided). This idea could be rolled further down, whereby the $200 could be shared among local officials, teachers and possibly even parents. The point is to nudge key actors to focus on and reward achievement of learning. There is no guarantee that this idea would work. But in the face of the gravity of the crisis in Tanzania, where the usual methods have failed to bring meaningful progress, experimenting with a carefully designed and bold alternative as Cash on Delivery, and rigorously studying its impact, makes sense.

This report is released on the eve of national elections in Tanzania. Whatever its outcome, the next five years present an opportunity to address the education crisis in an honest, bold and strategically effective manner. A skilled, competent and confident people are essential to enable the nation to thrive, particularly in the context of regional integration and increasing globalization. Whoever emerges as the next President of Tanzania, turning education from more of the same inputs to ensuring that every child can read and count and learn may be the greatest test of his leadership.

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* Readers might be interested in three other new reports on education issues in Tanzania (published by Uwezo/Uwazi/Twaweza).

• Broken Promises on Primary Education
• Capitation Grant for Education: When will it make a difference?
• More students, Less money

The 2010 Assessing Progress toward the MDGs in Africa report is based on the latest updated and harmonized data from United Nations agencies and OECD statistics databases. UNSD is the official repository of data for assessing progress toward the MDGs. The main reason for using these international sources is that they collect and provide accurate and comparable data on MDG indicators across African countries. The irregularity of surveys/censuses, ages, definitions and methods of production of the indicators may explain the lag between the reporting year and the years of data, which vary from 2006 to 2008. Some of the indicators are new or have been modified since 2007. Some indicators, like CO2 emissions and ozone depletion in Goal 7, are not relevant or are not quite in line with national priorities. Therefore, some countries use proxies for such indicators which reflect the specificities of their own circumstances and which align more fully with their priorities. Several indicators are dependent on censuses/surveys carried out every 2 or 10 years, so that inter-survey and inter-census periods tend to lead to data gaps. The MDG data are compiled by the Inter-Agency and Expert Group (IAEG) on MDG indicators, with one or more UN agencies being responsible for indicators falling under their area of competency.

UN agencies compile, on a regular basis, data from countries using standardized questionnaires or other mechanisms agreed upon with the latter. Submitted questionnaires are then validated through a peer review process based on their data collection and processing methodology. They provide estimates, take the responsibility for filling data gaps by estimating missing values, and make adjustments if need be, to ensure global comparability across countries. The OECD also collects data specifically to track aid flows, based on a standard methodology and agreed definitions to ensure comparability of data across donors and recipients. As far as the production of MDG reports at the continental level is concerned, these UN agencies and the OECD provide adequate harmonized and comparable sources of data. However, some countries’ official data on particular MDGs were used in this report to better indicate the performances of those countries on those indicators.

MDG data have not always been available on time at the national level. If they exist, they have been subject to problems of inconsistency with international standards. Moreover, data transmission to and estimates made by international agencies – together with the fact that countries do not produce data on MDGs annually – constitute another layer of problems contributing to the observed data gaps. Over the last few years, there have been commendable steps taken by African countries, with the support of international organizations, to obtain data for tracking progress on the MDGs. However, a number of challenges persist relating to the production of data in Africa. The low profile of statistics on the continent is due to a number of obstacles, including: inadequate resources allocated to statistical activities; the lack of institutional capacity; inadequate coordination of statistical activities; and minimal consideration of African specificities in setting up international standards. The African Statistics System (ASS) is therefore expected to further scale up its efforts toward continental statistical integration to address a continent-wide need for harmonized and quality.

The European Commission and the National Authorising Officer in Uganda have issued this call for proposals under the Democratic Governance and Accountability Programme. The programme seeks to support the civil society and media organisations to build their capacities to be effective advocates and monitors of good governance and social accountability.

The overall objective of the programme is to support key governance objectives of Uganda's development framework: a credible system of representation with well functioning political parties; an electoral system that guarantees regular free and fair elections; a system of checks and balances based on separation of powers; a vibrant civil society able to monitor governance and provide alternative forms of political participation; a free, strong and independent media.

An information session on this call for proposals is planned to be held on the following date and location: Kampala, 29^th September 2010 at Imperial Royale, Kampala Hotel at 10.00 am. The session will be confirmed on the website of Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development and also in the national press.

The deadline to submit proposals is 18 November 2010. For more information, visit this link.

The Local Government Score Card (LGCSC) is an independent assessment tool to assess the performance of local government councils in Uganda. It was initiated in 2009 under the Local Government Councils Score Card (LGCSC) Initiative of the Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE). The Local Government Councils Score Card (LGCSC) is a set of parameters and associated indicators designed to do two interrelated things: first, it empirically assesses the extent to which local government council organs and councilors are performing their responsibilities as stipulated in the Local Act. Secondly, it examines whether there is a direct correlation between the good or bad score card performance of a local government council and the quality of servicedelivery in the district.

The parameters in the score card are based on the core statutory roles and responsibilities of the local government councils. The theory of change underlying the LGCSC is that by providing local government councils’ performance related information to the public, citizens will be able to demand for better quality services through increased accountability from local political leaders hence triggering a vertical spiral of demand for accountability from the local to the national levels. The score card seeks to address the number one policy problem confronting policy makers and development practitioners in Uganda: why has the quality of public service delivery in Uganda not improved tremendously in spite of a sustained record of economic growth and major investments by government and development partners?

After almost two decades of the decentralization policy in Uganda, the results are mixed combining both success and widespread failures. The local government system was entrenched in the 1995 constitution and a series of reforms epitomized in the enactment of the Local Government Act in 1997. The series of policy and institutional reforms have yielded tangible results in creating a system of local governance where citizens elect their leaders from the local to the district leaders. The underlying rationale as articulated in the 1995 constitution is that effective governance is achieved when functions and powers are devolved to the people at appropriate levels. However, there have also been apparent widespread failures evidenced through the malfunctioning of the public service delivery infrastructure, persistent levels of rural poverty and absence of effective accountability between citizens and their leaders both at the local and national level. This malfunctioning is often blamed on the problem of “weakness of and corruption in” local governments. Consequently, the standard policy response to this problem is to implement a series of supply-side interventions including supply-side monitoring of service delivery by local governments.

It is argued that the diagnosis that blames the failure in the public service delivery system on the “weaknesses” of the local government is a wrong diagnosis of the policy problem. On the contrary, the problem of poor quality of public service delivery is a function of systemic policy failures that undermine accountability systems upon which local governance is premised. The continuous affront in the powers of local governments, a distorted budget architecture that creates a substantial imbalance of power between the central government and local governments, and a rural development policy that has alienated citizens from government are the fundamental policy issues that account for the failure of local governments to become the frontline institutions for effective public service delivery. Consequently, it is argued that concentrating interventions on the supply-side financing and monitoring of performance of local governments is the wrong policy prescription. On the contrary, it is argued that what is needed are interventions that reconstruct and give confidence to local governments to plan and execute locally developed medium and long-term development programmes while building the accountability relationships between the citizens and leaders.

This Synthesis Report presents findings and analysis of the first LGCSC assessment conducted in 10 districts. The 10 districts which are spread evenly across the country were selected through criteria that sought to achieve a regional balance in the sample, balance old and new districts, included districts that were considered marginalized by geopolitical circumstances, or inclusion of districts that were perceived as models in terms of performance. Kampala District Council was particularly included in this lot by virtue of its metropolitan status. The score card is based on three interrelated building blocks: the council and its respective organs; the core responsibilities and functions of those organs; and the causal-effect relationship between score card performance and service delivery outcomes. The assessment covered the performance of local government councils in the 10 districts during the FY 2008/09. The following organs of the local government councils were assessed and scored: district councils; individual district councilors; the district chairpersons; and the district council speakers. All the organs are scored on performance of their core responsibilities with scores ranging from 0 up to 100 points.

The 10 district councils were assessed on the performance of 4 core responsibilities or functions: local legislation and legislative functions, accountability, planning and budgeting, and service delivery on National Priority Programme Areas (NPPAs).

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Monitoring and assessing the performance of local government councils in Uganda: background, methodology and score card

This background paper was prepared as part of the process to develop a framework for monitoring and assessing the performance of local government councils in Uganda under the ACODE Local Government Score Card Initiative. Since the adoption of the decentralization policy at the beginning of the 1990s, attempts to improve the functioning of local governments through systematic monitoring have not yielded the required results.

The monitoring mechanisms that have been adopted mainly focus on the fiscal and technical aspects of decentralization. Consequently, the role of local government councils as a major source of balance of power between the central government and citizens has not been properly highlighted. This background paper and the ACODE Local Government Score Card Initiative are aimed at deepening democratic governance in Uganda through evidence-based assessment of the performance of local government councils. The initiative was launched in 2009 with initial funding from the Deepening Democracy Programme and the Think Tank Initiative (TTI).

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Forum Syd's Tanzania office has launched a three year social accountability programme in the Kagera and Mwanza regions. The program started this year and is expected be completed in 2013. In order to make an informed decision on which interventions to apply and how they should be prioritised, Forum Syd commissioned a baseline study in the districts in which the programme will operate. This report focuses on the three pre-selected districts within the target regions and provides recommendations on appropriate interventions and benchmarks against which future progress can be measured and evaluated. The report of a very innovative social accountability benchmarking process can be read not only for the input it makes into a developing programme but for lessons of replicability by agencies in other countries across Africa.

1. For a successful delivery of the Program it is important for Forum Syd to understand that they are entering districts where community members have low trust in their service providers, private sector companies and CSOs with regards to social accountability. A program that deals with accountability issues should have a carefully planned entry process. To avoid continued dissatisfaction with the delivery of social accountability it is important to win the public’s confidence Emphasis should be placed on community sensitisation with the aim of changing peoples’ attitudes and perception to stakeholders. After the three years there should also be a planned exit strategy to enable sustainability of social accountability in the districts and avoid jeopardising the publics’ trust.


2. Local Government Authorities, private sector and CSOs should work towards creating an enabling environment in which the communities contribute to public policies and plans. This secures buy in from the people that will be affected by the decisions. This can be done through strengthening the capacities of CSOs and communities to increase transparency in the intervention. Another alternative can be through CSOs or community representatives attending working groups or stakeholder forums where public policy issues are debated.


3. Forum Syd should secure buy in from all stakeholders to support the process in order to give the Program legitimacy. This should be done through signing Memorandums of Understanding with Local Government Authorities and CSOs.


4. Communities should be trained to become responsive local governance actors as active engagement is crucial for there to be a well functioning social accountability process.


5. It is recommended that the social accountability mechanisms are used in the capacity building of communities, enabling members to understand their purpose and how best to use them.


6. To further enhance the communities’ currently weak understanding of how the CSOs’ can contribute to social accountability it is recommended for communities to be trained in the meaning of accountability. Meanwhile, CSOs should receive training to strengthen their understanding on how best to work with accountability and receive guidance on how to best position themselves as valuable stakeholders. Social accountability should be mainstreamed in areas of interventions.


7. As social accountability depends on active engagement from the communities it is important to drive behavioural change. It is therefore recommended that youth and as the next generation of voters, should be educated of their rights and obligations. Educating them will indirectly influence their families and by doing so reach a greater number of beneficiaries.


8. The community participation numbers are important as benchmarks against which future participation can be measured. In a democratic process one should always strive for full and meaningful participation, which is not manageable or realistic in a three year period. The number of participants should however increase on an annual basis as a result of social accountability interventions.


9. It is recommended to design specific interventions that respond to the needs of the most vulnerable groups such as out of school youth and people living with HIV/AIDS and disabilities. These groups are normally marginalised, hence without a focused approach they risk being left out of the social accountability process.


10. The local communities should receive training on their right to access information, and the process to follow should they be denied this right. The training should also include the different types of information to be available.


11. It is recommended that the resource centres be established as a means to facilitate channelling of information enabling communities to access information. Emphasis should be given to the usage of print and electronic media as it is found to be weak.


12. In order to promote freedom of expression the Program should, in its resource centres, make available various sources of information with a particular focus on internet training and usage


13. Local Government Authorities should expand their information channelling to include local level service providers such as Teacher Resource Centres, health centres and dispensaries or other commonly used local service providers.


14. When delivering their programs CSOs and Local Government Authorities should use the most commonly used public information channels in the districts. This will create a practice of using common sources of public information.


15. Community theatre could be used to introduce and enhance the understanding of social accountability. It can be an effective ongoing method of communicating information to stakeholders. This will also enable children and adults who are illiterate to access information.

*  Persons wishing to know more about this programme can contact Godfrey Wawa, programme manager and country representative for Forum Syd Tanzania. He can be contacted at: 

P.O. Box 11850,Mwanza, Tanzania; by phone at +255 713 7976 / +255 752420116; or by e-mail at 

The Forum Syd website is www.africa.forumsyd.org

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Vacancy: Bilateral associate expert (BBE) on social accountability with a focus on youth perspective

A recente revolta popular em Maputo e Matola foi marcada por uma desmesurada reacção policial, na sequência da qual houve mortos, incluindo pelo menos uma criança, e centenas de feridos. Estas notas preparadas pelo Centro de Integridade Pública tem como objectivo caracterizar os contornos dessa acção polícial, descrever a causa da reação brutal e chamar a atenção para a impreparação da Polícia moçambicana em lidar com situações semelhantes.

A ocorrência de mortes devido principalmente à actuação da Polícia deve ser responsabilizada. Civilmemte, o Estado deve indemnizar todos os familiares das vítimas mortais e custear as despesas de tratamento dos feridos.

Uma comissão de inquérito parlamentar com participação da sociedade civil deve ser estabelecida para apurar as responsabilidades da actuação violenta da Polícia.

This report provides the first ever public environmental expenditure in Rwanda. It was written under the theme: “Putting environment on budget”. The objective was to evaluate the appropriateness in the use of funds in the environment sector. It was supported by UNEP/UNDP funded Poverty-Environment Initiative. The intended outcome of the initiative is the integration of environment for poverty reduction into national policy and district planning, policy and budget processes to implement the Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) 2008-2010, Vision 2020 and the Millennium Development Goals.

The findings in this report are as a result of wide consultations within and across sectors, districts and the review of national documents and international literature from mid-September to end of November, 2009.The authors also benefited from being registered to access and analyze data from Development Assistance Database and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. These sources also enriched their findings.

From start, it was necessary to define environmental expenditure so as to determine the boundary for this review and possibly future ones. World experience points to the conclusion that ‘this is not as straight forward as it seems’. Nonetheless, the consultants used four factors to define the boundary. They are national definition of environment, the classification of government functions, institutional mandates for environmental management and practices by other countries.

When the government’s functional areas were reviewed, it was found that there is a functional area of environmental protection. However, many other aspects of environment fall under other government functional areas like agriculture, industry, infrastructure, to mention but a few. Accordingly, it was decided right from the start to focus the PEER on environment and natural resources sector, as overseen by MINIRENA¹ now, and across other sectors.

In Rwanda, the policy, legal and institutional framework for environment is both young and still evolving when compared with that of most East African Community member states, and other states in Africa. For a country that is committed to ‘green’ its economy, it will require a coordinated, and systematic approach to capacity building, planning and resource mobilization, and a blend with long term critical technical assistance within and across sectors. A coordinated approach within and across is strongly emphasized after finding that the spread of programmes and sub-programmes for environment are wide spread in several sectors.

Another finding is that as Rwanda’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) continues to grow, it is depicting intra and inter-sectoral shifts. The natural resource based GDP estimated at 35% is still the highest. But Rwanda has stretched its capacity to generate more revenue from new sources. It hopes to do so from the real GDP growth that will increase disposable income. The productive sector under which environment and natural resources falls is already prioritized for additional resources in future, particularly after the government completes its heavily funded infrastructure programme.

However, MINCOFIN recognizes that climate change induced impacts may slow down agriculture’s GDP. But beyond that, they could also impact infrastructure and health. Thus, the cross-sectoral impacts of climate change should start to feature in the macro-economic framework by MINECOFIN, particularly where information permits.

Presently, Rwanda’s dependence on aid is high with 49% of the total budget in 2009 expected to be financed by aid. The per capita Overseas Development Assistance of US$ 64 and as a percentage of GDP of 25.6% are the highest among the East African member states. The government’s preference is for grants over debts. As long as Rwanda is still a favorite recipient of aid in grants, it should use it to its advantage to also invest in environment.

Rwanda’s private funding is growing although the proportion of environment could not be discerned. Foreign Direct Investment flows have steadily grown to even surpass that of giant Kenya for the first time in 2009 [UNCTAD, 2009]. Government should re-orient Foreign Direct Investment so that it too, can benefit environment. The potential for Foreign Direct Investment to increase even further has been improved by Rwanda’s topping the global list of business regulation reformers [WB, IFC, 2009]. With guidance on budgeting by MINECOFIN, the variance between budgeted and actual expenditure is narrowing across all sectors. MINECOFIN has guided sectors to provide only 10% above their previous years’ budget. But total tax revenue is not yet covering recurrent expenditure and the gap does not seem to be narrowing since 2004. That is leaving the country vulnerable to external support. At macro level, transfers and subsidies have the highest expenditure between 2005 and 2008, at 25%. They are followed by goods and services (22%), wages and salaries (20%), capital development (18%), exceptional expenditure (10%), debt (8%) and finally arrears (1%). The proportion of development expenditure to total expenditure on budget has risen from, 11% in 2006 to 15% in 2007 and 23% in 2008.

It must be mentioned at this juncture that the budget execution reports cannot fully capture all the public expenditure for environment. This is because with regard to Overseas Development Assistance: (i) only 67% is recorded in the national budget, (ii) 45% is disbursed using GoR budget execution procedure and, (iii) 50% is disbursed using GoR financial reporting systems. Until all development expenditure forms part of budget reporting, it will be difficult to capture the true magnitude of environmental expenditure. Central Public Investment and External Finance Bureau which is mandated for it, does not classify it by government functional areas. Yet, it is through these that all expenditure on budget is captured.

Environment and Natural Resource sector under MINIRENA has not yet absorbed any public expenditure level to boast of. In 2008, it commanded only 1% of both recurrent and development expenditure on budget. The high development expenditure in 2006 and 2007 is attributed to the water and sanitation, which after 2008 was transferred to MININFRA. The ministries absorbing the highest development expenditure in 2008 were: MININFRA (39%), MINAGRI (16%), MINEDUC (15%), MINISTR (19%), MINALOC (9%), and MINECOFIN (3%). ENR under MINIRENA only absorbed 1%. The implication is that both manpower and activities that could benefit the environment are outside the sector. It equally conveys a mammoth task before the sector to engage others to put environment on budget using resources already allocated to them.

That is the most promising strategy of putting environment on budget. Government would also need to finalise the processes for the operationalisation of the National Fund for Environment so that it is used as an instrument for giving incentives for environmental management. This will complement Environment Fiscal Reform under the Investment Code and other laws.

With regard to intra-sectoral absorption of expenditure, it was found that conservation and protection of environment led in 2008, taking 40% of the sectors budget. It was followed by land planning and management (25%), forestry resources (11%), mining and geology (9%), and integrated water resources (4%).The parent Ministry took 11%.

It becomes apparent that integrated water resources management is the least funded. Unfortunately, the low funding coincides with the growing desire for irrigation. The two do not match unless irrigation is to be predominately funded under donor funded projects.

With regard to execution rates, they were found to have improved over time for both recurrent and development expenditure under the sector. But a few shortcomings need mention. They could have been better if all units were fully staffed so that some expenses e.g wages and salaries are not refunded to the central government and delays in procurement are fully overcome.

Further, both efficiency and effectiveness cannot be fully ascertained because value-for-money audits are yet to be fully institutionalized at Central Public Investment and External Finance Bureau through which much of development expenditure flows. Neither has the Bureau introduced the concept of ‘unit costs’ to rationalize expenditure among homogenous items. In 2002, the office of the Auditor General was able to audit 31.5% of all the public entities. For the above reasons, it will be worthwhile in future for government to invest in additional public expenditure monitoring tools. They are the public expenditure tracking surveys, citizen report cards and Community score cards.

The programme of intensification and sustainable agricultural production systems under MINAGRI utilized more than 5 times the whole budget of environment and natural resources sector in 2008. However, analysis of its broken down development budget for 2009/2010 shows that sub-programmes on Land Husbandry, Water harvesting and Hillside Irrigation project, watershed management, swamp reclamation and irrigation would be equivalent to 40% of entire environment and natural resources sector budget. Accordingly, agricultural sector should be engaged to sustain environment on its budget, and to even increase it. This is because evidence from 42 developing countries over 1981-2003 showed that 1% GDP growth originating in agriculture increased the expenditures of the three poorest deciles at least 2.5 times as much as growth originating in the rest of the economy. But MINAGRI should study whether its subsidized fertilizer programme is not a disincentive to sustainable land use management.

MININFRA’s action plan for 2008 was not detailed in breakdown of its budget. But, going by budget for 2009/2010, its budget for improving and substituting biomass energy for the poor is equivalent to 70% of the forestry resources budget under environment and natural resources sector for the same period.

Further, MININFRA has spent and budgeted for sanitation and hygiene for schools. A more sustainable approach would be that MINEDUC budgets for such although it could solicit for technical backstopping from MININFRA. Only then would MINEDUC appreciate how to handle environmental issues associated with school populations. No doubt, the sectors’ needs for environmental mainstreaming and budgeting will differ. Rwanda Environment Management Authority working closely with MINECOFIN should encourage them to come forward and declare their interests or challenges so that they can receive focused technical assistance. Failure to declare these within environment and natural resources sector and across all other sectors is one of the barriers to learning, improvement and sustainable development.

MINECOM has been spending on biodiversity conservation and development of standards, including those for environment. It has more scope to enlist the private sector for environmental compliance. This is particularly because the market to which Rwanda is promoting exports is becoming environmentally sensitive. MINALOC has included environmental protection as one of the areas to benefit from earmarked conditional grants to districts. It is so small (0.13% of 2009/2010 budget) that at best, it could be used to trigger additional resources rather than address environmental issues. As the institutions close to the people, districts have strategic roles to make a difference in environmental management. Unfortunately, there is a mismatch between the funds allocated and responsibilities devolved to them. Districts utilized only 17.6% of the total budget in 2008. Some of the expenditure directly incurred by Ministries benefits them. Community Development Fund, as an instrument for channeling demand driven capital development to districts is cost-effective. Its intermediation costs are only 4%. Environment was found to rank the 5th preferred area out of eleven. MINELOC should expedite its costing for deepening decentralisation policy so that districts can get the right amount to deliver on their mandates.

As a Ministry overseeing both macro-economic planning and budgeting, MINECOFIN was found to have both the ‘carrot and stick’ to bring about improvement in public expenditure for environment and other sectors alike. The entry point for it lies in the results-based approach to budgeting it has introduced. This will then make it possible to assess the effectiveness of all public expenditure. The present focus on inputs, activities and outputs under the joint sector reviews are not enough to demonstrate the true progress towards the achievement of EDPRs targets. In other wards, it is possible to register increases in soil control measures or tree planting or registering land or making standards and regulations but when they are not related to the magnitude of the problems being addressed. If they fall short of that, Rwanda will not be making a positive score on environmental sustainability.

The planning, budgeting and Medium Term Expenditure Framework Guidelines 2008 which MINECOFIN introduced are a good rallying point for (i) link budget programmes to sector targets over a 5-year period, (ii) link budget programmes to sector activities, (iii) link sector programmes to EDPRS flagship programmes and their indicators. Sectors would need to be trained in their use so that they appreciate their rationale rather than use them to satisfy reporting procedures. Sectors have to also be trained by MINECOFIN in public expenditure reviews. At lower levels, it will be the sectoral action plans from which to track actual budgets for environment. The Smartgov from which public expenditure is being monitored does not yet reflect budgets for activities and outputs. In other words, PEER will continue to exert more demands than any other PER because of its cross-sectoral nature. MINIRENA and Rwanda Environment Management Authority should set aside sufficient resources for it in future.

1. MINIRENA has since then been divided into two ministries of Environment and Lands (MINELA) and Mining and Forestry (MINIFOR)

Under the administration, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has introduced a number of initiatives to improve services for city residents. Some sound progress is being made on these initiatives, including on refuse collection, sanitation, and public basic education. This report highlighted, a number of important service issues continue to need attention.

One overarching imperative is to provide more, and better, services to the AMA's less well served sub-metros and residential areas. To deliver the needed service improvements, the AMA will need to work in partnership with its constituents, the residents of Accra. This means communicating more frequently with residents, and actively listening to residents. This consultative citizens' report card has been designed specifically to facilitate the exchange of information between city residents and the AMA. It has asked a representative sample of almost 4,000 households, scattered across the city and in all sub-metros, to identify and prioritize their service needs, report on the quality of the services they receive, and provide feedback on their interactions with city officials.

This consultative citizens' report card also contains much information that will be of interest and use to city residents. It provides a fact-based picture of service coverage and service quality issues across the city at large, and also within each of the eleven Sub-metros. This information will help residents determine how services in their neighborhood and Sub-metro compare with other areas across the city, and help them identify areas which are better or less well s