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Building Know-How in Africa: Where Are the Results?
An Interview with Soumana Sako, Executive Director of the African Capacity Building Foundation, Zimbabwe |
 Soumana Sako has been Executive Director of the African Capacity Building Foundation, based in Zimbabwe, since 1999. Formerly, he was prime minister, head of the transitional government, and finance minister for the government of Mali. The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), based in Harare, Zimbabwe, is an independent international organization established in November 1991. He holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy Research and Analysis in Economic and Social Development from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA). | |
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 What is the mission of the African Capacity Building Foundation? |
 ACBF helps sub-Saharan African countries build their indigenous human and institutional capacity by giving them technical support and grants, not loans, in six priority areas: economic policy analysis and management; financial management and accountability; strengthening of national statistics; public administration and management; strengthening policy analysis capacity of national parliament; and professionalizing the voices of the private sector and civil society in Africa. Recently, we have added an important knowledge management dimension through the transformation of ACBF into a knowledge-based organization and the establishment of web-based networks of African, including its diasporas, and non-African development experts and specialists. This fosters the emergence of knowledge societies and economies in Africa and enables the continent to access information and best practices available anywhere in the world. Supporting economic policy research as well as economics training and education for African nationals is an important part of our work. Our goal is to increase the supply of world-class, Africa-trained economists whose professional research work will feed into developing Africa’s public policy processes. These economists are already making their presence felt in Ministries of Finance, Central and Development Banks, Ministries of Planning, public regulatory agencies, and other key government departments as well as private sector entities in many African countries.
Since Africa always has to worry about brain drain when students go abroad for training, we want students to stay in Africa to receive training in economics with a focus on public policy design, implementation and coordination. ACBF supports 13 major continental and regional training programs , namely the Economic Policy Management (EPM) programs implemented by four African universities: two in Anglophone Africa—University of Ghana and Maker ere University in Uganda—and two in francophone Africa—University of Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire and University of Yaoundé in Cameroon ; the Programmed de Toilsome Cycle Inter-Universities (PTCI) program which targets francophone countries ; the Collaborative Master’s degree (CMAP) program ; the CESAG Master’s degree program in bank and micro-finance ; the Collaborative Master’s degree in agricultural economics; the Institute d’Economie et de Finances based in Libreville , Gabon; the Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute (MEFMI) for southern and eastern African countries; the West Africa Institute of Financial and Economic Management; the BCEAO-BEAC macroeconomic management training Project; the Mano River Union training Program which contributes to post-conflict rebuilding of the civil service of Guinee-Conakry, Liberia and Sierra Leone; the Southern Africa Regional Institute for Policy Studies (SARIPS) based in Harare, Zimbabwe; the Public Sector Management Training Program (PSMTP), which seeks to equip the modern African public managers with the requisite skill, competencies, tools and values to operate effectively in a world of participatory governance, globalization and information revolution.
These programs train economists and policy and program managers to the level of Master’s degrees in economics and management. Two years ago, we launched a new Ph.D. in economics that is being implemented by the African Economic Research Consortium. In addition, ACBF and the IMF have forged a productive partnership involving the training activities of the AFRITACs (African Regional Technical Assistance Centers). In all cases, the curriculum is designed to be relevant to Africa’s development challenges and, at the same time, put international economic models and issues into an African context. Obviously, it is important that, on returning to their home countries, these trainees are afforded the requisite institutional environment and incentive systems (adequate pay, merit-based appointment and promotion policies, professional equipment and management practices, performance recognition, etc.) that would enable them make the best use of their newly acquired skills and competences. We also have policy units that are helping close to 40 African countries to improve the quality of economic and development policies. Research analysis feeds into the policy process so that we can have evidence-based policies, not ones that are dependent on populist priorities of political leaders. This is very important. In addition, ACBF contributes to strengthening the capacity of the core public sector and decentralized governments to efficiently and effectively implement public policies and development programs. Indeed, policy failures can sometimes be attributed to implementation failures.
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| What is the relationship between capacity development and poverty reduction? |
Goal Number 1 of the Millennium Development Goals is to cut absolute poverty in half by 2015. Before a country can start doing this, it must be able to design good Poverty Strategy Reduction Programs (PSRP). PSRPs are supposed to be home-grown, designed by the country themselves. If there is to be ownership of the PSRPs, African countries must have the indigenous human and institutional capacity to produce poverty-focused policies, programs and budgets, to implement them, and to monitor their progress or lack of progress. If there is no local ownership, it has been shown that development projects won’t succeed. People have to feel that it is their program, designed with their priorities in mind and based on their own leadership. Ownership leads to leadership and to commitment. If there is commitment, the likelihood of success is higher and poverty reduction will be more successful.
In many African countries, ACBF-supported policy think tanks and graduates of ACBF training programs are playing a lead role in the design and implementation of poverty reduction programs and budgets as well as in the management of their public debt .We are very active in the AFRISTAT, PARIS 21 and ICP (International Comparison Program) which are strengthening the capacity of African countries to produce and utilize timely, reliable and relevant poverty-related statistical data. Also, targeting and service delivery capacity is a key requirement if public services and development programs are to reach their intended, ultimate beneficiaries. By strengthening the capacity of budget offices, procurement agencies and Chambers of Accounts, ACBF contributes to fostering financial transparency as well as the search for more cost-effective use of scarce public resources.
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| Is this where civil society comes in? |
Precisely. In many of our projects, we aim to build capacity among many stakeholders, including non-state actors, such as in local Chambers of Commerce, Chambers of Agriculture, and civil society organizations, not just at the government level. To us, this is key. If you strengthen the capacity of stakeholders, then you put them in a better position to have an influence over the allocation of budget resources to development priorities as well as to demand accountability and transparency from the public sector and the donor community alike. Those Parliaments which are equipped with the requisite human and institutional capacities are better able to ensure that budgetary priorities are in line with key poverty reduction objectives and MDGs. Where there is accountability, there is pressure to produce results and the likelihood of meeting the MDGs is higher. ACBF is making a significant contribution to the strengthening of the capacity and the ultimate empowerment of national and regional networks of civil society organizations, including women groups and business federations.
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| What role do the donors play in all this? Would it help if the donors coordinated their aid? |
There has been a lot of talk about donor harmonization and coordination and so many declarations that it’s hard to keep track of them—first the Rome Declaration and now the Paris Declaration. In actual practice though, the record does not always match the rhetoric as many donors still find it difficult to resist the temptation to plant their own flags. However, the Partnership for Capacity Building in Africa (PACT) that the ACBF is implementing is a good model in the spirit of effective partnerships, first between African governments and their domestic stakeholders, and second, between African countries and the development community. All funds from donors and African governments to ACBF are pooled into a trust fund with no earmarking and no tied aid. Within our Board of Governors, African governments and the donor community agree on strategic capacity building priorities for cycles of five years and those priorities are translated into annual business plans and budgets which are approved by an independent Executive Board. There is one common monitoring and reporting system and one annual audited financial report so that, when ACBF receives donor money, we do not produce a report for each donor. The financial reports are audited because both ACBF and beneficiaries of our grants are accountable for the proper and transparent use of every dollar of donor money we receive. Sometimes, donors are tempted to say, well, we want to show our flag, to show our Parliament and our tax payers what was done with our share of the money. But, in general, donors are happy with the ACBF/PACT system of aid coordination.
More generally, in development aid practice, the question is always who should be coordinating the donor aid. Is it the largest donor? Is it the donor with the most technical expertise or experience in a sector? Or should it be the government? The consensus is that it should be the government of the recipient country, coordinating the aid within its own priorities as defined through its own democratic institutional framework and a trust-based dialogue with the development partners. The key issue is—do these African governments have the capacity to coordinate this aid? If donors think that the Ministry of Planning is very weak, for instance, they might not want the countries to coordinate the use of the money. But I don’t buy that argument. If capacity is weak, this is one more reason to step in and strengthen it. If budgeting and financial accounting systems need to be developed to give donors—and the ultimate domestic beneficiaries—the degree of confidence that the money is going to be used for the intended purpose and that the money can be accounted for, then help the government fix the system, but don’t circumvent the local system. Donors must accept the fact that, if they want successful programs, African governments must be able to coordinate development assistance. Donors also have accountability. At the end of the day, they might not give anything or give less than half of what they promised. A project can fail because of this. More importantly, African countries find themselves exposed to a huge risk of losing legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of their own people when external aid is announced with a great deal of media fanfare but fails to materialize. True partnership is a two-way street, with mutual collective accountability.
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| How are donor requirements influencing the way governments do business in Africa? |
Donor-imposed conditionalities are negatively impacting the ways African governments conduct their business. Donor-driven projects sometimes undermine the fragile administrative machinery of the state, create unsustainable enclaves within the public bureaucrac, and distort national priorities. Through the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) initiative, Africa has clearly served notice that she wants to take charge of her own development agenda and change the existing patterns of one-sided, top-down and, at times, paternalistic relationships that still pervades much of development cooperation. African governments are beginning to understand that they are accountable first and foremost to their own people. Within democratic systems, the press and civil society play a very important role because they become a force for transparency and accountability and can put pressure on government and donors for results. If donor money is intended for the education sector, for instance, we want to see it going to schools and not ending up in some bank account overseas or some luxury villas in the capital city. Parliaments are also taking their budget oversight function more seriously now. They want to see that money—whether from donors or the local taxpayer —being used in priority country programs such as poverty, education, health, food , water, sanitation, housing and so forth. People now more often expect governments to account to them at the end of the fiscal year.
However, the kind of governance system and practices that African countries are putting in place cannot be a carbon copy or a transplant of what obtains elsewhere. It has to have an African base because it must be rooted in our culture, in the realities of every country. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t universalThe requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available democratic values or universal principles of good governance. But how these values are translated depends on the realities of the country and can vary from country to country. Yes, things are changing, but change is slow and still fragile and prone to reversal and setbacks. It must be nurtured and supported by donors by increasing aid and improving aid modalities. Domestic stakeholders within each African country must also keep up the pressure so that good governance and results-based management are seen to be legitimate demands – and rights – emanating from within each country instead of being donor-driven aid conditionalities.
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| The Millennium Project has called for doubling the amount of aid to Africa. Will the increased flow of funds create capacity problems for African countries? |
Certainly, but we must help African countries to put in place sound financial and accounting systems. We don’t have to wait to have the full potential of capacity before we can tackle poverty and the other MDGs. One of the points of the Blair Commission was that organizations like ACBF can improve the ability of African countries to absorb this aid by building the necessary capacity. We can increase capacity of local communities so that donor money approved by parliament as part of national or local budgets will find its way to the grassroots and not stay in the pocket of the city-based political and business elites. At ACBF, we are starting work on a new five year plan to identify key strategic priorities for interventions in line with the MDGs and with priority programs of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the African Union. Then we will be prepared to receive additional funds from traditional as well as non-traditional donors, and to scale up our programs in support of MDG goals.
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| Even if the MDGs are not met by 2015, what impact will they have on Africa? |
If current trends continue, it will be difficult to achieve all of the MDGs by 2015. At current levels of donor support, this would take between 50-150 years. The donor community has to understand that the MDGs are minimum goals. Halving absolute poverty does not mean eliminating poverty but reducing by 50 percent the number of people living on less than $1 per day. Meeting this minimum goal in 10 years is possible, but it is not a very encouraging prospect since it will not eliminate poverty in Africa. The good thing about the MDGs is that they have helped galvanize African governments, civil society and the private sector to focus on a few key targets to be met within a specific timeline. This has helped increase pressure on rich countries to show more solidarity with Africa. This is very positive. But it’s like in American football. It’s not just a matter of moving the ball up the field; we need to score a touchdown. We need to achieve the MDGs, even if time is running out.
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| Will increased aid alone help Africa meet the MDGs? |
The MDGs are an overarching framework, but they do not take into account several external factors that impact poverty in Africa, such as trade relations between Africa and rich countries. You cannot insist that African countries should have export-led development strategies and, at the same time, close your markets to African products. Farm subsidies in the US and the EU are really hurting African farmers. The UN is trying to coordinate international efforts to do something tangible and credible about this, but Africa has a very small voice in trade agreements that are made primarily between the EU, the US and Japan. At the WTO meeting in Cancun, African countries refused to sign any agreement that would not address the issue of farm subsidies. ACBF has organized dialogues between Ministers of Agriculture and Chambers of Agriculture in West Africa, specifically related to the cotton sector, to help us consolidate Africa’s voice in WTO negotiations. The ACBF is supporting trade- and investment-related capacity building projects that target the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Economic and Central African Economic and Monetary Union (CEMAC) as well as the African Union itself. African countries must put more emphasis on the export of processed or semi-processed goods as well as foster intra-African trade and regional integration. In addition, it is essential that increased aid targets not only the priority social sectors, but also some key infrastructural projects such as transport, communications and energy. Then something has to be done about debt cancellation as well as the ongoing effort to reform the international governance architecture.
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| What is the outlook for poverty reduction in Africa? |
| We know the solutions to poverty in Africa. Africa must take primary responsibility for its mistakes, for our development, but the donor community cannot afford to just sit on the sidelines and watch. We live in a globalized world and poverty has worldwide ramifications and repercussions. We know we can’t defeat terrorism by military means alone, that we have to address the root cause of poverty. People who live in poverty do not see the light at the end of the tunnel, they see nothing but despair. We have to give people in Africa enough opportunities for education, for decent and productive jobs, for good health. ACBF is one player that is trying to make a difference by building the requisite human and institutional capacity in African countries in a spirit of partnership with the development community. | |
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 How did Development Gateway members respond to our Aid Harmonization Survey questions?
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| How does donor support for the MDGs stack up? Charts and graphs measuring aid flows and public support- click here. |
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