Statement by Archbishop Ndungane at the launch of African Monitor’s Initial Monitoring Tools

01 February 2008

THE AFRICAN MONITOR LAUNCHED THREE OF ITS PRODUCTS IN NOVEMBER LAST YEAR;  THE DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT MONITOR; THE PILOT SYNTHESIS REPORT; AND THE GRASSROOTS FOCUS INDEX

AFRICAN MONITOR PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER MADE THE FOLLOWING REMARKS;  

1.     BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO AM, THE LAUNCH AND THE THREE PRODUCTS:-  

• African Monitor’s primary agenda is to ensure that the needs of the grassroots are a top priority for decision makers in Africa and the donor community. 
• The effectiveness of all development interventions and resources must be judged according to the extent to which they reach the grassroots, and change the lives of the grassroots for the better.
• African Monitor is introducing three pieces of work, which in various ways evaluate the extent to which the grassroots are targetted, and made a priority by decision makers through policy, programmes, resource allocation and other development activities.

1.  The Development Support Monitor, 2007 

2.  The Synthesis Report On A 4 Country Pilot Study On Aid Delivery And Development Support 

3.  The Grassroots Focus Index 

**The above documents are available for downloading at the end of this article 

  1.       The Development Support Monitor, 2007 

The Development Support Monitor 2007, the first publication of its kind, catalogues commitments made by donors and African governments to support development in the continent since 2005. This annual publication further highlights progress made by donors and African governments to support development in the continent.   Developed as a baseline matrix, this publication will give African governments and donors alike, as well as international and continental development organisations, a useful resource for identifying implementation gaps.  Furthermore, it gives different stakeholders within civil society, including faith based communities, grassroots organisations, non-governmental organisations, business, academia and the media a great monitoring resource to track progress being made to attain development objectives in the continent. 

• ODA to Africa is stagnating and set to decline in 2007 up to 2009.   Between 2005 and 2006 ODA has declined by 5.1% on the overall and increased only by 2% to Africa.  Donors will not be able to meet their promise of doubling ODA by 2010 and reaching 0.7% of GNI by 2015.
• A large part of ODA is going to debt relief, and humanitarian aid (about 49%) which do not contribute directly to long-term sustainable development.
• Donor Aid Darlings: ODA in Africa is biased towards reasonably well-off countries like Nigeria, most of whom produce oil.  This is the same trend with investments.  Poor countries are likely to be doubly disadvantages, as donors will not give them support because their governance and economic systems are not strong, but they need  they need aid resources in order to build those structures.

• Donor conditionalities: the slow pace of untying aid is still jeopardizing the effective use of aid in Africa.  
• Donors are not sufficiently targeting grassroots sector priorities like rural infrastructure and agriculture.  Debt relief and humanitarian assistance account for 49% of expenditure, whereas agriculture only accounts for 2%. 
• Significant progress has been made in debt relief through HIPC and MDRI.  However, the speed of delivery in debt relief is slow – it can take up to 3 years for a country to move from decision point to completion point.
• Trade and investment:  Donors have not met their commitment to complete the Doha round and ensure that its outcomes are pro-development.  Tarrifs, quotas and subsidies are still ensuring that Africa is excluded from international trade. 
• Foreign direct investment targets have not been met, and attempts to improve market conditions do not adequately look at strengthening the region for intra-regional trade. 
• The infrastructural facility with funding pledges has been set up with donors, however it has a current funding deficit of close to 12 billion per annum. 
• Several special funds have been set up to fast-track MDG implementation.  They include the Education for All Fast Track Initiative; Global Fund for HIV/AID, TB and Malaria; GAVI (Immunization) and the Central Relief Fund (humanitarian assistance).  All of them are under-resourced. 
• There is an upward trend in improvements in enrolment numbers, or gender composition of learners in schools, particularly in those countries that have received ODA and debt relief.  However, with only about 30% of ODA going to both education and health, there are insufficient resources to achieve the MDG’s. 
• Donors have pledged to assist African countries to adapt to climate change, as well as monitor the emission of and reduce greenhouse gases.  Neither of promises have been met sufficiently. 
• Data on grassroots specific initiatives is almost non-existent, and difficult to ascertain.  There is a need to both African governments and donors to start focusing more on grassroots targeted programmes to increase employment, improve rural infrastructure, etc.

•  Most African governments have not delivered on their promise to increase spending on Agriculture to 10% and spending on health to 15%. 
• Efforts towards regional integration are still slow, and there is an uneven focus on foreign investment as a driver of growth, rather than focusing on strengthening internal markets. 
• The rural poor are still largely excluded in most processes of economic activity, as well as service delivery and access to basic services. 
• There are inadequate mechanisms to measure the extent to which African countries honor commitments made at AU and NEPAD level. 
• African governments are overly reliant on donor resources.  An exit strategy is necessary out of aid dependency. 
• Considerable strides have been made by the continent towards good governance, peace and security and economic stability.

  2.      The Synthesis Report on a 4-Country Pilot Study on Aid Delivery and Development Support

The 4-country pilot synthesis report presents results from a study conducted in Ghana, Rwanda, Mozambique and Chad to comprehensively track donor commitments (Aid and Debt Relief) and flows; as well as the effective use of resources by African governments.  The study measures the extent of their impact on the grassroots, and highlights the need for better targetting, prioritization and participation of the grassroots in Africa’s development agenda.   

The study results show that there are some areas of promising progress in terms of aid delivery and development support effectiveness at the grassroots 

• The importance of civil society and the grassroots is increasingly recognised.  This trend has translated  to policy and legal provisions in countries like Mozambique, Rwanda and Ghana, where institutional structures have been set up to promote grassroots engagement and participation.   
• Numerous systems and mechanisms have been put in place for participation of the grassroots, including District Assemblies in Ghana, Community Development Committees in Rwanda and Local Consultative Councils in Mozambique.  These are all multi-stakeholder forums at district level, influence and guide sector prioritization, planning, implementation and spending. 
• There is an notable trend towards improved planning processes in Africa, which include the use of tools like Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, the Medium Term Budget Framework, and other annual budget processes. 
• Donor/government coordination arrangements have been put in place in countries like Mozambique and Rwanda, thus enabling the countries to better coordinate and align donor resources with country systems and priorities. 
• There is a growing trend towards direct budget support (DBS), particularly in Rwanda where the National Aid Policy enforces this principle, and in Mozambique where DBS accounts for more than 30% of all donor resources. 
• A steady increase in ODA flows as well as country budgets has been noted in all 4 countries, increasing the ability of countries to spend on poverty related activities.

At the same time, the researchers have noted some worrying trends in the study in regard to aid delivery and development support effectiveness at the grassroots

• There is insufficient attention to the grassroots, especially at level of decision making and implementation.  In each of the countries, research participants admit that although they are involved in participatory forums, these are simply consultative, and decisions are made at higher levels.  Participants in Rwanda even stated that local officials tend to “rubber stamp” what has been decided already by donors and African governments. 
• Despite the consultative processes in place, there is insufficient knowledge and communication with grassroots about existing policy processes.  Most grassroots participants in the study had very little knowledge of the MDG’s, the MTEF  and PRSP’s. 
• There is continued inadequate prioritization of poverty reduction sectors and weak linkages between budget and poverty reduction.  Evidence from the study indicated that this is because donors are hesitant to invest in rural development, road construction, and other priorities that are relevant for the grassroots.  Donors are still holding the power in terms of deciding on which sectors to fund. 
• There are indications that there is a narrow understanding of grassroots concern, particularly at donor level.  Results from Rwanda indicate that most donors use the MDG sector as a key benchmark to measure performance, even though key research informants at the grassroots indicated that electricity and security was a key priority for them, particularly in a post-war situation where lighting had a direct impact on safety.  Neither of these are part of the MDG’s. 
• While the trend toward decentralization is encouraging, there is limited planning capacity at local government level, and not enough effort made to improve skills. 
• Aid delivery is still biased towards urban populations. 
• While the trend for increasing ODA volumes in the four countries is noted, the disbursements do  not matching up to promises, pledges and commitments made by donors since the adoption of the MDG’s.  Furthermore, there is strong evidence that ODA to Africa is Stagnating and will continue to Fall in the next 2 to 3 years. 
• The coordination, alignment and harmonization of donor approaches are still a challenge for African governments, despite existing coordination mechanisms.  There are still donors who insist on conditionalities and high transaction costs are still associated with aid processes.  Moreover, the Rwanda and Mozambican government are experience problems with aid money that is off-budget, meaning that it is not processed nor accounted for through normal government processes. 
• There is a worrying trend of aid dependency among African countries, particularly Mozambique and Rwanda in this case study.  However, there has been a noted decrease in Mozambique’s aid dependency levels in recent years.  
• Donors still have undue influence over sector prioritization and during negotiations for resource allocation.  Countries like Mozambique report that donors still largely determine what they will spend on, and governments usually adopt the approach of negotiating on the basis of what they see as possible to achieve during the negotiations, rather than on the basis of need. 
• There is consistently very limited  data to monitor the management and flow of development resources – as well as  limited access where the data is available.  Furthermore, there is lack of data harmony between various in-country and international sources

3.       The Grassroots Focus Index

The Grassroots Focus Index (GFI) is a composite index being introduced by the African Monitor as a instrument to measure the extent to which African governments and donors prioritize the grassroots in policy, sectoral focus, budget allocations, service delivery and participation activities.  

The GFI is an initiative that will promote a development policy environment that puts at the centre stage the needs of the grassroots populations, as they are the most poverty-affected population in Africa. 

The GFI will seek to answer the following 2 questions:-

• To what extent have African governments and donors been able to prioritize the grassroots in their development priorities? 
• To what extent has prioritization of the grassroots led to the effective channeling of resources and necessary attention to the grassroots?

• A policy environment which demonstrates prioritization and participation of the grassroots. 
• Focus given to sectoral priorities aimed at holistic poverty alleviation and improving livelihoods for the grassroots. 
• Actual budgetary allocations targeting the grassroots, as reflected in planning frameworks and strategy documents. 
• Processes and systems in place for channeling resources to the grassroots. 
• Service delivery systems in place at the grassroots levels. 
• Innovative approaches and activities that are being taken by governments or partners to promote grassroots participation.

• Continental and sub-regional policy frameworks and strategy documents which articulate mutually agreed upon policy positions, strategies and priorities at continental level through the African Union, NEPAD, and the SREC’s. 
• National development plans and national macro-economic strategic planning frameworks including Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP’s), medium-term budget frameworks, and annual budgets.  Sector -wide  programmes (SWAPS) 
• Annual budget reports and expenditure frameworks, and other national progress reports. 
• Programmes, sector priorities, and delivery arrangements of donors/development partner organizations. 
• Capturing and analyzing the views and assessments of grassroots populations and grassroots community base organizations.

The data showed that the largest volumes of resource allocation go to education, health, infrastructure and agriculture.  In these sectors, most countries tend to spend more than 10% of the development budget. 

However, most of the PRSP’s are not specific in terms of how they will prioritize and target the grassroots to channel resources. 

Indicators measured for grassroots targeting included any direct rural allocations, allocations to primary level service delivery, specific poverty alleviation allocations, and allocations to those living in the urban periphery.  Within infrastructure for instance, most countries did not allocate resources for rural specific infrastructure, which included feeder roads, rural electricity, rural water and sanitation, and integrated rural development.  Infrastructure is key for the integration of the rural poor into the main stream economy, and for accelerating service delivery.  Under-allocation of resources to rural infrastructure and lack of direct targeting means that the grassroots will continue to be excluded from the main stream economy and the broad development agenda. 

The overall desirable outcome for the GFI would be greater focus on the needs and development challenges for grassroots, as key approach for achieving greater human development results on the ground. 

The GFI will add the positive and constructive outcomes to Africa’s development agenda for the poor, and contribute to the achievement of the MDGs. 

In working to develop the GFI, the African Monitor counts on the support and cooperation  of African governments and officials, continental organizations, development partners, stakeholder groups and organizations-including in particular African CSOs, CBOs and FBOs, as well as the Academia and Diaspora. The African Monitor will welcome productive partnerships that can be initiated or strengthened, to draw on the useful contributions of other organizations to this effort.