Concept Note

Capacity Development Challenges in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States – Bridging the gap between knowledge and practice

A High-level Workshop

Introduction

Over the past two decades many countries have seen significant levels of economic growth and consequently experienced a substantial drop in the level of overall poverty. However this success has highlighted the intractable poverty in a number of countries where fragility and cyclical conflict and violence appear endemic. At the end of 2009, fully one-quarter of IDA-eligible countries are experiencing conflict and in those countries, poverty rates exceed 50% compared with below 24% in low income countries. Similarly while the nature of conflict may be changing - less inter-State conflict and more communal violence, its occurrence appears on the increase.

Quoting from a recent OECD DAC study ‘Fragility should be seen as a variable phenomenon in which the different dimensions of the state-society relationship are disconnected. If resilience is about the virtuous synergies between political processes, state capabilities, and the ability of society to articulate demands and expectations, then fragility occurs when these connections deteriorate or are absent’[1].

The World Bank’s President recently noted that ‘fragile states are the toughest development challenge of our era’[2]. Highlighting the priority being given to the challenges of working in fragile and conflict-affected situations, the 2011 World Development Report will explore the implications of fragility and conflict on development and is likely to prompt greater attention to the seemingly intractable problems faced by these states.

As a spin-off from a partnership initiative to review the effectiveness of World Bank and UNDP programs to support state building in two fragile states (Sierra Leone and Liberia), interest has been expressed into looking more closely at prescriptions for supporting capacity development (CD) in fragile and conflict-affected settings.

The Capacity Challenge

Fragile and conflict affected settings are characterized generally by massive capacity deficits. Clearly too, the success of any recovery and development agenda, when looked at through the lens of establishing a resilient and effective state that can provide for all its citizens, succeeds or fails on the ability to harness and develop national capacity.

However as recent academic work and reviews of practitioners’ experience is highlighting, the success of the largely technocratic approach pursued to date with the aim of addressing capacity deficits is patchy at best and at worst, can do harm and that the goal of sustainable capacity development remains elusive.

The OECD DAC State-building work has identified 4 core functions of an effective state:

  • the provision of security, and the capacity to enforce the law and protect its citizens;
  • the provision of justice and the means to resolve conflict;
  • the raising and expenditure of revenues and the delivery of basic services; and
  • the facilitation of economic development.

The study notes that a state that can fulfill the functions outlined above is well on the way towards being a resilient state. However the study cautions that ‘it is important to understand that, as indices of capability and responsiveness, they cannot be separated from issues of expectation, legitimacy and the political settlement’. The study cautions against ‘seizing upon these four capabilities [and] translating them into projects and programs to strengthen key state capabilities’.

This study and that of others in this area, continues to highlight the complex, highly volatile political environment in which elites compete to exert influence and capture rents and it is in these opaque environments of elite competition that our CD efforts often need to operate. These recent discourses warn that to treat capacity development for the purpose of building a state that can fulfill the functions described above as a technical exercise is doomed to failure. However as the OECD DAC study authors noted ‘it is a temptation to which the development community is constantly falling prey and by which it persistently risks being led away from its true objectives’.

WB/UNDP State-building Initiative

This UNDP-World Bank initiative aims to support national actors and the UNDP and World Bank (WB) programs in their on-going efforts to support state-building processes at country level in fragile and post-conflict countries.

The key objectives of the joint initiative are to:

  1. enhance the effectiveness of UNDP and WB programs in support of state-building with a particular focus on capacity development assistance;
  2. identify potential approaches and activities to increase the effectiveness of UNDP and WB programs supporting capacity development in pursuit of state-building objectives; and
  3. generate inter and intra-agency learning, including the identification of indicators that capture progress achieved under state-building activities.

This initiative is currently being trialled in Liberia and Sierra Leone. One of the key concerns raised by country office staff in both agencies during the technical missions last year was the ability of the agencies to respond effectively to capacity development demands. There was a general but widespread concern that current CD prescriptions are not gaining traction in these most fragile of contexts.

The followingobservations about how agencies such as the WB and UNDP are approaching their support to developing capacity in these countries provide an opportunity to reassess our approaches and check whether they are the right ones for these settings.

  • That a highly programmed approach to CD is unlikely to be effective in the fluid and dynamic political environment of these countries;
  • That, while there is a natural tendency to focus on seeking out capacity gaps and weaknesses against (often external) perceptionsof what functions a state should perform, the reality may be that, to be effective, we need to build on existing capacity/strengths and focus on those areas where our political economy analyses indicate the greatest chance to be effective.
  • That, often in response to the urgent need to import deliver pre-determined outputs, we (donors and national counterparts alike) focus on importing capacity often at the expense of long-term, sustainable skills transfer and development.
  • That much of our capacity development focus is often on the public sector when in reality capacity development in the private sector or in civil society may be of equal or greater value.
  • That we need a much more coherent view across stakeholders – of what CD is in any given context (i.e. we think training, they think a vehicle), what is the absorptive capacity of counterparts to utilize effectively the CD support offered at any given point, what are the resources available to apply to developing capacity, what is our political economy analysis telling us about where a fruitful engagement can be pursued (regulatory capacity in the mining ministry may be critical but if the minister is corrupt or other elites are going to undermine efforts, it might be a waste of time and resources at this particular moment in time)?
  • Where CD needs are enormous and everything is a priority how do you prioritize and ‘chunk down’ the task so that stakeholders agree where it is best to focus efforts and where they can visualize the way forward and are able to assess early impact.
  • There is a need to build in effective monitoring processes and feedback loops so that plans and activities have a ‘real-time’ evidence base to allow for speedy adaptation/fine-tuning to take account of a constantly changing environment.
  • It’s one thing to be informed by feedback that an assistance program may need to change (possibly radically); it is another to have the authority, willingness and mechanisms available to allow that to happen.
  • In FCS settings – there is generally a multiplicity of actors providing support and often little national capacity to manage and coordinate those efforts in a manner which leverages those resources to the maximum advantage.
  • In such settings there are often Poverty Reduction Strategies or National Development Plans in place – these are a two-edged sword – they can be very helpful in giving focus to where CD investments should occur but they can also build in rigidities and direct efforts in a manner that does not take account of the ‘real politick’ that may dictate where CD will be successful.
  • While acknowledging the capacity lies at the heart of development, we tend to consider CD as a tool to achieve a particular development objective. Is there a case for considering the development of capacity (particularly CD which is sustainable and self-replicating) as a development objective in its own right?
  • We often respond with a simplistic menu of CD tools – training, minor logistics provision, technical assistance – which given a particular context may not be the appropriate response. We need to approach CD from the point of what capacity is needed and why and then think about how that is best provided – too often our approach is dictated by preconceptions of what we can or will provide.
  • We have to have the courage and the management backing to say no to a request for CD assistance where our evaluation of the likelihood of success (taking into account such things as a realistic assessment of our comparative advantage, the resources we can apply and the political economy analysis of the environment where the CD is to be applied says that the chances of success are low)

A draft paper ‘Donor Support for Capacity Development in Post-Conflict States: Reflections from two Case Studies in West Africa[3]’ elaborates upon these findings.

All these observations give us pause to think about whether our standard prescriptions for supporting CD are appropriate in these environments. On the one hand our efforts are often piecemeal and uncoordinated on the other; they can be driven and dictated by quite rigid planning documents which can push us in directions which a good and iterative political economy assessment would suggest are not likely to be successful.

Seeking a new approach to supporting capacity development

Arising from these initial observations, internal discussions within the Bank and UNDP have identified the need to explore in more detail the challenges faced in responding to capacity development needs with a view to identifying some practical operational prescriptions which may help country teams and their local partners respond more effectively to the CD challenges they face.

While the examination of capacity development in the State Building Initiative focused principally on the challenges and shortcomings of World Bank and UNDP approaches to the issue, acknowledgement is needed that our partners, particularly those that have had a long relationship with donors, have absorbed many of the CD mantras that are now being challenged. A classic one is that of the use and efficacy of TA. Despite plenty of evidence that the import of TA often does not develop the capacity needed to initiate and sustain development initiatives, country leaders, like many an aid official, fall back to the TA default when seeking to progress a development agenda.

Approaches like A3[4] and the creation of 'change space' can prove challenging to sell in an environment where capacity deficits and urgent need make the achievement of results in short time frames a priority. Another is the desire, despite the rhetoric, to emulate expensive,western, technically driven, 'best practice' solutions. In this environment, it can be very difficult to shepherd the delivery of basic, incremental, cost effective solutions particularly in countries with a diversity of donors all with different approaches to support and demanding varying levels of accountability for funds. When some donor grant aid or extractive industry rents are seen as being 'at no cost' it is hard to maintain a disciplined stance on prioritization and resource utilization and maintain a ‘slow and steady’ program of CD.

Further any analysis of CD effectiveness not only needs to look at the tools used but also the institutional environment in which the capacities are being developed. Retention of skilled staff by agencies in capacity deficit environments is notoriously difficult. These challenges are often exacerbated by distorted remunerative structures driven by donors providing more generous pay and conditions for national and international expertisein order to lock in the capacities needed to deliver programs. This approach is not only unsustainable in the longer term but it creates disincentives for regular staff working under local terms and conditions.

Beyond the findings of the State Building Initiative, there is a wide range of people and agencies exploring innovations in approaches to capacity development. Some of the emerging approaches such as A3 seek to shift the operational discourse from one that is largely technocratic (seeking to develop capacity to deliver specific outputs) to one that focuses on creating an environment conducive to local-level problem/objective identificationand to the determination of solutions and implementation strategies that are truly bespoke.

The World Bank Institute (WBI) is exploring the role of coalition building, leadership development and other key components of capacity building that address the non-technical challenges associated with working on capacity issues in fragile states. WBI has also developed some specific tools that offer an alternative way for looking at capacity building, including the use of a South-South platform, the Capacity Development Results Framework, the Rapid Results Approach.

UNDP are conducting a convening event in March in Marrakech which is the culmination of a year-long campaign ‘Capacity is Development’. Thiswill be both an opportunity to stock take knowledge and approaches, share experience and promote expert discussion around the issue of Capacity Development.

A High-levelWorkshop

Given UNDP and World Bank (including WBI) interests in exploring innovation in capacity development, a joint operationally-focused workshop will draw from contemporary thinking and experience of supporting capacity development in fragile and conflict-affected situations. To ensure that the discussions are grounded in UNDP and World Bank operational realities we will draw from CD experiences in three priority countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone and the DRC.

This work will not so much focus on the particular capacity development needs of the target countries and institutions but be focused more on what CD approaches, management arrangements, consultative/coordination structures and supporting resource mechanisms (technical, human and financial) might be put in place that would improve the quality, timeliness and effectiveness of the support we provide. This workshop is not meant to be yet another academic review of ‘best practice’ but aims to provide concrete recommendations for field operations that acknowledge the institutional constraints and day-to-day operational realities faced by staff in the field.

Potential responses might build upon innovative tools that we currently use such as the Rapid Results Approach or are exploring such as Leadership for Development. The workshop may also approach this from currently, topical areas of focus such as salary harmonization or the challenges of CD in decentralized environments. The discussion also aims to suggest completely novel approaches to addressing current challenges.

Similarly there is a need to look at the latest M&E approaches that might help inform the effectiveness of CD investments, and explore such resources as the use of on-call technical reference groups and the structure of pooled funding mechanisms and incorporate these into a broader framework that might provide a more consistent, adaptable, (hopefully) simple and supportive approach for managing CD support.

The workshop will also consider the challenges associated with the translation of national planning documents (PRSs or NDPs or other) and the conduct of national capacity stocktakes intocapacity development plans. Do these exercises provide useful vehicles for shaping a CD response or would a more organic and flexible mechanism ensure that we and our national partners maximize the effectiveness of our responses and allow us to take better advantage of opportunities as they arise while not losing sight of the long term outcomes that our national partners are pursuing?

Workshop Objectives and Outcomes

As a first step, in trying to unpack these issues and develop strategies for operational staff and their national counterparts, it is proposed that a meeting of capacity development and fragile state experts be convened to explore some of the challenges being faced, consider what might be good international practice in this area and formulate a set of recommendations for where our approach could be modified to improve the effectiveness of our efforts. It is anticipated that, arising from this initial meeting, a number of country-specific initiatives may be proposed which would provide more focused operational support where particular country teams express interest in a deeper engagement.

In more specific terms, the High-level workshop would:

  • Clarify the principal challenges common to these environments relating to support for capacity development. This exercise will seek to identify the sorts of challenges that arise because of country context (partner government issues, other donor engagements, the influence of other groups etc) and that may occur due institutional restrictions that might apply to UNDP and WB operations that might inhibit the take up of novel approaches to CD.
  • Recommend some approaches that might be applied to future operations in fragile and conflict-affected contexts seek to overcome these challenges. UNDP and the Bank will be seeking recommendations that are may be incremental or more radical. In the first instance we are looking for opportunities to make adjustments to our approaches in the short-to medium term. We also wish to explore good evidenced-based prescriptions thatsuggest quite different approaches to the way we do business. Such recommendations might form the basis for further discussions within our agencies
  • Where identified, recommend specific initiatives that could be put to the UNDP and WB country programs in Sierra Leone, Liberia and DRC for implementation in the immediate future or which warrant furtherinvestigation by either or both agencies at a more central or regional level.

Workshop Structure