BTOR

Leadership and Change Forum, October 9-10

As per the SMO of October 4 th, WBI organized a Leadership and Change Forum in Marseille on October 9 and 10, 2007. The Forum was followed the next morning by a donor meeting on the proposed Global Leadership Initiative (see separate BTOR). Samuel Otoo, Moira Hart-Poliquin, Atieno Fisher, and Cia Sjetnan (all WBIGP) participated in this mission from WBIGP. Jean Eric Aubert and Patrick Osewe joined from WBIHD, and extensive administrative support was provided from Mona Yafi and her team in the Marseille office as well as Nicolas Meyer from the Paris office. Below are the main findings and conclusions.

Leadership and Change Forum, Oct 9-10

Background

The Marseille Forum was hosted and sponsored by WBI (WBIGP, DC and WBIHD, Marseille) and brought together delegations from eight countries in MENA and AFR (Burundi, Central African Republic, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Rwanda, Sudan, and Yemen), as well as donor representatives (UNDP, DFID, CIDA, France), Bank staff (OPCS, AFR, HRSLB), and a rapid results expert.

Objectives

The main objectives of the event were:

  • First, to examine and gather information on leadership support which featured the Rapid Results Approach (RRA) as a tool for facilitating institutional change, especially regarding the characteristics, results and impact of its application in various contexts;
  • Second,to facilitate client networking and knowledge sharing around operationalizing and institutionalizing the RRA.

Proceedings and Findings

Proceedings

The Forum was divided into three main sessions, with delegates examining the following issues:

1.Context and demand for the Rapid Results Approach as a form of leadership support;

2.The role of leaders in the RRA regarding characteristics and relationship to results;

3.Measuring results and impact and institutionalizing the RRA.

Donors also presented their views and rationale for engaging in leadership development services linked to the wider capacity development agenda.

The advance preparation by each country delegation of a case story describing the rapid results experience, in a common framework highlighting the themes of context, change in the role of leaders and impact/institutionalization, helped focus the exchange. These case studies were made available in both French and English. Participants benefited from simultaneous interpretation (English/French) during the event.

The participation of donor representatives expanded the range of perspectives on the issues and reinforced the general sense that the leadership approach to achieving results and change was an area of growing importance for the development agenda.

Participants also spoke with great enthusiasm about the value of hearing from others about the adaptation of the RRA to other contexts. Especially for the countries where RRA is new, hearing from countries where it is at a more mature stage in the life cycle created great excitement about what is possible. Particularly strong was the response from participants to the session on measurement.

Sharing knowledge regarding these challenges highlighted the importance of developing meaningful and generally accepted indicators to improve and promote future work.

Findings

The proceedings revealed a number of strengths in the RRA as a leadership support tool.

1. Context and demand

•Where pressure to produce tangible benefits is high, the availability of the RRA tool and accompanying support opens the door for engagement.

•Clients identify pilots from within existing frameworks such as the PRS.

2. Effect of RRA on leaders’ roles at different levels in the system

•Leaders see the importance of, and are more apt to use, their involvement, monitoring and problem-solving authority.

•Solving problems jointly under time pressure builds trust as well as confidence for future outcomes.

•RRA can serve as a leadership learning tool by helping leaders unbundle the change process and exercise their role in getting results in real time.

3. Results, impact and the challenge of institutionalizing

•Achieving results by capturing and using information on implementation cultivates a taste for improved monitoring and transparency and institutionalizing the capture of strategic information.

•Tensions between stakeholders (including government agencies) often subside as achievement of unexpected results proves the value of collaboration.

•Accountability sharpens upwards and downwards on the results chain.

Despite these strengths, challenges and issues remain, particularly for institutionalization.

Institutionalization challenges

•Teams are unstable, with high turnover.

•M&E is weak, and lacking rigorous metrics.

A context of competing priorities

•Criteria for selecting RRA targets have not been systematized.

•Lack of donor harmonization creates conflicting messages.

Preventing information loss

•No systematic way to make lessons explicit and disseminate them.

•The potential diagnostic value of the RRA process is not formalized and risks being incompletely exploited.

Possible Implications

The task ahead is to determine what these findings, which are different for each phase of the life cycle of RRA implementation, mean for future engagement, and determine how to best share knowledge among actors at various stages. The following preliminary messages about Rapid Results Approach as a tool for change seem to be emerging from the deliberations, but will require further research. The RRA may be able to serve as:

•a diagnostic to pinpoint opportunities as well as resistance to change;

•a problem solving tool that provides for client-owned innovation and solutions;

•a set of principles and processes that can be integrated into instituional structures to improve their efficiency and effectiveness;

•a source of lessons on policy fixes that can be institutionalized by leadership;

•a framework within which the change processes could be mapped, which would allow further learning about how different aspects of RRA affect incentives, behavior and outcomes.

Next Steps

1.Document, analyze and share findings from cases and proceedings.

2.Broaden the base of experience through the Global Leadership initiative stock-taking process (see below).

3.Determine how the RRA can be integrated into the CDRF as an assessment and learning tool.