From the Facilitation Guide/Checklist for a PE Analysis Update

From the Facilitation Guide/Checklist for a PE Analysis Update:

Methodology for Moderating a 2-Day

Joint State Level Programme (SLP)Stakeholder Analysis Workshop

Purpose:joint analysis of the PE findings to date, in practical terms, to update/develop our state level political stakeholder engagement strategies – a 2-day (minimum) workshop, supported or moderated by the SLPs’ external lead consultants on PE analysis.

DraftAgenda:

Day 1

Agreeing on the key political stakeholders: those individuals and organisations with the power to influence change, both for and against the SLPs’ common objective (our collective ‘goal’ or intended ‘impact’) in the state, sectors and projects/activities we are engaging in or have connection with. Be careful to view/select these “agents” within the context of the structural constraints (the interests that they represent and are influenced by) as identified by the findings of our analysis so far.

Each SLP to rank (ahead of the workshop or at the outset) their top 10 ‘for’ and top 10 ‘against’ their own SLP’s core objectives – based on the latest PE analysis update – and present them to each other with brief justification for their ranking of them … in terms of the various interests they represent and their level of influence on those interests.

Map them on a chart accordingly:

GENERAL INTEREST
low (against) high (for)
high
GENERAL INFLUENCE
low /
/

Aim: to arrive at a common understanding of each other’s key potential allies/foes.

Agreeing on the links between them: their inter-relations, their various interests and agendas, and any other key individuals and organisations that serve to link them. These links may become important later in the course of defining our engagement strategies.

Collectively discuss, debate, agree on their inter-relations – any areas of alignment of their various interests and who has influence over whom.Indicate them (somehow – more as a reminder,not an exact mapping) on the chart accordingly:

GENERAL INTEREST
low (against) high (for)
high
GENERAL INFLUENCE
low /
/

Aim: to arrive at a common understanding of the current political landscape … NB. as rough and partial as this may be, it’s simply a way to visualise it in a way that SLPs can jointly engage with it and use it to make some key programming decisions … below …

Agreeing on their levels of interest and influence (both structural and agent-based): on the SLPs’ common areas of concern – i.e. projects, issues, or areas of activity aimed at influencing specific governance reform outcomes (e.g. budget realism, MTSS, corporate planning, LG funding, etc.) and specific service delivery impacts (e.g. reduced maternal and new-born child mortality, improved access to education, better quality of teaching in primary schools, improved water supply and sanitation, etc.). It may not be possible to analyse all of the projects, issues, or areas of activity that each SLP is engaged in over the course of just 2 days. What is important is that the ‘big common ones’ are looked at and challenged by the analysis,before updating/developing our joint strategies on them.

Take a specific area of SLP activity on governance reform and/or service delivery improvement that the SLPs have already agreed to work on, and collectively discuss, debate, agree on how each key ‘agent’ alignswithit: i.e. how much they shift from their current general position, positively or negatively on both axis – is there a significant shift in positive alignment of their various interests and influences over each other? … i.e. enough that the agency ‘for’ could be harnessed (strategically by the SLPs and their implementation partners) to counter the agency ‘against’ … in which case take forward into strategic planning (day 2) … if not, this calls into question the potential political ‘traction/leverage’ of that area of activity/project/issue … and consider another …

Move the agents on the chart accordingly to observe the implications:

SPECIFIC INTEREST
low (against) high (for)
high
SPECIFIC INFLUENCE
low /
/

Aim: to arrive at a common understanding of what areas of activity/projects/issues have political traction/leverage in the present political landscape and which don’t.

Day 2

Agreeing on our strategies for engaging them: by weighing up their potential for co-operation and potential for threat to each of our common areas of concern – who to easilyengage directly as implementation partners (high co-op, low threat), who to tactfully engage indirectly through others (high co-op, high threat, given the powerful structural and agent-based interests they represent, some for and some against the proposed change), who to take a defensive stance against (low co-op, high threat, representing powerful interests primarily opposed to the change), and who to monitor in case they later decide to take sides (low co-op, low threat). The SLPs then need to agree on exactly how, through which SLP/s, and very importantly when. The precise timing and sequencing of our engagement strategies are critical to their success.

Based on the analysis on Day 1, take a specific area of SLP activity on governance reform and/or service delivery improvement that the SLPs have already agreed to work on that clearly has political traction/leverage, and collectively discuss, debate, agree on how best to engage each key ‘agent’ to harness the agency ‘for’ to counter the agency ‘against’ … strategically … by positioning them in following framework:

POTENTIAL
high THREAT low
high
POTENTIAL FOR CO-OP
low / maker-or-breakers
(engage cautiously and wisely) / key supporters
(engage at outset)
key opponents
(guard against) / by-standers
(monitor potential)

… and/or by capturing this in a more detailed ‘planning’ framework, which serves as a basis for subsequent development, monitoring and re-planning the specifics of their several/joint strategy for engaging with each key agent:

Issue/Project/Area of Activity: / Xxxxx State Budget Process ?
Targeted Institutional Reforms: / development policy for … ?
MTSS planning for … ?
budget releases for … ?
Key Political Stakeholders (Agents) / Power / Interest / Influence / Potential for Co-op / Reasons / Potential for Threat / Reasons / Broad Strategy / Detailed Strategy: Key Messengers / Key Messages / Co-ord Lead
1. Name of SH to be strategically engaged first in sequence / ?
hi
md
lo / ?
hi
md
lo / ?
hi
md
lo / ?
high
med
low / ? / ?
high
med
low / ? / ?
engage at outset as key supporter
engage cautiously and wisely as maker-or-breaker
defend against as key opponent
monitor as by-stander / ?
engage directly, indirectly, who will be the messenger, who can influence them to align with our interest / ?
what is their interest, how would we present our interest in relation to theirs, ours as a solution to their problem. / ?
which SLP/s
2.
3.
4.
5.
Etc.

Collectively consider and reflect the risks involved in pursuit of these strategies for each areas of activity taken forward,as a whole and encourage the SLPs to do the same for eachpoint of engagement as and when they develop their detailed plans.

Accommodating these new strategies: in the way we work together as SLPs. What are the implications for the way we presently carry out our work, severally and jointly?

This may turn out to be the most problematic stage of the process – aligning the various SLPs approaches to accommodate these strategies. Let’s discuss …

Agreeing on further analysis: Each state suite of SLPs might want to reconvene at a later date to look at other projects, issues, or areas of activity and analyse them using the same framework. This could also be done by a single SLP, or a pair, for a project/issue/area that only they are working on.

More straightforward? With or without follow-up TA support? Let’s discuss …

Agreeing on tracking mechanisms:our analyses are ‘situational’ analyses. At the various levels at which the SLPs operate the political economy of the state changes continuously – usually more slower at the macro level, but sometimes almost daily at the micro (project) level. We need to be able to keep ourselves abreast of the situation and adjust our strategies accordingly. Each state suite of SLPs needs to agree on how they plan to do this in a co-ordinated fashion, as effectively and efficiently as possible, to keep their strategies up to date. Unforeseen as well as foreseeable political risks can be better managed in this way.

Less straightforward? Any M&E expertise/advice required? Let’s discuss …

NB. The agreements reached on Day 1 may suggest some slight adjustments to the content of sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Joint SLP PE Analysis Update summary report. The agreements reached on Day 2will inform much of the content of sections 5 & 6. SLPs should allow time to make these changes in the days immediately following the workshop while these agreements are still fresh in their minds.

See below a reminder of the guidance notes for drafting section 5 of the report.

5.0Strategic Alignment of Political Agents for Change

5.1Opportunities & Strategies in the Health Sector

5.2Opportunities & Strategies in the Education Sector

5.3Opportunities Identified in Other Key Sectors

5.4Key Risks, Assumptions & Warnings

An analysis of how the interests or agendas of key players at all levels align when considering different ‘issues’ of public interest identified/prioritised by the programmes as potential triggers of governance reform and service delivery improvement.

This will need to summarise the output of the 2-day (minimum) political stakeholder analysis and engagement strategy workshop, supported or moderated by the SLPs’ external lead consultants on PE analysis: which looks at who the key political stakeholders are, what the links between them area, and what their levels of interest and influence (structural and agent-based) are on the SLPs’ common areas of concern, i.e. those key areas of planned governance reform and service delivery improvement.

This needs to include an outline of the agreed strategy for subsequent engagement of the key players to align these interests in favour of a positive change for each area of concern/activity. Each could be presented here in summary visual or tabular form, e.g. (see above).

The analysis would be incomplete without considering the risks involved in pursuit of these strategies on each common areas of concern/activity in each sector. There is a natural tendency for each state team to place an optimistic gloss on the assessment of their own state, their own sector and their own projects. The whole exercise is aimed at providing practical solutions, and so the process (and this report) draws the analysis towards this conclusion – that there must be practical solutions: positive options to pursue. This should not, however, prevent the state teams from including an analysis of the key risks involved in their proposed actions, declaring any key assumptions on which they rest, and the possibility of a negative assessment of some issues/projects and even some sectors in some states, and a limited number of positive options.

Where there are few options, or where the options available are risky, the assessment needs to highlight this, and serve as a warning signal. The PE analysis is not a tool for producing a positive argument as to why we should expect positive results from our strategies. It needs to be very realistic about the prospects also of their failure.

By adding this risk assessment, our analysis should serve to form a more rounded view of the state. For example, if things are working well in health and education but not on wider governance issues, the risk is that what’s working well now will be unsustainable. A rounded view of the state, however, could be that, while unsustainable, there may be an opportunity to focus on humanitarian-type interventions (i.e. direct service delivery interventions) that can accelerate the achievement of the MDGs. This may be an acceptable approach to take for some programmes (or components of them) in some sectors in some states. Also, if there are concrete positive examples of how certain things have worked well in the past, and there is a real prospect that it may do so again if certain conditions are fulfilled, there is no harm in saying so too.