Title of the Session
Morning Session
Greetings and Introduction, Opening Remarks, Key Note Address
Date and Location
Monday, June 2, 2008. 9am – 10.45am
Room: JB1-080
Chair:
Steen Lau Jorgensen, Director, SDV, WB
Opening Remarks:
Juan Jose Daboub, Managing Director, WB.
Katherine Sierra, Vice President, SDN, WB.
Speakers:
Francis Fukuyama, SAIS - JohnsHopkinsUniversity
Papa Sene, Director of Africa Program, National Cooperative Business Association
Topic and main message/s communicated in the presentation/s:
The very first session of the summit focused on the relevance of the demand for good governance both as a World Bank priority and as a necessary component of successful development.
A brief introduction and welcoming remarks by SDV Director, S.L. Jorgensen, emphasized the enormous importance attached by the WB to this summit, which is meant to convene experiences and expertise from within and outside the WB – a point that was also raised by SDN Vice President, Katherine Sierra.
Afterwards, Managing Director J.J. Daboub spoke out the importance of all stakeholders’ engagement and participation in good governance, including the private sector, grass-roots organizations, international organizations and NGOs, donors, local parliaments, and the media. By underlying its cross-cutting nature, he defined the DFGG as one of the “frontier themes”: one that embraces and is crucial for several WB efforts. Mr. Daboub also highlighted the flexibility and adaptability to country contexts that is required for successful local society engagement: he stressed the never-ending learning process that must characterize DFGG initiatives.
SDN Vice President, Katherine Sierra, joined Mr. Daboub in acknowledging the central role of DFGG/civil society as a key player to sustainable development. She stressed the relevance of DFGG as a cross-sector for many of the SDN activities including infrastructure, roads and transportation, service provision, the extractive industry transparency initiative (EITI), all of which enjoy great benefit from civil society active participation and cooperation with providers and contractors.
In his presentation (“Demand for Governance as a Development Strategy”), Francis Fukuyama started off with a historical digression, reminding the audience that accountability and “fiscal citizenship” are in fact old concepts that have shaped the relationship between rulers and society since the XVII century, contributing to bring down ancient and consolidated patrimonial practices. Mr. Fukuyama’s presentation focused on establishing causal linkages among key factors: the interaction of ‘economic growth’ and ‘social mobilization’ on one level, with ‘state capacity’, the ‘rule of law’, and ‘democracy’ on a second level may be able to produce successful and effective civil society participation. He also underlines how different patterns of interaction exist as well as paths to development. The one pattern that takes greater consideration of civil society’s demands starts with ‘social mobilization’: a participatory civil society is able to positively affect both ‘democracy’ and ‘state capacity’; in turn, this will produce positive results in terms of ‘rule of law’, and finally ‘economic growth’. Lastly, Mr. Fukuyama spells out a few points of improvement: first, he says that obtaining ‘information’ from governments is not necessary to make them more accountable. Second, the fact that civil society’s indignation and anger at governmental corrupt behaviors will lead to organization and mobilization is a wrong assumption. Third, he called for a greater cooperation and partnership between the WB/development agencies and democracy promotion NGOs,
which hold a great deal of experience in engaging and empowering civil societies. Last, Mr. Fukuyama considers parliaments a better interlocutor for DFGG efforts rather than free media, which may be biased or unreliable.
From its extensive field experience, the last speaker, Mr. Papa Sene, focused on practical steps to strengthen the DFGG and empower civil society organizations. Mr. Sene raised the successful examples of ‘civic unions’ in Ghana and Mali. A civic union is an umbrella of grass-roots CSOs, which includes among others women organizations, youth associations, and professional corporations of carpenters, farmers etc. His core point is that the sine qua non condition for people to mobilize and actively engage in governance materializes when people experience tangible results in their everyday life. Thus, special attention has to be reserved to service delivery and access to them (i.e. health, education, security, infrastructure etc.) A second important issue for successful civic unions, Mr. Sene adds, is participation and leadership across the whole community: uneducated people with humble jobs and rural communities have to be engaged equally.
Gist of the discussion
A stimulating discussion followed, in which many non-WB participants engaged in discussion. Some of the questions/points raised include: (i) the challenge of establishing long-term solutions and initiatives for DFGG; (ii) the difficulty of making governments and local authorities to listen to CSOs; (iii) the fact that the poor connection between the WB and democracy promotion NGOs is at the institutional level, whereas in the field there are already great synergies; (iv) the role of parliaments was reinforced in connecting the grass-root level with political power; (vi) the way in which local leaders of CSOs are appointed and how to ensure that gender issues are included (Mr. Sene acknowledged that the most efficient and successful CSOs are run by women)
Engagement of participants
I would rate participation with the highest score, i.e. 5. I think that the considerable involvement of non-WB participants was a sign of great interest for the speakers and the issues addressed, as well as the challenges ahead.
Questions left Unanswered, if any
More than unanswered questions, there were many points of entry for further discussion in the following sessions. The ultimate unanswered question lay on the very aim of the summit – i.e. how to move forward in the DFGG considering the many dimensions involved.
Observations and other comments
100-120 people were present at the session.
I think it was a superb kick-off session. The most relevant and challenging issues were addressed. There was a great mix of experience: from the within-the-Bank introductory remarks, through the academic side, to the grass-root practitioner side.
Note taker’s name and unit:
Benjamin Petrini, SDV – CCV Team