Accelere!2...Working Politically

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Working politically for school fee reform in the DRC

This policy brief relates the progress made by ACCELERE!2 (A!2) – a six-year FCDO funded education programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – in reforming the school fee system to reduce the financial burden on parents and improve the quality of public education. Our team’s ability to work politically on the school fee issue and then to support the call for free basic education, known as Gratuité, was critical for making progress on what is a sensitive and divisive subject in the DRC. This brief recounts the narrative of change in recent years and shares our experience navigating such a complex political landscape. In particular, we will discuss the importance of political economy analysis (PEA) and the use of roadmaps to define our vision and technical approach.

“In a fragile state like DRC, information is power. Without access to information, most people cannot become actors of change. Working politically is about making sure all different stakeholders are informed of the stakes of a situation. The aim is to sow the seeds of long-term change by empowering actors through awareness raising.”

What is the story so far? A!2 started in 2015 with the aim of supporting the Government of DRC’s efforts to improve governance and accountability in the education sector. Launching a governance reform project was always ambitious in the DRC, however the context became ever more uncertain, given political unrest and the postponement of elections. School fees were traditionally collected at the school level and then funnelled up the system right up to the ministerial level. What started as short-term fix to a crisis decades ago, when parents were asked to step in to temporarily fund teachers’ salaries, evolved into an institutionalised system of parents financing the education system from the bottom up. It was – and still is - a politically sensitive subject due to the complicity of actors at all levels of the system in collecting and using fees, not always for the benefit of the education system. To complicate matters, approximately 70% of state schools are managed by religious networks, who also levy their own fees from the schools, which often contribute little to the running or improvement of the schools. With such a complicated landscape, where each actor is complicit in one way or another, we noted a pervasive ‘blame culture’ with no-one accepting responsibility for their actions, instead choosing to blame other system actors for the problem.

How to move the needle in such a politically-charged context? School fee reform in the DRC presented a paradox. Those who stood to gain the most from change – school children and their parents – had no voice in the conversation; whereas those who could bring about change – from school councils up to the ministry of education – would lose out financially by doing so. Our approach was to tackle several levels of stakeholders in parallel to build enough critical mass to push for change and reform – to tip the scale. In parallel, we increased the research base on school fees and the cost of the education system, to provide the Ministry and other key actors with evidence.


Lessons learnt: what worked on the ground? Treat everybody as an individual: political analysis is vital for understanding how the system works. Therefore, we held countless one-on-one meetings with key actors to raise issues and sensitise them to the need for accountability. Of course, no two meetings are ever the same. One does not engage in the same way with a Secretaire General and a Catholic Church coordinator. Maintain a consistent message: we repeatedly insisted on the need to address the school fees issue, highlighting the burden on parents and the consequences in the long run considering the number of out of school children. During each meeting, one way or another, we highlighted the contradictions with the law, the risks linked to the approach and showed the weaknesses. Find an entry point: Members of the Ministry Cabinet and the Catholic Church joined a field mission to two of our six provinces. In the community, they quickly realised the extent of the challenge and the severe burden on parents. By shining a light on the human picture, it became harder to hide behind figures. Create safety in numbers: at the central level, we founded a national school fees taskforce with the Minister of Education’s support, which represented religious networks, parent associations, ministry cabinet, inspectorate and civil society. Decisions were made by the group without the need for individuals to risk their careers. Collective power allows greater transparency and accountability, and shields individuals from peer criticism. Encourage provincial push back: Although the education system is centralised in the DRC, the vast distances offer opportunities to build autonomy among decentralised actors. By building strong relationships in the provinces, we supported actors to push back on demands for fees from the centre. This created a new dynamic by enlarging the circle of actors involved in education discussions and strategic planning. Spread the word: we launched a communications campaign in April 2018 (on National Education Day – 30th April), using radio debates and public speeches to raise awareness on the existing laws relating to free education, while also creating more demand and pressure for change. Building on this momentum, we started to support local NGOs already working on this topic to continue with communication efforts and to monitor the impact of the communication activities.

“Change is technically simple, but socially complex. A commitment is easy to make, but hard to see through. That’s why working politically is so important. It allows you to move forward when no clear path is available.”

When change comes, be ready to act Working politically requires patience. You need to build up the relationships, then remain alert for the moment to act. For school fees, that moment came with the election of the new President Félix Tshisekedi. Shortly after his election in 2019, he expressed his will to implement Gratuité for all basic education grades (1 to 6) and urged the government to prepare for an application of new measures for the school year 2019-2020. This created increased momentum for Gratuité that we were ready to use as much as possible, taking advantage of the relationships built at central and local level, and of all the work done previously to create evidence based on research, and to pave the way for this reform. There are still immense challenges with Gratuité and its future remains unsure, given the uncertain political situation in DRC. However, through our research, communication and technical assistance, we have helped to take school fees from a taboo topic to one that openly addressed by the ministry and system actors, which was key when Gratuité was officially announced. Parents moved their children from fee-paying private schools into free public schools. One million out-of-school children have since returned to education since the implementation of Gratuité – albeit those gains were interrupted by the arrival of COVID-19.


How to work politically in a complex context like the DRC This section provides guidance on the process of working politically – supported by two tools: Political Economy Analysis (PEA) and a Roadmap for change. Work politically: empowering people to become agents of change Working politically goes beyond technical work. It is how we influence change so that our technical work is allowed to progress and be sustained. This is about ensuring that all agents of change in the sector become actors. We don’t have the scope to be actors ourselves, but we can inform and support those who do. An important component of our day-to-day approach was ensuring that the technical teams were able to negotiate the complex web of actors and the various power plays in any given scenario.

Sowing the seeds of change In a fragile state like DRC, information is power. Data, evidence and statistics are therefore key prerequisites to change. Because they do not have access to information and are not being fully aware of their rights and duties, many people do not become actors of change. Working politically is about making sure all different stakeholders are informed of the stakes of a situation and they are being sensitised on the need to play their part if they want to see change happen. In that sense, it aims at sowing the seeds of long-term change by empowering actors through awareness raising. To do so, implementers need not to only focus on the political level of the system, but also engage this strategic approach while targeting civil servants at different levels, religious networks and civil society. Our approach has therefore focused on not only wider systemic change, but also on motivating individuals within the system to change their behaviour and attitudes, particularly in the face of political limbo and stasis. This has helped to build critical mass to tip the balance and drive change, even with the most sensitive subjects, such as tackling self-interest on the use of school fees.

The 7 key principles of working politically ⊲ ⊲ ⊲ ⊲ ⊲ ⊲ ⊲

Classify the power dynamics between different structures and individuals with strong stakeholder analysis. Identify who has the power to drive reform forward, and target those actors in a tailored way. Build a critical mass to maintain pressure on decision makers to implement changes. Target several actors in parallel, and together, to move them towards each other and to build consensus and improve coordination. Know when to step back – while project visibility is always a focus, it is important to understand when it is not our place to be at the forefront of pushing for change and to let events unfold without being at the centre of it, or to enable others to be the ones to push for change. Recognise and accept where and when it is time for pushing, holding or creating space for change and closely monitor momentum for action, support and lead. Use the formal and informal power structures to enhance reform implementation.

Step 1: Using Political Economy Analysis (PEA) for sustainable results In an unstable and complex context, nuanced analysis of the situation and the main players is instrumental for ensuring progress by finding the best entry points. Initiating and supporting governance reform, in any sector, is as much about the people and individuals as it is about structures and systems. This takes time to get right – and daily interactions. There is really no substitute to sitting with people and finding out what’s really going on. The political drama is always evolving: characters who were sworn enemies in Season 1 are now key


partners in Season 3! Failure to keep pace can result in wasted time and missed opportunities. Gathering political intelligence is particularly important in fragile states, where the state may hold authority in theory, but in practice it is much more nuanced than that due to their weak capacity to enforce that authority. A programme that is only designed on a theoretical understanding of power dynamics and the system will have superficial results at best, but no real sustainable change will take hold. PEA studies can provide a much deeper understanding of who really holds power, which will vary from province to province, town to town, village to village, and ministry department to ministry department.

Case study: Equateur

PEA showed us that if we were to get anything done in this province, it had to be through the Catholic Church and their provincial educational management offices. While on paper our main counterpart would still be the devolved actors of the Ministry of Education, we adapted our approach to target the Catholic Church representative. Without this analysis, we could have wasted months only targeting ministry officials, not understanding the power dynamics of the province

Step 2: Roadmaps: finding a way past the roadblocks Once we had the PEA studies and a deeper understanding of the power dynamics at play in the targeted regions r, we then had to come up with an approach that stated clear goals yet took into account the unpredictability of the context. We knew our destination, but not the exact route for reaching it, given the number of scenarios that were outside of our control. ⊲ ⊲ ⊲ ⊲

How can you define success when you are unsure if you will be working with the same government or actors in six months’ time? How do you set up realistic goals when key central stakeholders refuse to face their own responsibilities? How do you build in measurable goals to a volatile situation, where the situation can change month to month, even week to week? How do you tackle an issue when the main stakeholder is clearly the one creating the blockages?

The need for agility and flexibility We opted for the roadmap approach, building in ambitious visions for our main technical areas of reform, but prepared to take a flexible route to reach those goals. By setting a variety of ‘staging posts’ we could adapt our itinerary. If one route closed, then we could start down another. These roadmaps accompanied more traditional programme management tools, such as the logical framework (logframe) and work plans but allowed us to build in more flexibility to our approach. Along with setting our visions for the end of the implementation period (2020) and the main route we expected to take to get there, each roadmap also provided wider analysis on the context and stakeholders, including the likelihood of them engaging with the proposed reform agenda. Additionally, we identified potential blockages and ‘crisis points’ that might arise on the road to our 2020 visions, with potential alternative routes if we met those roadblocks.

Roadmaps: How to get the most out of the tool ⊲ ⊲ ⊲

Be realistic: Ensure that each roadmap is heavily contextualised and based on the PEA of that sector and the actors involved. Aspirational but unrealistic goals only set programmes up to fail, especially in fragile states. Be ambitious: Even in unpredictable contexts, it pays to be ambitious. This helps the team to avoid relying on the excuse that it’s hard to move things forward in difficult contexts. There is normally a way to keep things moving, or to at least hold space for change, even in very challenging environments. Be as precise as possible: While roadmaps are a useful tool when it is difficult to accurately workplan every detail out, it is not an excuse to be vague when setting out your goals and how you expect to achieve them.


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Treat them as living documents: On A!2, we reviewed and updated the roadmaps on a quarterly basis, updating our assumptions on the main risks and blockages as well as adjusting specific actions along the way. This allowed us to remain adaptive and respond to the volatile context, but in a structured way. Use a participative approach: Roadmaps can be powerful tools for ensuring there is a common goal and shared vision amongst the technical teams – particularly important if working across several regions. It is also a very useful tool to discuss and ensure joint vision with core stakeholders. Leave room for adaptation: On one hand, objectives need to be as precise as possible in order to develop a clear vision, on the other the path to go there will probably not be the one initially planned. Freedom for change is needed in order to think out of the box and adjust to uncertainty and unexpected roadblocks.

PHASES

As the context was unpredictable, we avoided creating unrealistic timelines, with defined time periods for certain changes or achievements. Instead, we identified the main changes we expected to happen on the route to the 2020 visions with three main ‘phases’.

VISION 2020

The situation we envisaged after successfully passing through the three main phases, and where we were aiming for.

LEVELS

The main stakeholders and levels in the system that we were targeting to achieve our 2020 vision.

The actions we planned to take to achieve the three main phases and the 2020 vision, separated out by each level that we were targeting.

ACTIONS


Guidance for donors – the importance of time and trust Donors need to give enough time to the project to build trust and move the needle, particularly in more sensitive areas. Reform takes time and requires significant behaviour and attitude change amongst actors – this does not manifest itself overnight. Getting results out of working politically approach is a long term investment. While remaining ambitious is important, it’s also important that practitioners understand their donor’s risk appetite and review it regularly during the course of the programme. Build up trust, with your implementers and with political counterparts, to ensure that everyone has enough space to work in the context. Governance reform can be sensitive, and the roles and responsibilities between the donor and the implementer need to be clearly defined to ensure there is trust on both sides. Allowing space for your implementing partner to have informal political engagement is important. However, it’s critical too that everybody understands their role for political engagement and defines clear boundaries. There are certain things that implementers should not be saying, and certain levels they should not be engaging at. Recognise the different levels of ‘success’ in the context - this may mean just holding space for change, and not letting things slip backwards, rather than a more tangible step forward. Ensure that you, the implementers and main stakeholders share a common understanding on what success looks like, and prioritise quality over quantity when it comes to results.

Don’t try change without working politically in the DRC “The ability to work politically is important in every development setting, but especially so in complex contexts such as the DRC. A technocratic approach that fails to take account of the evolving external environment, with multiple actors with their own priorities, will fail to bring about social change. “Any progress from textbooks and teacher training will soon be lost if you haven’t worked politically to create longer-term ownership of change. Some things just take time. You need to adapt, take a step back, then go again. A!2 shows that ambitious results are possible, with the right donor support and hard (political) work on the ground. This why we do the job we do.”


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