Capacity Building for Food Security

Building Institutional Capacity to Increase Food Security in Africa april 2012

FOOD SECURITY FOOD SECURITY COLLABORATIVE FOOD SECURITY COLLABORATIVE

COLLABORATIVE .

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Building Institutional Capacity Increasing Food Security

Contents Introduction..........................................................................................................................2 1. Food Security Capacity Building Challenges...............................................................2 2. Elements of Capacity Building......................................................................................4

2.1 levels of Capacity Building..................................................................................................4

2.2 Basic Institutional Needs........................................................................................................5

3. Tools for Assessing Needs.............................................................................................6

3.1 Organization-Level Assessment Tools..........................................................................7

3.1.1 Public Financial Management

Performance Measurement Framework ............................................................................7

3.1.2 Methodology for Assessment of National Procurement Systems.................................7

3.1.3 Managing for Development Results Capacity Scan, or CAP-Scan..............................7

3.1.4 Institutional Development Framework .............................................................................8

3.1.5 Partner Institutional Viability Assessment.........................................................................8

3.2 System-Level Assessment Tools..........................................................................................9

3.2.1 Strategic Management Tools from USAID’s Implementing Policy Change Project (IPC)......9

3.2.2 Value Chain Analysis..............................................................................................................10

3.2.3 National-Level Food Coordination Committees..................................................................10

4. Implementation Requirements........................................................................................11 5. Conclusion and Recommendations.................................................................................13

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Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

This paper was written to stimulate discussion about the organizational dimension of food security, with particular emphasis on organizational capacity building. While the paper includes a conceptual framework, it is written from a practitioner’s perspective and seeks to provide a ground-level view of the organizational landscape and the way forward.

This paper was written by the Food Security Collaborative; a network of organizations – Management Systems International, ACDI/VOCA, the University of California at Davis, and Crown Agents – united around a commitment to improve the analysis and implementation of global efforts to enhance the food security of the world’s most vulnerable people.

This paper reviews the current challenges facing capacity building for food security programming; examines the types of institutions that require capacity building support, including institutions responsible for system-level coordination, food production, and for knowledge generation, dissemination and innovation; presents an array of tools to assess key aspects of institutional capacity; and examines contextual factors that influence capacity building approaches.

2. Elements of capacity building 1. challenges Broad needs and different contexts Cross-sectoral coordination Conflicting sector plans Host country management capacity Appropriate models and realistic work loads

2.1 Levels of Capacity Building Individual Organizational Across Organizations 2.2 Types of Institutional Food Security Structure and function Collaboration mechanisms 2.3 Instutional Need

3. Tools for assessing needs

4. Implementation requirement

3.1 Organization-Level Assessment Tools 3.2 System -Level Assessment Tools

5. Recommendations

Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

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Introduction Institutional capacity building is not a new concept; however, there is a new urgency and opportunity for capacity building to play a central role in improving global food security.

Factors that underlie this opportunity, and contribute to its urgency, include: •

Global food prices are rising. This presents both a threat and an opportunity: a threat because price increases are taxing the poor’s ability to purchase adequate amounts of food, and an opportunity as increased prices are providing an incentive for agricultural investment, production and income-earning potential.

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Large-scale crop production disruptions are increasing in frequency due to erratic weather events. Recent examples include last year’s decreased wheat production in Australia due to floods, and in Russia, due to excessive heat and fires.

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Increased attention and funding is being directed to agricultural development, including substantial funding increases from both bilateral and multilateral donors.

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International development financing trends, as represented by initiatives such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the USAID Forward Initiative, are placing an increased emphasis on channeling development assistance directly to host country organizations. This emphasis is being promoted as a way to avoid creating redundant delivery mechanisms, to build national capacity, and to increase host country ownership.

The current scenario places a premium on the need to significantly and rapidly increase host country institutional capacity to handle an expanded role in leading, managing and coordinating agricultural development. If capacity does not increase at a rate that is commensurate with the increases in financing and responsibilities, program performance and host country credibility will both suffer.

Over time, this can be expected to jeopardize the goodwill required to maintain successful and sustained food security initiatives.

Since most food security program funds are currently going to Africa, we have chosen to base this paper on experience from Africa; however, we feel the ideas presented in the paper are applicable more broadly.

In drawing lessons from current initiatives in Africa, we focus particular attention on the role of the African Union’s Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which is a voluntary continent-wide program with the goal of increasing agricultural productivity growth by six percent per annum. CAADP’s programming process emphasizes broad collaboration between governments and other key non-state stakeholders, including

farmers, the private sector and non-profit organizations. CAADP is designed to help countries achieve the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goal #1: to cut hunger in half by 2015. Key principles that distinguish CAADP include the use of medium-term comprehensive agriculture plans that are subject to a peer review process, often termed national agricultural investment plans (NAIPs); increased funding commitments from implementing countries, with a target of 10 percent of the national budget being directed toward agriculture; and the inclusive participation of a wide set of actors, including multiple government ministries as well as various nonstate actors, such as the private sector, universities, and civil society organizations, including farmer and producer associations.

CAADP is supported by numerous donors, including the European Union (EU), Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID), USAID and the World Bank. The World Bank currently administers several multi-donor trust funds that were established to provide financial support directly to CAADP, including the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP).

Donors also have voiced strong support for CAADP in part because the program is consistent with international commitments made under the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness including promotion of government ownership of development programs; alignment of donor programs with host country initiatives; and a commitment to results based-management, including mutual accountability for program funding and results.

1. Food Security Capacity Building Challenges We have identified a number of institutional capacity issues that present challenges to current food security development initiatives.

These challenges revolve around the need for more coherent and streamlined planning, building inclusive partnerships that allow multiple stakeholders to interact effectively, and finding ways to ensure that capacity building needs can be continually assessed, and addressed.

More specifically, major challenges include: •

The list of food security capacity building needs is broad and context-specific. Developing country capacity needs within the food security “sector” are extensive, and given the number of countries and institutions involved, it’s not practical to identify a one-size-fits-all list of needs. Needs vary by country, program and objective. Rather than identify a list of specific needs, emphasis should be given to assisting management and coordination entities to develop the tools and systems they will require to continuously assess and address capacity building requirements.

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Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

Multi-sector coordination is a particular challenge. Many approaches to multi-sector coordination recommend creating committees, task forces and working groups. The tendency to develop a plethora of committees to address cross-sectoral coordination needs to be handled thoughtfully as many ministries and key staff are already overcommitted; time is a significant constraint as are the resources required to implement and manage recommendations. Committees may be charged with “coordinating” programs, but in practical terms it is sometimes unclear what this means. Implementation authority and budgets usually reside with line ministries, with ministries of agriculture playing a lead role.

This challenge is particularly severe with regard to the participation of non-governmental actors. Donors are promoting, and countries are concurring with, the principle of broad inclusive partnership in planning, monitoring and implementing food security programs. To a significant degree, however, this is not happening, at least not to the extent that donors and the private sector feel is required.

procurement will be particularly important in light of donor commitments to increase the amount of funding channeled directly to host governments.

•

Isomimicry and over-zealous load transfer. The World Bank’s recent global study of capacity building focuses on two widespread problems that are prominently in evidence across sectors. The first of these problems is isomimicry which refers to the tendency to transplant Western institutional models as “best practices” without adequate consideration to differences in context. The second problem refers to the tendency to place unrealistic expectations on new, struggling and under-resourced institutions. Each of these problems is widely manifested in current food security institutional analyses and plans.

National-level food security coordination committees are, in most countries, weak bodies lacking the authority, the capacity, and the clarity of mission needed to implement actions, or to serve as effective multi-sector coordination entities. They also lack the resources they need to be effective, such as dedicated staff and budgets. To the extent that multi-sector coordination is needed, structures that have this explicit mandate will require generous support.

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The multi-sectoral nature of food security results in multiple, overlapping plans. CAADP food security plans are generally but one of several agricultural sector plans that exist in a given country. Plans may include sector-wide approaches (SWAPs), financing frameworks, and medium-term strategic plans. This can lead to confusion and inefficiency. In Tanzania, for example, plans include the Agricultural Medium Term Expenditure Framework, the Agricultural Sector Development Plan, the Agricultural Sector Development Programme, District Agricultural Development Plans, and the CAADP-generated Tanzania Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plan. Given the broad array of existing plans, CAADP investment plans are increasingly viewed as fund-raising documents rather than as implementation plans, despite their original intent.

Host country management of the capacity building process.

Host country systems to identify, prioritize and implement broad food security plans often do not exist. There needs to be a structure in place to manage the capacity building process, which will require a defined process, analysis tools, appropriate delegation of authority, and resources. Capacity in the areas of results-based management, financial management and

In Ghana, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture recently formed a committee to oversee the coordination of its Medium Term Agriculture Investment Plan (2011 – 2015), which has a fiveyear budget of $1.5 billion. The coordination committee, however, has not been provided a budget, and is staffed by senior-level officials who are adding this role to their already-considerable list of responsibilities. Without dedicated staff and an operational budget, the committee is unlikely to be able to effectively coordinate the plan’s many stakeholders, especially non-state actors and those located in rural areas (who do not have travel funds to attend the monthly meetings).

Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

2 . Elements of Capacity Building 2.1 Levels of Capacity building Types of Capacity Building: Most discussions of “capacity” differentiate between individual, organizational and systemic capacity. The first – individual capacity – is best understood and relates mostly to the quantity and quality of trained people. In food security, this includes famers, extension workers, researchers, government regulators, health workers, business managers, and the like. Much remains to be done to tailor food production methods to the special needs of poor farmers and to find ways to deliver the needed training in a cost effective way; however, it is in this category that the most obvious progress has been made and the road ahead is clearest.

Types of Food Security Institutions: For the purpose of this paper we will look at three different types of institutions that together comprise a food security system: •

Production institutions: Individual institutions critical to the food security value-chain, which includes the companies, organizations and individuals that produce, process and market agriculture products. These institutions also include institutions directly required to support production, processing and marketing, including institutions providing finance, agricultural inputs, storage and transport services – the chain of support required to produce, process and sell.

•

Knowledge support institutions: These institutions are responsible for generation and dissemination of the knowledge, science and innovation required to support production and productivity increases. The principal institutions at this level include research institutes, universities and private and government extension services, which are critical in ensuring that production institutions have the expertise and information needed to produce, process and market products that meet consumer demands and nutritional needs – and to do so in an economically efficient manner. A comparable array of institutions is needed to meet the health and nutrition needs associated with food security.

•

Coordination institutions: These institutions or collaborative mechanisms enable multiple institutions to come together to achieve a purpose that a single institution cannot achieve alone. The responsibilities of these systemic or collaborative institutions include developing and implementing policy, sector coordination, strategy development, donor coordination, quality control, and overseeing accountability and results management.

It is this set of relationships that governs the interaction between production and knowledge institutions as, for example, by enabling private sector views to be considered in policy-making so as to increase investment incentives, or by helping agricultural research and extension services prioritize commodities and products that offer the highest potential value capture or nutritional impact.

In this paper we have chosen to treat the requirement of building individual skills as necessary only to the extent that such skills are required for an organization to achieve its mandate or particular objectives.

The second dimension of capacity – organizational capacity – is less well understood. There is widespread and general understanding of the array of organizations, functions and requirements that collectively make up “the agricultural sector” -- ministries of agriculture, farmers, producer groups, and so forth. However, when “food security” becomes the objective, the array of institutions broadens significantly and includes a host of organizations that do not typically have strong collaborative relationships, such as health professionals, community development organizations, and university researchers. As a result, efforts to enhance organizational capacity in this sector usually need to begin with a mapping of the institutions relevant to a given country’s food security objectives.

Following the identification of relevant institutions, an assessment needs to be made of each organization’s current ability in relation to what is required, resulting in a plan to address the most important shortcomings or gaps indicated by the analysis. Several useful tools (discussed in the next section) can be applied or adapted for this purpose.

The third functional element of capacity is the systemic level, where two or more institutions are required to cooperate to enable the achievement of common objectives (either based on an agreed strategy or in response to dynamic events). For example, in order to increase agriculture productivity, it may be necessary for an array of institutions to cooperate to create enabling policies, agree on needed infrastructure, and ensure the participation of investment partners. Managing complex institutional cooperation necessitates the application (and development) of a different set of analysis and support tools. This is an area that is critical to the success of broad food security goals, and an area where capacity analysis and capacity building have received relatively little attention.

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Organizations in this category include specialized units within ministries of agriculture, inter-agency coordinating committees, national food security bodies, and donor liaison groups.

There is also a set of cross-cutting issues that must be considered if food security is to be achieved. Of particular note are issues related to the role of women and to the effects of climate change. Capacity building should include the needs of the organizations responsible for ensuring that these issues are adequately incorporated into food security planning and implementation efforts.

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Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

Each of the functions previously noted occurs at regional, national and local levels, as indicated in the following chart of illustrative institutions critical to African food security: Institutions – by function

Food Production, Processing & Sales

Knowledge Management

Coordinating

Institutions – by coverage area focus Regional Regional production and marketing associations, such as the West Africa Seed Alliance and East Africa Grain Council

Regional associations of research such as Regional University Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) Regional Economic Communities (SADAC, COMESA, ESA, ECOWAS)

National

Local

Farmers and associations Food processors Seed and input suppliers Ministry of agriculture Ministry of health/nutrition Public works – roads and irrigation

University research Private sector research Ministry of agriculture

National Coordination Committees, e.g. CAADP task for Donor roundtables, Sector roundtables, National associations, Steering committees

Farmers organizations Irrigation committees

Farmer extension offices Universities – in situ Farmers organizations

Local Government

2.2 types of institutional food security Effective capacity building typically proceeds in four stages, as illustrated below1 , though time constraints sometimes require that some of these activities occur in parallel rather than sequentially.

Stage

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Name

Departmental Infrastructure

Typical Tasks Developing Internal processes Establishing organization charts, job descriptions Hiring and training staff Acquiring necessary technology and other tools Establishing laws, regulations, and other rules of operation

Departmental Functionality

University research Private sector research Ministry of agriculture Farmer extension offices Universities – in situ Farmers organizations

Collaboration

Joint task forces Ad hoc and long-term committees Joint sector reviews Shared research Jointly financed projects

Agility

Contingency planning Real-time awareness of internal and external changes Responsiveness capability

1. Shiman, Marc, Four Stages of Capacity Building, Management Systems International.

Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

Although some simultaneity is possible, when financial or political concerns require that stage three or four be executed before stage one and two reach a threshold of accomplishment, experience suggests that predictable and serious problems of implementation and collaboration are likely.

Whole-of-institution capacity building is not always necessary to achieve specific food security aims. However, for most tasks, a functioning institutional infrastructure will be required, including administrative and salary systems, information systems, and basic transport and service delivery capability.

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3. Tools FOR assessing needs Strengthening institutions can be understood and carried out with respect to any of all of the following seven elements: leadership, systems, structures, skills, resources, strategy, and incentives.

In order for institutions to collaborate effectively with others, they first must have some level of capacity themselves, in terms of basic infrastructure and functionality – as per the above elements. There are a number of assessment tools that have been developed and tested to review capacity at this level, and several are presented later in this section. At the systemic level, the institution or entity responsible for managing coordinated action across a program needs a somewhat different set of skills, which includes change management, stakeholder outreach and coordination, and assessing and addressing capacity constraints across the program (as the graphic/image to the left demonstrates). While one could argue these skills are also necessary at the level of individual institutions, they are central to the mandate of systemic-level management organizations. This section also presents tools that are useful to define, analyze and strengthen these kinds of organizational functions.

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Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

3.1. Organization-Level Assessment Tools There is widespread recognition – sometimes enthusiastic, other times grudging – that the institution undergoing change must have substantial ownership over the change process. Given that the ultimate goal of development is to foster the development of governments, systems and programs that are self-managed and self-sustaining, a question facing capacity building programs is how the capability to assess, strengthen, measure and report capacity can be managed internally and without the need for continued outside assistance.

There are a growing number of examples of highly successful approaches to locally-owned change management. Quality Circles in Japan, the Baldrige Awards in the USA, Government Excellence Awards in England, and the King Abdullah Awards in Jordan are examples of effective and locally institutionalized mechanisms for organizing, incentivizing and institutionalizing ongoing change mechanism led by internal teams. Several of these tools have been, or could easily be, adapted for use in more challenging institutional settings.

Each of these change management approaches embodies the following elements: • •

Develop leadership capacity on managing change Institutionalize internal measurement systems, ideally embedded in strategic planning and results-based budgeting processes Establish internal return-on-investment methodologies Develop a culture of change within the organization

• •

The frameworks presented in this section each begins with the identification of key “capacity” elements and then employs a selfassessment process to determine how the organization rates in comparison to benchmarked elements or indicators. Widely used institutional capacity frameworks include the following: the Public Financial Management Performance Measurement Framework, the Methodology for the Assessment of National Procurement Systems, the CAP-Scan methodology for assessing and improving results management, the Institutional Development Framework, and the Partner Institutional Viability Assessment. Each of these tools is briefly discussed in this section.

3.1.1 Public Financial Management Performance Measurement Framework

The Public Financial Management (PFM) Performance Measurement Framework (PMF)2. This PFM Performance Measurement Framework was developed to assess and improve essential public financial management systems by providing a common pool of information for the measurement and monitoring of PFM performance and progress. The PFM Performance Measurement Framework is composed of a PFM performance report

and a set of high-level indicators. The set of indicators captures the key PFM elements critical to sound public financial management.

It seeks to standardize agreed best practice in public financial management and to provide an assessment of how an individual country or organization compares to these standards.

The Framework was developed through a concerted international effort, rather than by a single agency, and has undergone a process of wide consultation and country-level testing. A draft of the framework was applied in 24 country cases, largely through desk exercises, and the framework continues to be widely used by the World Bank and other donors.

3.1.2 Methodology for Assessment of National Procurement Systems.

The Methodology for Assessment of National Procurement Systems. This methodology serves as a standard tool that developing countries and donors can use to assess the quality and effectiveness of national procurement systems. The methodology provides a set of indicators against which procurement capacity is assessed in the broad categories of legislative framework and rules, institutional management and capacity, procurement operations and markets, and integrity and transparency. The assessment process provides a basis upon which a country or organization can formulate a capacity development plan to improve its procurement system. Similarly, donors can use the assessment to develop capacity strengthening plans and to mitigate risks in the individual operations that they fund. The long term goal of this process is to assist countries and organizations to improve their procurement systems to meet internationally recognized standards -- so as to enable public funds to be used more effectively.3 This framework was developed by the OECD/DAC’s Party on Aid Effectiveness as a result of the 2004 “Johannesburg Declaration”, which included a commitment to adopt a baseline indicators tool for assessment of national procurement systems.

3.1.3 Managing for Development Results Capacity Scan The Managing for Development Results Capacity Scan, or CAPScan. This assessment tool provides an analysis of the following systems: leadership, evaluation and monitoring, accountability and partners, planning and budgeting, and statistics. Taken together, these functions constitute a results-based management system. This tool is particularly useful for conducting an institutional assessment of a ministry, or units within government, and was developed and pilot tested by MSI under a multi-agency OECD initiative -- the Joint Venture on Managing for Development Results. CAP-Scan provides an analytic framework and participatory process for leaders to assess their organization or unit’s stage of progress in developing a culture,

2. Public Financial Management Performance Measurement Framework, the Public Expenditure and Public Accountability Secretariat, the World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2005 3. The Methodology for Assessment of National Procurement Systems. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), July 2006.

Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

behaviors and systems to manage for development results (MfDR) and helps them to prioritize concrete steps for MfDR improvement.

This process has been applied in 13 countries, including Ghana, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Malawi.4

CAP-Scan MfDR Assessment Categories: 5

1. Leadership: concrete actions by political decision makers and senior management to promote a culture of commitment to results and use of results for decision-making processes.

of “Mission” has three main elements within it: (1) statement of purpose, (2) staff understanding of mission, and (3) links between mission and programs. Each element is categorized as to its stage of development — (1) start-up; (2), developing: (3), consolidating; or (4) mature based on both quantitative and qualitative criteria These methodologies share a number of common characteristics, including: •

Each assessment methodology defines standards of success or best practices within a given functional area (e.g., procurement, or managing for development results) thereby enabling an organization’s existing capacity to be benchmarked against pre-defined standards. In all cases, the assessment of capacities is given a numerical score. These numeric scores are supplemented with a narrative that explains the score and provides relevant contextual information.

•

Most of the frameworks have provisions for the performance criteria or indicators to be adjusted based on a particular organization’s circumstance or mandate. In such cases, the assessment process begins with a review of the standard assessment criteria to ensure they are relevant to the institution being assessed.

•

Each methodology is applied through a participatory process where the organization being assessed participates in reviewing and rating its own capacity. The guided self-assessment process serves two purposes: 1) it builds ownership for the results as it is the organization being assessed that is responsible for determining or concurring with its assessment score (in relation to objective indicators and criteria), and 2) it provides a practical tutorial in thinking holistically about the level of performance required of high-performing institutions and developing capacity improvement plans.

•

Each of these assessment processes benefits from the use of an experienced facilitator well-versed in institutional development principles. This is necessary to help make adjustments to the indicators being used, to facilitate the process, and to ensure that there can be a proper discussion of the various categories of capacities being assessed.

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Each methodology serves as a point of departure for prioritizing institutional development needs, and for developing a capacity improvement work plan. The capacity improvement plan can be used internally by the institution being assessed, and can also be used to identify priority areas of technical assistance that can be supported by donors.

•

The assessments provide a baseline status of capacity and can be used to demonstrate if and how an organization has increased its capacity over time.

2. Monitoring & Evaluation: ways in which institutions use monitoring and evaluation functions in decision-making, management and accountability.

3. Accountability & Partnership: extent to which citizens engage request information on results and participate in results-based decision-making processes.

4. Planning & Budgeting: ways in which institutions use results information for planning and budget formulation.

5. Statistical Capacity: the supply, ability, and availability of information and data that can feed into decision-making processes.

3.1.4 Institutional Development Framework The Institutional Development Framework (IDF). The IDF is an integrated toolkit developed to support institutional development.

It is a participatory diagnostic tool that was developed by MSI to help organizations assess their strengths and weaknesses in relation to what is necessary for effective management and sustainability.

Management functions that are analyzed include governance issues, financial management, planning and reporting systems, funding diversity and sustainability, and advocacy skills, among others.

The IDF is specifically designed to assess the capacity and development needs of non-profit organizations and networks. The IDF process has been used in dozens of countries and has been translated into numerous languages.

3.1.5 Partner Institutional Viability Assessment Partner Institutional Viability Assessment (PIVA) 6. In 2001, USAID REDSO/ESA designed a Partner Institutional Viability Assessment (PIVA) to “precisely and comprehensively identify changes and progress in the organizational development capacity of regional African partner organizations in East and Southern Africa.” PIVA incorporates an assessment matrix and numerical scales to analyze organizations with regard to six dimensions of organizational capacity. Each of the six areas of competency is divided into sub-categories, which are further divided into a total of 116 elements. For example, under “Governance,” the sub-category

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4. Analysis of institutions’ ability to manage effectively will be based on a consideration of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Managing for Development Results concepts and principles, which will be adjusted to reflect CAADP’s capacity development emphases.

5. More information on CAP-Scan can be found at the Managing for Development Results website: http://www.mfdr.org/CAP-Scan.html 6. http://www.fanrpan.org/documents/d00838/PIVA_baselining_tool.pdf

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Building Institutional Capacity to Increase Food Security

3.2. System-Level Assessment Tools At the systemic level, links between policy, technology, research, production, commercialization and nutrition remain poorly understood, and most countries lack structural mechanisms and institutions to manage these linkages. Among these systemic gaps, several stand out as particularly challenging: •

Cross-sectoral policy development and coordination, including voice and participation of farmers, the private sector and other non-state actors

•

Generation and dissemination of knowledge, practice and innovation, including the roles played by universities, farmers’ groups, and other training institutes, and the relationships among these groups

•

A program-wide ability to coordinate, monitor and sequence interdependent actions among the wide groups of participating government and non-state organizations

At the systemic level, results are dependent upon addressing “weakest link” constraints in a timely way so that constraints do not cause prolonged downstream delays.

Some of the tools and approaches useful for analyzing and building capacity to manage these kinds of systemic-level factors include: strategic management tools for implementing policy change, value chain analysis, and mechanisms piloted by CAADP for use in country-level and regional-level capacity building efforts. These analytic approaches are discussed in the remainder of this section.

3.2.1 Strategic Management Tools from USAID’s Implementing Policy Change Project (IPC)

(IPC) project. This project sought to identify management tools and techniques for improving the policy reform and implementation process. The project developed a series of tools for managing critical policy implementation tasks, several of which have relevance to the systemic-level requirements of managing food security programs. These tools include, among other things, methodologies for Using Workshops for Strategic Management of Policy Reform, and Stakeholder Analysis: A Vital Toolkit for Strategic Managers.

The latter methodology – Stakeholder Analysis – is discussed below.7

Stakeholder Analysis.8 Stakeholder analysis can be useful to the management of food security programs, particularly for identifying and enabling the participation of non-state actors. Of particular relevance to food security programs is Brinkerhoff’s (1991) approach to stakeholder analysis, which focuses on the use of stakeholder analysis for managing programs. This focus highlights needed exchanges between the program and its key stakeholders; e.g., financing, physical inputs, political support, approvals, policy support, technical assistance, and so on. Stakeholders are identified and classified according to the resources they control, their interests in the program’s activities and outputs, and their importance to the different types of exchanges. The analysis is summarized in a matrix in which actors concerned about a particular issue are arrayed along a vertical axis, while the horizontal axis illustrates certain types of exchanges (or resources) the actor can bring to the issue.

3.2.2 Value Chain Analysis Value chains encompass the full range of activities and services required to bring a product or service from its origin to sale in its final markets—whether local, national, regional or global. Value chains include input suppliers, producers, processors and buyers. They are supported by a range of technical, business and financial service providers.

In the early 1990s, USAID’s Democracy and Governance Bureau provided ten years of support to the Implementing Policy Change 7. Information on other Implementing Policy Change methodologies can be found at http://www.msiworldwide.com/project/implementing-policy-change/ 8.Information in this section is drawn from the following source: Crosby, Benjamin, Stakeholder Analysis: A Vital Toolkit for Strategic Managers, Management Systems International, Washington, D.C., 1991

Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

Vertical Linkages Relationships between firms at different levels of the value chain are critical for moving a product or service to the end-market. More efficient transactions among firms that are vertically related in a value chain increase the competitiveness of the entire industry and facilitate the delivery of benefits and embedded services and the transference of skills between firms. Research has demonstrated the positive impact on learning and benefits to small-scale producers from entering into contractual relationships with processors, exporters and end market buyers.

Horizontal Linkages There is a necessary tension between cooperation and competition among firms performing similar functions in a value chain.

Relationships between firms—whether formal or informal—can reduce the transaction costs for buyers working with many small suppliers. By facilitating bulk purchasing of inputs or enabling large orders to be filled, horizontal linkages help small firms generate economies of scale. Industry associations can enable the creation of industry standards and the implementation of marketing strategies.

Key to gaining value from horizontal cooperation is recognizing joint constraints that require collective action. Simultaneously, competition between firms is necessary to stimulate and reward innovation and make an industry better able to respond to market changes.

Supporting Markets Support services are key to firm-level upgrading. They include financial services; cross-cutting services such as business consulting, legal advice and telecommunications; and sector-specific services, (e.g., irrigation equipment or handicraft design services). Where these services are needed over the long term, they must be provided commercially or by markets. Services provided by actors in the chain tend to be embedded, such that the cost of the service is built into an existing commercial transaction. New technologies or technical services can have a substantial effect on the performance of an industry and can even change the competitive dynamic in certain markets.

Value Chain Governance (VCG) VCG specifies who in a value chain has the ability to define the terms and conditions of transactions. There are four types of governance relationships in value chains: • • • •

Market-based: enterprises deal with each other in arms-length, price-based transactions Balanced: enterprises cooperate and have complementary competencies Directed: the lead firm sets the parameters under which others in the chain operate Hierarchy: enterprises are vertically integrated; the parent company controls its subsidiaries

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Each type has benefits and limitations.

Transfer of information and learning between firms is key to is key to competitiveness since upgrading is dependent on knowledge of what the market requires and the potential returns on investments in upgrading. Learning and innovation are closely related to the incentives that encourage or discourage the delivery and absorption of new knowledge or skills, and the types of mechanisms that are in place to affect their transfer. The most competitive industries are those that institutionalize learning mechanisms.

The literature and practice of value-chain development includes a growing body of diagnostic and programmatic interventions to assess and enhance the strength of these linkages and to build the capacity of various categories of stakeholders in value chains. ACDI/VOCA, UC Davis, and Crown Agents are among the world’s leaders in developing and disseminating these methods 9.

3.2.3 National-Level Food Coordination Committees Under the USAID-sponsored Africa Leadership and Development Project (Africa Lead), MSI is currently developing and testing a diagnostic tool to analyze and improve national-level food security coordination and management. A particular focus of this assessment is developing a process to identify near-term constraints to the achievement of country-level food security objectives.

This systemic-level analysis framework looks at two sets of indicators: 1) process responsibilities of the national coordinating committee/ task force, for example, to ensure there is widespread and inclusive participation in the development and management of food securities strategies; and 2) overall cross-sector program performance measures to ensure that key partners are all working toward common objectives in a coordinated manner, and to identify constraints in one area, or sector, that may be impeding progress by others. The focus of the latter analysis is identification of near-term capacity constraints and a work plan to alleviate those constraints. This may require strengthening specific organizations, increasing workforce skills, or perhaps establishing new authorities. The intent is that the committee should analyze cross-sectoral cooperative relationships and put into place solutions that enable inter-organizational cooperation to efficiently produce results that move the overall development agenda forward.

Experience with this process to date has indicated a need to put into place several foundational outputs. In particular, a capacity analysis of country-level food security coordination function benefits from the following: •

The mandate and authority of the coordination unit, or task force, must be clearly established – and it must have authority to

9. ACDI/VOCA was one of three prime contractors under the AMAP IQC focused on sustainably linking large numbers of microenterprises into productive value chains; Crown Agents, a leading practitioner in trade facilitation, applies innovative solutions, including the UNESCAP Time-Cost-Distance methodology for identifying choke points in the supply chain and the costs associated with these inefficiencies.

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Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

convene stakeholders, across the government and private sector, and ensure recommended actions can be implemented. These task forces exist in many African countries under the auspices of the CAADP, but vary widely in their composition and mandate, and are labeled differently in different countries. For example, they may be called task force, coordination unit, or steering committee, but all have a similar mandate to coordinate the implementation of the country’s CAADP investment plan.

•

The task force needs to have a clear purpose and schedule of activity, which should be outlined in a work plan. The entity should be responsible for accomplishing clearly defined food security objectives – as opposed to convening meetings under the general remit of “coordination.”

•

There needs to be a monitoring and reporting system in place that can: 1) track and report on the task force’s own work, i.e., the process of sector coordination and multi-stakeholder participation; and 2) monitor the overall implementation of the national plan by reviewing data from line ministries and other sources to verify that inter-dependent and sequential activities are being accomplished in accordance with the plan’s higher-level objectives. Monitoring at this level requires collecting data from a range of implementing institutions and synthesizing this data to enable program-level analysis, as opposed to directly generating the data.

•

As a precursor to monitoring sector progress, and to ensure activities between institutions are properly identified and sequenced, a results hierarchy needs to be in place for whatever level of program detail is being monitored. This is necessary to develop before a proper monitoring system can be created, or before a work plan can be developed. In lieu of a causality framework, it is also possible to use a workflow diagram to document and track sequential and co-dependent implementation actions.

Key capacities required to operate a systemic-level coordination unit (as based on the competencies identified in the CAADP Capacity Development Framework.)

• Leadership and change management, including process management skills and problem solving • Management of inclusive processes, including coalition and partnership building • Capacity assessment and development of organizational improvement plans • Project and program development, including budget development • Evidence-based monitoring, evaluation and decisionmaking

The capacity analysis framework developed for CAADP is designed to assess the skills, functions and systems that a national committee needs to adequately perform these and other key functions.

4. Implementation Requirements Capacity assessment and support must be undertaken in consideration of a number of contextual factors. It is our experience that contextual factors, particularly a country’s governance capacity, may have as much or more influence on the success of programs as will individual capacity building approaches. Properly understanding the development and governance context within which an organization operates provides guidance as to the types of capacity building approaches that are likely to be effective.

Relevant contextual factors include: • • • • • • • •

Public policy regarding the role of the state Fiscal and administrative resources of the state State of democratic governance Level of financial accountability and transparency of local organizations Role of local NGOs Nature of local consulting industry Role of international business Relevance of corporate social responsibility and public/private partnership

Building Institutional Capacity to IncreasE Food Security

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4.1 Governance Dimensions of Food Security11 In the agricultural and food security sectors, governance challenges are widespread. Although agriculture is largely a private sector activity, market failures are pervasive because of monopoly power, economies of scale in supply chains, policy distortions and political favoritism.”12 As a consequence, agricultural development—and particularly smallholder-based development—depends on public sector support to address these market failures. The 2008 World Development Report on “Agriculture for Development” found that governance problems were a major explanation for why many recommendations of the World Development Report on Agriculture, published more than 25 years earlier, could not be implemented.13 Feed The Future (FTF) interventions need to be carefully adapted to specific country governance conditions. Below is a table that ranks USAID FTF focus countries as per World Bank governance indicators.

Table A: Ranking of FTF Countries, based on World Bank Governance Indicators High government effectiveness

Low government effectiveness

High Voice and Accountability

(A) Ghana, Senegal, Mozambique, Tanzania, Guatamala, Honduras, Kenya

(B) Zambia, Malawi, Mali,

Low Voice and Accountability

(C) Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda

(D) Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Tajikistan, Nigeria, Haiti

Countries with relatively high government effectiveness and high voice and accountability (shown in the box A in the above table) provide the best conditions for FTF interventions. In these countries, it will be possible to implement relatively complex agricultural interventions and rely partly on demand-side strategies, such as fostering farmer-based organizations and NGOs, to improve governance. Public sector capacity building should produce a good return in these states.

In countries with low government effectiveness but high voice and accountability (shown in box B in the table), FTF interventions should not focus too heavily on complex supply-side interventions as government will be hard pressed to deliver results. The greatest potential for results in this group of countries lies in demand-side strategies that can be used to strengthen government performance.

Advances in democracy in these countries should make it possible to give greater political voice to groups, such as agricultural producers and marketing associations, and offer scope for outsourcing government service provision (e.g., extension services) to NGOs or the private sector.

to improve governance. One strategy for these countries is to work with organizations such as farmers’ cooperatives or women’s groups to strengthen their capacity and accountability as well as their ability to advocate on behalf of constituent interests.

Countries with low government effectiveness and low voice and accountability (shown in box D in the table) present the greatest obstacles for FTF efforts. Here, implementing complex supplyside interventions that tax government capacity may result in disappointment. Public administration reforms may be required.

Legal and regulatory obstacles to the growth and development of civil society and the private sector may also be required. Direct interventions with private groups may face many challenges.

Consideration (and enhancement) of governance capacity can help donors focus their capacity building efforts. For example, efforts to assess and strengthen the ability of non-state actors to participate in food security planning and management are likely to have a more significant pay-off in countries with relative high governance effectiveness capacity as governments will be capable of responding to input from non-state actors.

Countries with high government effectiveness but low voice and accountability (shown in box C in the table) have comparatively high government capacity and can benefit from public sector administrative and technical capacity building, but they face a greater challenge in using civil society organizations and the media

10. This section is excerpted from Democracy and Governance Approaches to the Presidential Initiative Feed the Future, David Garner, MSI, and Regina Birnir, IFPRI, 2010 11. World Development Report (2008), 247 12. Ibid.

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Building Institutional Capacity to Increase Food Security

VII. Conclusion and Recommendations Central to the effort to enhance food security is the need to strengthen the local, national, regional and global organizations responsible for enhancing key elements of food production, distribution and consumption, and the linkages among those organizations. To date, discussions have focused more on the substance of the needed policy and programmatic changes than on the internal management and organizational needs of the institutions charged with implementing these changes. This paper is intended as a ground-level attempt to draw attention to these organizational needs, to synthesize the experience of our four organizations in addressing these needs, and to provoke others to do likewise.

The following are some of the principal observations from this paper: FtF program interventions need to be carefully adapted to specific country conditions and institutions. For example, countries with relatively high government effectiveness and accountability are most conducive for implementing complex FtF interventions that rely partly or fully on demand-side strategies.

There are a variety of tools available for assessing and improving the capacity of key government, commercial and non-profit institutions to do what is expected of them to meet FtF objectives. However, insufficient attention has been directed towards pinpointing the organizational challenges faced by these institutions, and much work remains to be done in adapting existing institutional assessment and intervention tools to FtF needs.

Food security programs are inherently cross-sectoral and involve multiple government agencies, farmers’ organizations, knowledge organizations, and the private sector. Many countries lack multisectoral coordination mechanisms that have the mandate, resources and skills required to plan, monitor and manage such programs.

And, while donors and governments unanimously advocate the benefits of inclusive participation, coordination plans rarely include specific objectives, criteria, measures or processes for ensuring this participation.

Value chains can play an important role in defining programmatic needs and identifying the range of stakeholders that need to be included in increasing productivity and, more importantly, in increasing value capture. However, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and it is essential that a process be put in place to address capacity gaps and missing links.

We conclude this review with three specific recommendations: 1.

Priority should be given to strengthening CAADP’s and other intermediaries’ in-house ability to support capacity building for key organizations and coordinating mechanisms at sector, commodity, country and regional levels;

2. The global FtF community should adopt common tools and protocols for assessing and enhancing the organizational capacity of high priority food security organizations; and 3. As a matter of policy, all food security strategies and plans should include a requirement for identifying and mapping the key production, knowledge support, and coordinating institutions upon which success depends. Gaps with regard to individual, organizational, and systemtic performance should be clearly noted along with the actions needed to close these gaps.

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Building Institutional Capacity to ncrease Food Security Building Institutional Capacity to Increase Food Security

FOOD SECURITY FOOD SECURITY COLLABORATIVE FOOD SECURITY COLLABORATIVE

COLLABORATIVE .

Contact Details Please Contact the Food Security Collaborative to provide comments on this paper: foodsecuritycollaborative@msi-inc.com

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