Making Country Ownership a Reality - An NGO Perspective

Mercedes Mas de Xaxás and Carolyn Gibb Vogel

Shared Accountability and Responsibility

Accountability and responsibility for country ownership is shared by all stakeholders – recipient governments, donors, parliamentarians and civil society. Country ownership cannot be achieved without mechanisms to operationalize and monitor the responsibility of each of these constituencies.

Donor Responsibility

The donor community has designed various policies and procedures to help foster country ownership, such as:

• Changing aid modalities to mechanisms that move decision-making to the country level (for example, PRSPs and direct budget support);
• Formation of country level coordination committees – such as the Global Fund’s Country Coordination Mechanism;
• Building capacity to better enable countries to take leadership of the development process – such as technical assistance to the country in the preparation of strategy documents, and preparation of guidelines for the drafting of those documents or proposals; and
• Encouraging or mandating broad participation in the development of aid strategies – for example, by requesting that strategy formulation processes include consultations with private sector, NGOs, parliamentarians and other stakeholders.

Moreover, donors are responsible for ensuring that the actions they take in each nation do not contradict or render impossible the actual translation of their country ownership policies and procedures. For example, in a report on the Paris Declaration, Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) noted the following donor actions that can potentially undermine government capacity and country ownership: donor pressure to spend the funding; lack of alignment of donor and government planning cycles; donor overcrowding; donor paperwork requirements; and lack of sustained and long term financial support.⁶

The Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) is another example of how donors may promote country ownership with one hand and obstruct it with the other.  The CPIA is a rating used by the World Bank to assess the economic, social, and political performance of borrowing governments. It is based on a set of criteria developed by the bank with very marginal involvement of country governments. The CPIA is also mentioned in the Paris Declaration (in the Alignment 2010 Targets). A good CPIA rating is a condition to access more financing or debt relief and it also plays a key role in the consideration of a PRSP by the donor. However, country governments have no meaningful involvement in the development of the CPIA with the World Bank. They can, at best, comment on the CPIA “as part of a consultation process, not as a negotiation of the rating(s).”

In addition, donors have, through their discussions with country governments and their financial support, a vital role to play in ensuring that CSOs (1) participate as full and equal partners in national development processes and (2) act as effective advocates and government watchdogs.  The same could be said for the unique position that donors hold to promote and support national parliaments that are actively engaged in policy development and monitoring.

Finally, donor governments are responsible for allowing for differences in the manifestation of country ownership in each nation depending on its specific political, economic and governance context. The adoption of certain aid mechanisms can also be tailored to specific levels across the continuum of country ownership, ranging from project support for countries with weak ownership capacity to direct budget support for countries with strong ownership.

Recipient Government Responsibility

As welcomed as it is, country ownership demands an enormous effort from aid recipient countries. Such an effort can not be successful without the financial support of donors (including funds earmarked for capacity building). However, equally important is the level of commitment of recipient governments to creating the necessary conditions for country ownership to take place. Action is particularly needed in three areas:

·        Implementing transparency and accountability mechanisms. This is particularly important in the area of financial resources. National budgets and allocations need to be transparent and accessible by the public at both central and decentralized levels.

·        Setting up institutional mechanisms for the participation of CSOs in national development policies, going beyond the consultative level, and allocating the necessary resources to facilitate such participation.

·        Strengthening the role of parliaments and involving them in national development strategies.  In too many countries, parliaments are weak and unable to influence policy development or to check and balance government actions.  Country governments are responsible for undertaking the necessary reforms for national parliaments to ensure a feedback and approval process for national development plans.  Once this has been achieved, the creation and support of parliamentary committees on poverty reduction instruments, like PRSPs, and budgeting committees can be an effective way to promote parliamentary input and monitoring.  Finally, parliamentarians need full information on all aspects of development assistance – including information on donor funding outside of the budget and from vertical initiatives.

Civil Society Responsibility  

SRHR NGOs and other members of civil society play a vital role in ensuring that country ownership principles are realized by:  

·        Advocating for full stakeholder participation in development processes and setting up the necessary mechanisms (such as transparent and wide-ranging election of representatives) to ensure that marginalized constituencies, as well as those operating outside of the capitals, have a seat at the table.

·        Building their capacity to understand and analyze national budgets, and track the expenditure of resources at the central, regional and local levels. Indeed, CSOs have a major role to play in producing reliable and independent information on such expenditures and whether or not they deviate from international commitments assumed by governments in areas such as SRHR, HIV/AIDS and aid effectiveness.   By monitoring government’s allocations of financial resources, SRHR NGOs and other CSOs can make an enormous contribution to the promotion and achievement of a key aspect of country ownership - budgets that are responsive to the needs of the citizenry.    

·        Building the skills of key stakeholders, not only at the central, but also at the regional and local levels, to participate in and monitor development strategies.  

·        Organizing themselves in networks and coalitions to monitor and track accountability at national and global levels as well as informing and mobilizing the general public in support of inclusive country ownership policies and actions.

·         The watchdog role mentioned above should also encompass the development of a tool for the assessment of country ownership. The tool would provide a manageable number of clear, results-oriented indicators addressing key aspects of country ownership agreed upon by CSOs at large and members of the SRHR community in particular.  The indicators would range from the recognition of the role and rights of CSOs to their institutionalized participation in national decision-making processes and the level of civil society and SRHR input reflected in approved development policies and instruments such as PRSPs, Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMs) and others. The assessment tool would also clearly identify which constituency (central government, parliament, CSO, etc) is responsible for achieving the results.

As equal partners in country ownership efforts, CSOs also need to develop effective transparency and accountability mechanisms vis-à-vis the members of their own communities and constituencies as well as donors and recipient governments. The existence and availability of clear activity and financial reports are good examples of such mechanisms as is the capacity to undertake internal evaluations and the openness to be the subject of external reviews and audit processes.

To conclude, as a keystone of many new development financing mechanisms, country ownership is a principle that deserves continued effort. As the concept of country ownership continues to be debated and processes for its implementation continue to be developed, the SRHR and the broader civil society community have an important opportunity – through thoughtful development and implementation of country ownership principles –  to strengthen their voice in the design and implementation of development strategies. This is especially critical to SRHR issues, which require strong champions at the country level. The challenge is to ensure that donors and country governments are held accountable to commitments made. To meet that challenge, SRHR organizations must develop new knowledge and capacities in order to both advocate for a seat at the table and function effectively once there.

Carolyn Gibb Vogel is a senior research associate at Population Action International and acting director of research.

Mercedes Mas de Xaxás, based in Barcelona, Spain, is an international policy and advocacy consultant to PAI.