Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Involvement of private sector and civil society
in bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations Good practices and lessons learnt from GIZ projects
Economic Development and Employment Rural Development and Agriculture
Published by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH Dag-Hammerskjöld-Weg 1-5 65760 Eschborn / Germany T +49 61 96 79-0 F +49 61 96 79-11 15 E [email protected] I www.giz.de/trade Responsible: Sector Project Trade Policy, Trade and Investment Promotion Eschborn 2013 Picture Credits: © Govert Nieuwland – fotolia.de © Harald Tøstheim – fotolia.de © WestPic – fotolia.de © Kate Shepard – fotolia.de
Involvement of private sector and civil society in
bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations
Eva Krampe
i
Content
List of Abbreviations ..........................................................................................................................................................ii
List of tables and figures .................................................................................................................................................. iii
1 Summary ..................................................................................................................................................................... 1
2 Background and structure of the study ................................................................................................................. 3
3 The role of private sector and civil society in policy processes ......................................................................... 3
3.1 Stakeholders in participatory policy processes ............................................................................................ 3
3.2 Rationale and justification for non-state actor involvement ..................................................................... 4
3.3 Forms and levels of participation .................................................................................................................. 5
3.4 Impediments to and risks of participation ................................................................................................... 7
4 Evaluation approach ................................................................................................................................................. 8
4.1 Guideline ........................................................................................................................................................... 8
4.2 Data: Projects financed by the German Development Cooperation .................................................... 10
5 Evaluation of measures fostering involvement of the private sector in policy-making .............................. 12
5.1 Supporting awareness raising and capacity development of non-state actors ...................................... 13
5.1.1 Knowledge generation and dissemination ............................................................................................. 13
5.1.2 Organizational capacity: Human capital and management operations ............................................. 16
5.2 Supporting organised representation of interests ..................................................................................... 17
5.3 Supporting formal consultation mechanisms ............................................................................................ 21
5.4 Supporting Public-Private Partnerships ..................................................................................................... 25
6 Measures promoting civil society involvement in policy-making .................................................................. 26
7 Lessons learnt and recommendations for the German Development Cooperation .................................... 27
7.1 Lessons learnt ................................................................................................................................................. 27
7.2 Recommendations ......................................................................................................................................... 27
References.......................................................................................................................................................................... 31
Annex: Project reports ..................................................................................................................................................... 32
Annex: List of interviews ................................................................................................................................................ 33
ii
List of abbreviations
ASCCI Association of Southern African Development Community (SADC) Chambers of
Commerce and Industry
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
CARICOM Caribbean Community
CoM Council of Ministers
CSO Civil society organisation
CSI Coalition of Service Industries
EABC East African Business Council
EAC East African Community
EPA European Partnership Agreement
FEAPM Federation of East African Pharmaceutical Manufacturers
ILEAP International Lawyers and Economists Against Poverty
LNCCI Laos National Chamber of Commerce and Industry
MSME Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
NSA Non-state actor
NTB Non-tariff barrier
OTN Office of the Trade Negotiations
PPD Public-private dialogue
PPP Public-private partnership
RBO Regional Business organisation
SADC Southern African Development Community
SEG Southern African Development Community (SADC) Employers Group
SICA Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana
SIECA Secretaría de Integración Económica Centroamericana
SMEPDO Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Promotion and Development Office
iii
List of tables and figures
Figure 1: Overview on stakeholders in policy processes .............................................................................................. 4
(based on Chevalier and Buckles, 2008) .......................................................................................................................... 4
Figure 2: The policy cycle .................................................................................................................................................. 5
Figure 3: Level of engagement and political influence of NSAs ................................................................................. 7
Figure 4: Critical factors for NSA participation ............................................................................................................. 8
Figure 5: Overview about the impacts of interventions................................................................................................ 9
Table 1: Indicators for direct results ............................................................................................................................. 10
Table 2: Overview about GIZ projects ........................................................................................................................ 10
Table 3: Synopsis of effectiveness of interventions .................................................................................................... 12
Box 1: Example of success: East African Non-Tariff Barriers Index (NTBI) Survey (formerly: East African
Community Business Climate Index Survey)............................................................................................................... 14
Box 2: Remarks on projects under the Monterrey Fund ........................................................................................... 15
Figure 6: SWOT analysis: Knowledge generation and dissemination ..................................................................... 16
Box 3: Remarks on projects under the Monterrey Fund ........................................................................................... 16
Box 4: Example of success: East African Business Council ..................................................................................... 18
Box 5: Remarks on projects under the Monterrey Fund ........................................................................................... 19
Box 6: Example of success: Comité MIPYME Centroamericano ........................................................................... 19
Figure 7: SWOT analysis: Institutional organisation of interests ............................................................................. 21
Box 7: Remarks on projects under the Monterrey Fund ........................................................................................... 24
Figure 8: SWOT analysis: PPD event ........................................................................................................................... 25
Box 8: Remarks on projects under the Monterrey Fund ........................................................................................... 26
1
1 Summary
The World Bank describes participation as “the process through which stakeholders influence and share con-
trol over priority setting, policy-making, resource allocations and access to public goods and services”.1 Such
processes are widely recognized as a prerequisite for ownership and efficiency of policy programs. Complex
processes like regional economic integration or bilateral trade agreements even require broad participation of
actors to come into being and to contribute to overall economic development. But participatory policy-
making, both at the regional and national level, is often complicated and demands careful planning. Hence,
gaining an understanding of which measures boost political involvement of non-state actors (NSAs) is man-
datory for development partners to support partner countries in successfully institutionalizing participatory
policy processes.
This study presents findings on good practices for private sector and civil society involvement in regional
policy-making and bilateral or multilateral trade negotiations. It uses qualitative data from GIZ project docu-
ments and interviews with GIZ representatives. The regions and countries covered include East Africa,
Southern Africa, Central America, the Caribbean, Laos, Mongolia and Central Asia. While many projects of
GIZ have already taken major steps forward to give a voice to NSAs, especially in the private sector, GIZ in
other regions has just started to promote NSA involvement. Overall, time seems to be an important factor to
build trustful relationships among actors and to bring meaningful participation into being.
Project reports, interviews and a study by the GIZ Sector Network for Economic Development in Africa
(Fachverbund NEDA) point at the following impediments to NSA involvement in policy formulation and
implementation:
a. Stakeholders are not engaged in policy processes or trade negotiations because of
the high cost of participation (e.g. travel/communication/coordination costs),
a lack of information about the impact and progress of policy projects, and/or
difficulties in representing (heterogeneous) interests with one voice.
b. A regulatory framework for NSA involvement is often missing.
c. The public sector shows limited willingness to engage with NSAs, probably due to negative experi-
ences in the past or a lack of representative stakeholder organisations. Lack of financial and human
resources in public bodies further restricts the space for NSA involvement.
d. Political involvement of civil society is a very sensitive issue.
Studies reveal that a conjunction of measures is needed to improve NSA participation. The intervention logic
should be holistic, addressing constraints on both sides of the bargaining table. Activities implemented by
GIZ projects can be distinguished according to four categories:
Category 1. Supporting awareness-raising and capacity development of NSAs
Activities address the capacity of stakeholder organisations to disseminate and collect information and
to formulate and advocate evidence-based policy positions. In consequence, representation of interests
is more effective, and members are sensitized with regard to the opportunities of coordinated action
and of adopted policies. Organisations turn into a source of knowledge for public actors.
Category 2. Supporting organised representation of interests
Activities strengthen NSAs’ capacity to represent their interests in an organised, legitimate and sustain-
able way. Outputs improve communication and coordination between NSAs and public officials. The
costs of involving NSAs decrease for both sides, and public-private consultations are more likely to
take place and produce results.
1 See http://go.worldbank.org/HKL3IU1T21,
2
Category 3. Supporting formal consultation mechanisms
Activities promote the coordinated, institutionalized and transparent information exchange between
NSAs and public officials. This has a direct impact on the degree of participatory policy-making and
transparent lobbying. Good practice participatory policy-making results in policy decisions and negoti-
ation outcomes that are better understood, broadly supported and adjusted to the needs of both the
private sector and society.
Category 4. Supporting public-private partnerships (PPPs)
Activities address the framework within which PPPs shall be designed and negotiated. As a result,
PPPs come into being and the private sector, as well as society, benefits from policy programmes de-
cided at the regional level.
The study evaluates good practices for all categories. Main recommendations can be summarized as follows
and constitute different entry points for intervention:
→ Support stakeholder organisations with technical and financial support for collecting relevant infor-
mation and disseminating knowledge. Strengthen organisations’ human capital to enable them to do
advocacy work autonomously in the future. Ensure that study results are distributed among all actors
affected by the topic under study, especially if the studies are commissioned or conducted by GIZ.
Consider trainings as tools to disseminate knowledge.
Good practice examples are: a.) ILEAP’s fellowship programme, b.) the study on micro, small and
medium enterprise sector in Central America, c.) East African Non-Tariff Barriers Index Survey pro-
vided by the East African Business Council (EABC).
→ Support organizational development of legitimate umbrella organisations and designation of nation-
al/regional and public/private focal points. Promote the participatory consultations for formulating
formal strategies of regular and transparent NSA involvement in policy-making.
Good practice examples are: a.) the East African Community's (EAC) public-private dialogue (PPD)
framework and the EABC (acting as focal point).
→ Support once-off and regular PPD events. Effective consultations are the result of the recommenda-
tions given above, as well as financial and/or technical support for the event. However, the political
will and capacity to engage with NSAs is a significant constraint that cannot be solved easily. Time is
needed to build trust among actors.
Good practice examples are: a.) PPDs on pharmaceutical policies in the EAC, b.) PPDs in Guatema-
la.
With regard to project organisation, success factors for increasing political involvement of NSAs are: holistic
intervention logic, a well-organised cooperation between GIZ and the partner country institution or organiza-
tion, donor coordination and cross-country learning.
The analysis conducted has limitations. Because measures promoting civil society participation are not yet
widely implemented, a comprehensive evaluation is not possible. Reports reveal that fostering civil society
participation is a big challenge. At present, raising awareness of policy impacts on vulnerable, politically un-
der-represented groups seems to be the only opportunity to give them a weight in the policy process. Future
activities should focus on enabling civil society to solve collective actions problems and to contribute to the
policy processes with constructive, evidence-based arguments. Adverse side effects of promoting NSA in-
volvement, such as undermining the accountability of politicians towards the electorate, biasing the process in
favour of specific interests or slowing down the political process, cannot be elaborated in detail due to limited
information available in the project documents.
3
2 Background and structure of the study
Policy-making in developing countries has been very much government driven and has lacked the involve-
ment of non-state actors (NSA). Such policy processes have caused delay in policy implementation and lim-
ited political responsiveness to society’s and private sector’s needs. Society’s information gap stimulates op-
position against policies and neither multi-lateral nor regional economic policies get implemented. Further,
informational and organisational benefits from public-private cooperation are not exploited. That is, effective
policy formulation requires involvement of non-state actors at both the regional and national levels. As al-
ready stated in the NEDA-study (2011, p. 2), promoting participatory policy-making must be done carefully
in order to avoid adverse effects like capture and distorted policies. Processes must be in place that enables
governments to interact with non-state actors in a transparent and constructive manner.
The objective of the study is to derive insights into which interventions boost civil society and private sector
participation in policy-making. Policy fields are regional economic integration and bi- or multi-lateral trade
negotiations/agreements. The degree of collective action and systemic participation varies between regions
and countries. Therefore, projects and policy-makers could learn from experiences of others. Recommenda-
tions presented in this study aim at informing projects designing participatory policy processes. The study
does not suggest activities to balance the trade-off between captured and informed governments because
projects have so far not considered this issue and information on good practices is therefore not available.
The study is structured as follows. The third section summarizes briefly the role of private sector and civil
society in policy-making. It lays the basis for the evaluation in sections 4-6. Section 4 presents GIZ projects
implementing activities to promote participatory policy-making and the guideline for the evaluation. Section 5
presents the evaluation of activities promoting private sector involvement in policy-making. Section 6 is look-
ing at the impact of promoting civil society involvement in regional policy-making. In section 7, the role of
development partners is highlighted by taking some first steps towards developing a conceptual framework
for NSA support. Finally, section 8 derives lessons learnt and recommendations for the GIZ.
3 The role of private sector and civil society in policy processes
3.1 Stakeholders2 in participatory policy processes
Figure 1 provides an overview on the categories of stakeholders that should be invited to participate in poli-
cy-making because they are affected or affecting policies or contributing to the implementation or evidence-
based formulation of policies (outsiders). Actors affecting policies are those with formal voting power over
policies, the government and the parliament. Actors who are affected by policies belong to the private sector
and civil society. Consider, for example, that the private sector is interested in free-trade agreements while
civil society organisations like trade unions give workers a voice who may lose jobs under free-trade policies
in the short-run. Outsiders like development partners and research organisations constitute the group of ac-
tors that are involved in policy processes but that are not formally affecting or directly affected by policies.3
The degree to which actors are affected by or affecting policies may vary from low to high depending on the
topic and the political system.
It is not possible to predict which stakeholders should be involved in policy-making without undertaking a
careful analysis of the policy landscape, the policy impacts and the knowledge and expertise of different ac-
tors. Participatory policy-making based on a broad base of organisations and public actors lowers the proba-
bility that vulnerable groups or important public actors are not represented. However, broad based consulta-
tions increase decision-making costs in two ways. Consensus building and discussions will be time consuming
2 A stakeholder is an actor with formal or informal legislative power over policies or is likely to be affected by a policy choice. 3 Please note that the study does not discuss research policies and therefore research organisations do not belong to the group of
directly affected actors.
4
and call for a well-prepared moderator of the process with an increase in number of participants and hetero-
geneity of interests. Overall transaction costs like travel or meeting costs increase if more organisations ac-
tively participate. That is, planning formal stakeholder consultations must balance the trade-off between un-
der- and overrepresentation of actors.
Figure 1: Overview on stakeholders in policy processes
(based on Chevalier and Buckles, 2008)
3.2 Rationale and justification for non-state actor involvement
Elections and participatory policy processes convey society’s interests to governments. While elections only
take place every 4-5 years, depending on a state's constitution, participatory policy processes can contribute
constantly to a democratic policy process by bringing in non-state actors affected by the policies under con-
sideration.4 Such involvement increases the perceived legitimacy of policies and, by doing so, fosters com-
mitment to policy implementation. Moreover, non-state actor participation could complement mechanisms
like elections to hold governments to account. Participation in policy-making enables civil society and private
sector representatives to access critical information in order to empower their members to make informed
judgments about the performance of their governments (World Bank, 2007).5
In addition to these political outcomes, consultative processes allow for policy learning in political circles by
exploiting the “wisdom of the crowd" effect and the informational benefits of lobbying (see e.g. Galton,
1907; Ball, 1995; Lohmann, 1993). Governments often lack connections and information needed to develop
policies that best meet society’s needs. Advocacy groups which are strongly linked to their members can fill
this knowledge gap and provide governments at both the regional and national levels with valuable infor-
mation about policy impacts and problems. Consider, for instance, that non-state actors can contribute to
taking stock of laws and regulations that inhibit trade or economic growth. They may also deliver important
insights into which regulations are needed to promote socially and environmentally sustainable economic
growth.
Finally, involving advocacy groups in policy processes increases a state’s capacity to implement policies. If
included, they can inform their members about policies before they become effective, and the state can save
resources otherwise spent on information dissemination. Further, timely informed actors gain time to prepare
themselves for taking advantage of the policies or for adjusting their businesses to new regulations. In conse-
quence, policies can produce tangible effects earlier than when formulated without non-state actor participa-
tion. Governments receive feedback on how the policy decision impacts the economy earlier than when leav-
4 In case of regional policy, direct democracy (i.e. regional elections) is often missing and NSA involvement is an important mecha-nism to hold regional bodies to account and to improve regional governance.
5 Even though participatory policy processes have many advantages, they can also increase a bias in policies towards the interests of well-organised groups. This study does not go into detail on the adverse effects but the reader should be aware of the complexity inherent to participatory policy-making.
5
ing advocacy groups out of the process and speed of policy learning improves. Moreover, participatory poli-
cy-making creates the space for PPPs in providing pubic goods, like infrastructure. Combining resources can
help to make the investments necessary to foster growth.
3.3 Forms and levels of participation
Figure 2 illustrates the policy cycle, which consists of three steps: policy learning, policy formation, and policy
realization. Involving non-state actors in each of these steps is possible but calls for different forms of partic-
ipation. Non-state actor involvement can range from informal or formal, once-off process participation to
highly structured and transparent participatory policy-making focusing on long-term cooperation. A prerequi-
site for effective participation is the existence of legitimate and competent organisations having close connec-
tions with their members.
Involvement of NSAs in policy formation
Non-state actors could participate in policy formation using three channels: formal consultation mechanisms,
advocacy work and informal lobbying. The latter is often suspected of being misused to influence decisions
and bias policies towards the interests of a specific group. In contrast, formal consultation mechanisms im-
prove the decision-making process by making the use of non-state actor’s knowledge and information trans-
parent. The most common consultation mechanism is the PPD. The PPD Handbook by Herzberg and
Wright (2006) provides detailed information on the organisation and structure of PPDs. Long-term and
structured PPDs are often not implemented in developing countries yet (Ewart, 2009). Consultations mostly
take place as one time dialogues or as public-private workshops. Further, advocacy groups have the oppor-
tunity to invoke change by mobilising their members.
Involvement of NSA in policy formation aims at making decisions about policies jointly. Therefore, relevant
private or civil society representatives need to be invited to participate before final policy decisions are met by
governments or trade agreements are negotiated. They can be included in the agenda-setting and/or negotia-
tion processes. The latter is supposed to be effective and time efficient only if non-state actors were allowed
to influence the political agenda. If the agenda fails at addressing policy topics of relevance for them, spend-
ing scarce resources on lobbying and advocacy work will not be profitable for them and they will withdraw
support of the joint policy-making.
Figure 2: The policy cycle
6
However, even if non-state actors can be involved in agenda-setting and drafting policy proposals, they can-
not attain formal legislative power over policy decisions. Final policies are always subject to legislative bar-
gaining among agents endorsed with political power by the constitution and legislative norms.
Involvement of NSAs in policy realisation
Non-state actor participation in policy realization has two major advantages but partly relies upon their in-
volvement at earlier stages of the policy cycle. On the one hand, their involvement fosters implementation
because civil society or private sector actors attain valuable information about new regulations and opportuni-
ties in a timely and sufficient manner. However, this process is still characterized as one-way and top-down. It
can result in substantial opposition of civil society and private sector towards the new policies. In conse-
quence, policies need to be re-negotiated to avoid that voters withdraw support of the government. On the
other hand, PPPs are a promising mechanism to get policy implemented. PPPs have the advantages that the
policy project benefits from private sector’s experiences in the specific area and that private and public re-
sources are combined to implement the project.
Involvement of NSAs in policy learning
Policy learning processes can greatly benefit from non-state actor involvement. Private sector and civil society
organisations collect and analyse data on policy impacts and problems, identify problems based upon the
experiences of their members and engage in identifying the impacts of policy strategies on their members’
welfare (see FAO, 1990). NSAs are interested in these activities because they need such information to lobby
for their members’ interests effectively. That is, NSAs are, in the optimal case, sources of knowledge which
would not be available to governments without investing many resources. But even though their positions
and experiences are taken into account during this phase of the policy cycle, governments do not necessarily
consider and act upon them.
To ensure the effectiveness of monitoring and evaluation by NSAs, the process must be characterized as a
joint learning with decision makers. Information held by the organisations must be made available to the
public through newsletters, policy briefs or workshops. Further, informal lobbying (i.e., meeting with officials
outside the formal consultation events) can benefit from such learning processes, because information con-
veyed to officials will be based on evidence even though it is probably still biased.
Figure 3 summarizes the relation between the level of engagement of non-state actors in the policy process
and their political influence as described above. Their political influence increases with the degree of interac-
tion between political agents and non-state actors. It is lowest if they are just kept informed about policies but
not consulted. Acting together with governments in public-private partnerships enables them to influence
policy implementation. Policies to be implemented by PPPs are likely to be negotiated with the private sector
because the private sector would not pick up interest in PPPs. That is, PPPs require participation of NSAs
before and after the policy decision has been made.
7
Figure 3: Level of engagement and political influence of NSAs
(Timing of involvement is given in parentheses)
3.4 Impediments to and risks of participation
Participatory policy processes are well received by the development community but, unfortunately, many
factors hamper their implementation in developing countries (see Figure 4: Critical factors for NSA participa-
tion). Factors either affect the demand or supply of participatory policy processes. Non-state actors demand
such processes because they are affected by policy choices of their governments. Governments offer partici-
pation in policy learning, formation and implementation because they may lack information about policy
impacts, voters’ preferences and capacity to implement policies.
The most well-known impediment to the capacity of groups to demand participatory policy-making is the
cost of collective action, as discussed by Olson (1965). Heterogeneity in interests, access to education, com-
munication and transportation infrastructure and group size mainly determine costs of collective action. If
costs exceed the potential gains of organizing interests, groups of actors may not be represented in the policy
arena. Differences in costs across groups cause a biased representation of interests in the policy-making pro-
cess.
However, limited human and financial capacity of organisations in developing countries restricts the oppor-
tunity to engage in policy-making, even if interests are organised. High transaction costs at the regional level
especially complicate their involvement in regional policy processes (see NEDA-study, 2011, p. 8).
Two political factors limit the engagement of non-state actors in policy-making. If participatory policy-
making is not institutionalized, investing resources in collective action is risky for both the private sector and
civil society and is not attractive. Additionally, limited information available in the public about the political
agenda limits the incentives for and awareness of the potential of collective action.
From the viewpoint of government, the low capacity of organisations to present evidence-based solutions
and to use constructive arguments limits the government's incentive to engage with them. Further, GIZ pro-
ject reports reveal that involving civil society in policy-making is a sensitive cultural issue. In many cases a
lack of human and organisational capacity limits the government’s opportunities to interact with non-state
actors.
8
Figure 4: Critical factors for NSA participation
Even if participatory policy processes are one pillar of good governance, they can lead to the contrary if not
organised carefully. Herzberg and Wright especially highlight the following risks of PPDs which are also con-
sidered to affect the results of civil society involvement in policy processes (Herzberg and Wright, 2006,
p.13):
i. Reinforcing vested interest
ii. Over and under representation
iii. Sustainability
iv. One man shows
v. Political risks
vi. Institutional misalignments
According to points i and ii, participatory policy-making can undermine the accountability of the government
and foster governments captured by special interests using the consultations to seek for rents. That is, careful
planning of participatory policy processes must include an explicit commitment to transparency, numerous
working groups to ensure a broad base, and the incorporation of monitoring and accountability mechanisms
(Herzberg and Wright, 2006). All other points relate to factors not directly addressing the representation of
non-state actors in the policy process but the overall effectiveness of PPDs. Therefore they are not discussed
in detail and the interested reader is recommended to read the PPD Handbook by Herzberg and Wright
(2006).
4 Evaluation approach
4.1 Guideline
This section describes the approach used to evaluate the development interventions by GIZ to foster private
sector and civil society involvement in trade negotiations. According to the evaluation goal of deriving best
practices, a result-focused approach is used. The evaluation is guided by the commonly accepted tool of logic
models customized to analyse the impacts of measures promoting participatory policy processes. The result
hypotheses are based on interviews with GIZ representatives and project documents. Even though they are
assumed ex-post, they provide for a systematic examination of the interventions’ success in fostering in-
volvement. Logic models are developed for four categories of interventions: (i) supporting awareness-raising6
and capacity development of NSAs, (ii) supporting organised representation of interests, (iii) supporting for-
6 In this study, these interventions are evaluated with regard to their impact on active non-state actor involvement in policy-making. Whether they raised awareness of public officials about policies affecting interests of non-state actors, is left for future research. Main goal is to analyze the political participation of non-state actors and not the political responsiveness of governments to citi-zens’ and private sector needs.
9
mal consultation mechanisms and (iv) supporting PPPs. The cause-effect hypotheses proposed in the follow-
ing describe the major immediate results to be achieved. The aim is not to provide a detailed examination, but
to present a systematic and reliable judgment of the effectiveness of different interventions and answer the
general question: “Which direct or indirect results can the development measure achieve?” Direct and indirect
results7 are defined as follows:
Direct result
Immediate result of the intervention; impact on systemic, democratic and process participa-
tion of non-state actors.
Indirect result
Intervention results that occur after the intervention has been completed, focusing on the
outcomes of NSA involvement (i.e., better informed policies, which are supported by NSAs
and balancing their needs; enhanced effectiveness of policy implementation).
The evaluation will focus on soft indicators, i.e. experiences and observations of GIZ representatives when
implementing programmes, as objectively verifiable outcomes and impacts are either hard to attribute to a
measure or lack written documentation.8 Figure 5 presents the result chains for the four categories of inter-
ventions. While the direct results are observable, higher impacts on policy decisions and outcomes cannot be
reliably identified. Whether interventions have a higher impact depends on: the legislative bargaining among
government officials at the regional or national level, functioning participatory policy processes and trust
between private sector and government officials.
Figure 5: Overview about the impacts of interventions
7 Consider that evaluating the impact of development interventions can only be done systematically and reliably if trade policies are implemented or decided upon and if enough time has passed to build trust among actors. However, most of the pro-jects/interventions have just started and long-term results are not available. If information about immediate impacts is available, the specific interventions are highlighted in boxes with a more detailed description.
8 Please note that even though indicators refer to information documented in the reports or given in the interviews, they often rely on stakeholder surveys, interviews or policy documents.
10
Table 1: Indicators for direct results
Category Indicator for direct results
(i) Supporting awareness-raising and capacity development of
NSAs
a. Feedback/reactions by NSAs as documented in reports
(ii) Supporting organised representation of interests a. Functioning of national or regional umbrella organisations
as information providers
b. Their involvement in policy process
(iii) Supporting formal consultation mechanisms a. Change in involvement
b. PPD framework in practice
(iv) Supporting PPPs a. Launch of PPPs
To explore risks and success factors, a SWOT analysis is carried out based on information available on inter-
ventions of one category. The analysis identifies internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (op-
portunities and threats) that constrain or enhance the likelihood of achieving direct results. The SWOT ma-
trices help GIZ project managers to identify potential threats and opportunities of their activities by compar-
ing matrices with the situation in the country/region. With this information, they can decide which interven-
tions should be implemented and lead the project to success.
Activities addressing constraints at the demand side have not been evaluated in detail as information is lim-
ited. However, reports reveal that supporting the designation of focal points is expected to enable the public
sector to organize interaction. Specific strategies how to convince the public sector of the benefits of PPDs
are not portrayed. Several reports mention that the lack of willingness and heavy workload of public officials
limit improvement or implementation of participatory policy-making.
4.2 Data: Projects financed by the German Development Cooperation
To evaluate measures promoting NSA involvement, 12 GIZ projects are considered (see
Table 2). An overview on the documents studied and interviews done is given in the Appendix. Three pro-
jects are completed; all others are still on-going. Therefore the evidence base is limited and only short-term
impacts of projects on the political participation of non-state actors can be analysed. Eight of the projects are
funded by the BMZ-funded fund for trade policy and trade promotion (“Monterrey Fund”). The Monterrey
Fund aims at building the capacities of partner country decision-makers and non-state actors to develop and
implement coherent and comprehensive strategies for the promotion of trade and investment. Achievements
of projects funded by the Fund will be highlighted in boxes in Section 5.
Table 2: Overview about GIZ projects
Project Region/
Country
Time
period
Funded by
Monterrey
Fund
Topic Partner institution
Mon.Trade Mongolia 2012-
2013
yes Bilateral trade negotiations with
Japan
Mongolian Ministry of Eco-
nomic Development
ILEAP.WAfrica9 Mali, Côte d’Ivoire
and Ghana
2010-
2013
yes Promoting collective action Private or public sector actors
9 The NEDA study also presents insights on the involvement of NSAs in regional policy-making in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). This information will be used to complement experiences made in GIZ projects.
11
CAR.OTN Caribbean 2009-
2013
yes Support Caribbean Community
and Common Market
(CARICOM) in dialogues with
the EU and other trade institu-
tions
Office of Trade Negotiations
(OTN)
CAR.EPA Caribbean 2008-
2014
no Supporting the ratification of
the CARIFORUM-EC Eco-
nomic Partnership Agreement
Caribbean Export Agency
CAmerica.
MSME
Central America
(El Salvador,
Guatemala and
Honduras)
2004 -
2008
2011 -
2012
yes Promote consideration of
MSME interests in bargaining
international trade agreements;
Supporting SICA (Sistema de la
Integración Centroamericana) in
negotiating the trade agreement
with the EU
Ministries of Economic Af-
fairs and CENPROMYPE,
the regional institution for
promoting MSMEs
Laos.REI Laos 2011-
2013
yes Supporting Laos in using op-
portunities from regional inte-
gration and especially from
regional trade integration.
Ministry of Industry and
Commerce; the Lao National
Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (LNCCI) 10; the
National Small and Medium
Sized Enterprise Office
(SMEPDO) 11
EAC.REI East African
Community
2009-
2016
no Support to the EAC economic
integration process
EAC-Secretariat
EAC.Pharma East African
Community
2008-
2010
yes Pharmaceutical sector promo-
tion
EAC Secretariat; pharmaceuti-
cal industry
ILEAP.EAC 2010-
2013
yes Collective action of service
industries and strengthening the
private sector’s capacity in
advocacy work at the regional
level
EAC-Secretariat
SADC.REI Southern African
Develop-ment
Community
2012-
2015
no Support to regional economic
integration
SADC Secretariat
CAsia.REI Kazakhstan, Kyr-
gyzstan, Uzbeki-
stan and Tadzhiki-
stan
2004-
2014
no Support to regional economic
integration (e.g. promoting the
implementation of "single-
window" systems)
Ministries of Economic Af-
fairs
SICA.REI El Salvador, Gua-
temala, Honduras
2011-
2012
yes Promote regional trade integra-
tion among members of SICA,
with an emphasis on socially
and environmentally sustainable
trade
Secretaria de Integración
Económica Centroamericana
(SIECA)
10 See LNCCI’s website (http://www.laocci.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22&Itemid=27&lang=en). 11 See SMEPDO’s website (http://www.smepdo.org/info/1/?lang=en). In November 2012, SMEPDO has been renamed to “De-
partment for SME Promotion” and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce
12
5 Evaluation of measures fostering involvement of the private sec-
tor in policy-making
Table 1 contains a synopsis of projects and their implemented interventions. Interventions are listed by the
four categories: i) supporting awareness raising and capacity development of NSAs, ii) supporting organized
representation of interests, iii) supporting formal consultation mechanisms and iv) supporting PPPs.
Table 3: Synopsis of effectiveness of interventions
Project Awareness raising and capacity develop-
ment of NSAs
Organized
representation
of interests
Formal consultation mecha-
nisms
PPPs
Stu
die
s an
d r
epo
rts
Surv
eys
Wo
rksh
op
Tra
inin
g
Tra
de
fair
s an
d lec
ture
s
Hum
an c
apit
al
Man
agem
ent
Reg
. um
bre
lla o
rgan
isat
ion
Nat
. um
bre
lla o
rgan
isat
ion
Co
mm
itte
e
PP
D f
ram
ewo
rk
Fo
cal p
oin
ts
PP
D
Wo
rksh
op
Wo
rkin
g gr
oup
PP
P n
etw
ork
PP
P
Mon.Trade E E
ILEAP.
WAfrica
E E N
E
N
E
CAR.OTN I I
CAR.EPA I I E I I
CAmerica.
MSME
E I E E E E
Laos.REI I I I
EAC.REI E E I E
P
E
EAC.Pharma E E I
ILEAP.EAC E E E N
E
N
E
SADC.REI E E I P E
N
E
I
CAsia.REI E E
SICA.REI E E E E
Notes: E: effective; I: implemented but limited information available and therefore not evaluated in detail; P: planned; NE: not effective.
13
5.1 Supporting awareness raising and capacity development of non-state actors
5.1.1 Knowledge generation and dissemination
Interventions addressing the capacity of organisations in forming evidence-based policy positions and raising
awareness of the political agenda and policy impacts can be split into three broad categories: (i) studies and
reports, (ii) surveys and (iii) knowledge dissemination. Projects commission or conduct studies in order to (a)
inform public-private consultations and workshops or (b) support advocacy work and information provision
of organisations. Topics of the studies vary. Non-state actors seem to value all studies undertaken to inform
policy-making. This implies that they addressed important issues about which sufficient information was not
available. Activities under the category “surveys” focus on involving non-state actors in knowledge produc-
tion rather than writing donor-led studies and reports. Reports reveal that knowledge development and dis-
semination are complements in the process of stipulating private sector involvement and NSA-friendly poli-
cies. However, the influence of such activities on final policy decisions depends on legislative bargaining at
the top tier of government.
ILEAP’s studies about the opportunities of collective action in the services sectors of East and West Africa
have led to workshops with broad participation. Unfortunately, no further action towards organising interests
has followed. That is, studies have just been effective in raising the awareness of opportunities of collective
action. Lack of seed funding to institutionalise coalitions of service industries (CSIs) is mentioned as a major
reason why no CSIs have been launched yet.
Results from the study on geographic indication in the Caribbean, commissioned by the project CAR.OTN,
are planned to be disseminated via workshops and cannot have influenced action and policies so far.12
Studies in Central America about MSME-friendly policies were conducted in cooperation with the national
but institutional partner and discussed at PPDs. In Guatemala, knowledge generation in combination with
dissemination has been successful in building consensus about MSME-friendly policies.
The team of SICA.REI has disseminated a study about the recent steps in and impacts of regional economic
integration. This donor-led study was discussed at PPD events after being distributed to public and private
actors. It has influenced the political debates trade integration.
In Central Asia, GIZ presented reports to involved actors indicating which trade procedures are limiting for-
eign trade and the potential of a single-window system. Further, a macroeconomic study on the impacts of
the single-window system on economic growth was conducted and disseminated. As a result, partner coun-
tries agreed on the implementation of the single-window system elaborated by public and private sector in
various working groups.
The programme strengthening policy capacities in SADC commissioned company case studies. Such studies
will be used to inform the political actors about constraints to trade as perceived by the private sector. Results
from the planned PPDs based on these studies are not available yet.
In Laos, non-state actors were supported in providing information and evidence-based lobbying. The project
conducted a study on trade potential in the ASEAN region that was used to develop sector-specific hand-
books. Such handbooks inform Laos’s private sector about export opportunities. They have been discussed
with private sector representatives in provicincial workshops. This project is one of the few that directly en-
gage with the private sector in generating and disseminating knowledge.13
12 Reports remain unclear about the detailed of organization of such workshops and the scope of participants. 13 Further, the GIZ-programme “Human Resource Development for a Market Economy (HRDME)” supports its partners (private
and public sector representiatives) in conducting a biannual enterprise survey. Insights from the survey serve as inputs into the pol-icy process. The field work has been realized with the support of lecturers and students of the University of Laos. Results are dis-tributed, inter alia, via the LAO PDR Trade Portal.
14
In the EAC region, the regional private-sector umbrella organisation EABC is supported in collecting infor-
mation for formulating policy positions and invoking policy change based on their members’ experiences.
The EAC East African Non-Tariff Barriers Index Survey is an example of a broadly accepted and valuable
tool and is described in more detail below. The tool enables the umbrella organisation to identify bottlenecks
in trade and assess the business climate at national and regional levels. Based on the findings, EABC can ad-
vocate for policies eliminating obstacles to regional trade as experienced by their members. In consequence, it
is ensured that policies will target at problems of high interest for the private sector and that the elimination
of these problems will foster economic trade. However, due to the lack of financial funding, the survey was
not undertaken in 2009 and 2010. The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) and GIZ resumed
funding for the years 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Project officials consider reliable evidence provided by studies as the most important input into PPDs. How-
ever, non-state actors, for instance in the EAC region, complain about the donor-led studies and demand
more NSA-driven knowledge production.
Independent of the approach to collect evidence, it is obvious that results can only be incorporated into poli-
cy decisions and actions if they are disseminated. Therefore, various practices of knowledge dissemination are
described before summarizing evaluation results with a SWOT analysis.
There are various practices to promote knowledge dissemination and information take-up. Three types of
interventions can be distinguished: (i) workshops and consultations, (ii) trainings, (iii) other activities.
Organizing events where non-state actors meet, discuss and agree on policy recommendations enhances their
ability to use evidence to form and present their policy positions. As mentioned above, ILEAP’s workshops
on the creation of CSIs have been well-received but did not result in action due to a lack of funding. In all
other cases, reports and interviews do not present sufficient information to judge the workshop’s impacts.
Trainings are another activity to strengthen NSAs’ capacity in influencing policies and using policies to their
full potential. The projects in Mongolia and Central America implemented such activities with success ac-
cording to the evaluations in the project reports. In Mongolia, trainings enabled negotiators to act competent-
ly even if they had no or limited experience with trade negotiations. Trainings in Central America especially
aimed at introducing the risks and potentials of trade agreements to the private sector. Further, a toolkit was
developed to simulate bargaining situations for training purposes. Private-sector actors learned how to influ-
ence policy negotiations to their favour based on this toolkit. Whether such innovative methods lead to suc-
cess is not evaluated in more detail in the reports. It would be difficult to disentangle the impact of this inter-
vention from various others that have affected private sector’s influence on trade policy agreements with the
Box 1: Example of success: East African Non-Tariff Barriers Index (NTBI) Survey
(formerly: East African Community Business Climate Index Survey)
Leadership: East African Business Council
Aim: Facilitate the EAC integration process through providing information on obstacles to regional trade and enabling
business environments.
Implementation: yearly survey; collect actual evidence on incidences and impacts of Non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to intra-EAC
trade under three clusters (formerly five): customs, immigration, standards and export inspection, weighbridges and police
roadblocks.
Results: Used by private sector for advocacy activities and by public sector to identify areas of reforms; public sector attends
the Business Climate Index (BCI) launch events; in 2011, ten NTBs were eliminated (unclear to what extent the surveys or
the NTB MM contributed to the elimination).
Sustainability: It is unclear whether the EABC will have the financial resources to conduct the survey on its own.
Success factors: Accepted as a valuable source of information by both sides of the bargaining.
Constraints: Highly dependent on donor funding.
15
EU. Further, the project on promoting trade integration in SICA has been effective in improving PPDs
through conducting a training on “working with stakeholder dialogues”.
Finally, there exist several other less-structured activities to foster the exchange of experiences among NSAs
and the dissemination of evidence, including trade fairs and lectures. Such activities attract a great deal of
attention. However, their impact on participating in the political process is not easy to monitor or evaluate.
Positive feedback raises hopes that the private sector will support policies or engage in collective action if the
policies conflict with their interests.
Strengths and opportunities
Figure 6 summarizes the SWOT analyses for promoting evidence-based lobbying and policy-making based on
project documentation, interviews and other studies. The analysis shows that interventions have a significant
impact on the capacity of the private sector to influence policy decisions. Interviewees even stated that the
lack of informed policy positions of the private sector hinders trust-building among government and the
private sector. Investing in these interventions will pay off in two ways. First, an awareness of benefits and
risks is raised and private sector representatives use evidence to form their policy positions. Second, NSAs are
enabled to provide solutions or at least information to specific policy problems demanded by public officials.
Four major opportunities are worth noting and explained using examples documented in the reports. First,
the organisation ILEAP invests in an in-country/region advisory network of experts that conducts analyses
on behalf of national or regional actors. Thereby, ILEAP ensures that local experts are involved in policy
research and that a wide scope of stakeholders has access to advisory services (see the next section). Second,
the project in Central America took some first steps towards involving national universities in informing ac-
tors about policy impacts. In the future, such cooperation could improve sustainability of workshops or train-
ings as local actors get trained in delivering such services. Further, the project has applied an innovative
toolkit to train negotiators in political bargaining, which might be a promising way to disseminate knowledge
in future projects. Finally, governments engage in institutionalizing PPDs as documented in later sections.
These dialogues will give the private sector the opportunity to use their acquired knowledge for influencing
policy decisions in the future.
Weaknesses and threats
The major weaknesses include the following issues: The time- and resource-consuming nature of the activities
constrains opportunities for private sector actors which usually have limited resources available to produce
and disseminate evidence (see also threats). Without strengthening their revenue base, the positive effects of
the donor-led interventions cannot be replicated in future. Further, members of organisations often criticize
that evidence is produced externally and that their experiences and information are not used to learn about
policy impacts and advocate for their interests. Unfortunately, projects have just started to implement bot-
tom-up approaches to knowledge generation. Moreover, the Business Organisation report by the Internation-
Effectiveness: Overall, projects have been successful in bringing evidence into the policy-making process. Studies address
issues at stake and results are provided to all actors, private and public. Projects further trained stakeholders in political
bargaining and policy use.
Sustainability: Projects aimed at involving stakeholder organisations in producing analyses but can still do better. So far,
stakeholder surveys are not used to exploit members’ experiences with policies. The toolkit developed to simulate bargaining
situations is a promising way to achieve sustainable impact on the capacity of stakeholders to influence policies.
Success factors: Study results have been made available to involved actors and were or are planned to be discussed in public-
private workshops.
Constraints: No information was found in the reports or stated by the interviewees.
Box 2: Remarks on projects under the Monterrey Fund
16
al Trade Centre reveals that the way information is presented plays an important role for its uptake by the
business community.
Project reports do not directly highlight any threats to the impact of activities besides the limited capacity of
organisations to undertake, for instance, own surveys. Public-private interactions are highly relevant for the
uptake of the knowledge in the political process.
Figure 6: SWOT analysis: Knowledge generation and dissemination
5.1.2 Organizational capacity: Human capital and management operations14
Organizational capacity development is composed of a wide field of activities. This section summarizes activi-
ties aiming at improving an organisation’s human capital and management operations. Two projects,
ILEAP.EAC and CAR.EPA, explicitly engage and document activities. ILEAP’s strategy and achievements are
presented in the box below as they are funded by the Monterrey Fund.
14 Project activities have mainly focused on organizational capacity development at public partner institutions. If these activities boost stakeholder involvement in future, it is an interesting evaluation topic but not addressed in this study. Information about the impact of such activities on stakeholder involvement is not documented.
Strengths
- Information exchange between actors
- Dissemination of research evidence
- Policy learning and training
- Raising awareness of problems/policy advantages
- Solid evidence on political issues
- Monitoring of policy impacts and obstacles
- NSA as „Institution of knowledge“
Weaknesses
- Time/resource consuming activities
- Donor-led research
- Ability to communicate complicated issues
Opportunities
- Advisory network of experts
- Cooperation with universities
- Development of toolkits
- PPDs
Threats
- Limited human and financial capacity of organisations
- Political process participation of stakeholders
- Uptake of evidence by actors
Box 3: Remarks on projects under the Monterrey Fund
17
CAR.EPA has promoted public relations activities (e.g., launch of websites, dissemination of regular newslet-
ters) of the newly established Coalitions of Service Industries (CSIs).15 Due to the relatively young age of the
organisations, these activities still need to time produce tangible effects.
The project on supporting the EAC integration process discusses the limited organisational capacity and gov-
ernance structure of the EABC. However, project reports do not mention in detail activities to be imple-
mented to improve governance and management.
5.2 Supporting organised representation of interests
Projects followed two approaches in promoting collective action. Most projects fostered collective action by
promoting launch of regional and national (umbrella) organisations. But one project, the project on MSME-
friendly policies in Central America, made significant contributions to the coordinated representation of in-
terests via institutionalizing a MSME committee (CAmerica. MSME).
In the EAC region, three different projects implemented interventions to build regional umbrella organisa-
tions. ILEAP aimed at strengthening the foundation of a Coalition of Service Industries (CSI) at the regional
level. The project produced a road map how to bring a regional organization into being. Further, a steering
committee was set up which will be responsible for the launch. However, given the project documentation
and interview, the CSI is not yet founded. Lack of seed funding seems to be a significant constraint.
Another project promoted the founding of the Federation of East African Pharmaceutical Manufacturers
(FEAPM) in EAC (EAC.Pharma). The head office is located at the EABC close to the EAC headquarters.
This guarantees low transaction costs of engaging with the public sector for advocacy purposes. According to
the federation’s website, registering the association legally is done and first activities to develop the sector’s
capacity in producing medicines and making its voice heard are undertaken. A regional workshop, supported
by the PTB, was held in July 2013 to raise the awareness for the need of a good quality assurance process in
the sector and to promote more active collaboration between quality service providers. Further, FEAPM
supported the first Africa Pharmaceutical Summit that has brought together various key stakeholders and
country delegates to discuss Africa pharmaceutical sector issues in September 2013. But as networks among
organisations and links between associations and government need time to develop and to strengthen, it is
hardly possible for the federation to produce tangible impact on legislation within the short time period be-
tween foundation and this evaluation.
Further, the GTZ (GIZ) supported the foundation of the apex body of the private sector EABC between
2003 and 2010 with technical assistance and grants for core funding. Now, about 10 years later, EABC is an
example of success showing impact on regional policy-making and being accepted as private sector repre-
sentative by government officials. Therefore, the EABC, its structure and impact is described in detail in the
box below (for further information, see NEDA study, 2011). The example of EABC highlights that a lot of
time is needed to institutionalise private sector organisations as voice of their members. However, statements
15 See, for example, the webpage of the Trinidad and Tobago CSI (http://www.ttcsi.org/home/).
Effectiveness: The communication between EABC, EAC, ILEAP and partner states has improved due to the placement of
an ILEAP Fellow at EABC (self-evaluation by ILEAP). The Fellow has helped to achieve a more unified private sector voice
in the context of EPA services negotiations. Advisory support to found regional or national CSIs has not been effective (i.e.,
there is no evidence on the EABC website that a regional CSI has been launched and is cooperating with the EABC, as
planned at the workshop in 2009). Lack of funding is mentioned as the major reason why the promotion of collective action
failed.
Sustainability: ILEAP’s fellowship programme focuses on building capacity to coordinate projects and write research papers
in the region. Therefore, the potential to have a lasting impact on good-quality advocacy work is given.
Success factors: Fellows are provided with supervision, professional development and guidance by senior researchers.
Constraints: No constraints are discovered.
18
from interviews documented in the NEDA study raise the question whether the EABC represents private
sector interests effectively, even though EABC is involved in policy-making. It seems that EABC does not
seek to influence policies but focuses on providing members with information about the political agenda.
Such information increases the likelihood of implementation and use of policies, but policies may not re-
spond efficiently to private sector concerns.
In the Caribbean, the project team of CAR.EPA was able to institutionalize the Caribbean Network of Ser-
vice Coalitions (CNSC) as regional platform for advocacy activities and information exchange. National CSIs
are members of this platform. The platform has proven to be capable of organizing a PPD in the Dominican
Republic and a Business Forum of the Caribbean Architects Mutual Recognition Agreement Committee.
However, it is not ensured that the cooperation at the regional level will enable better information flows be-
tween the hierarchies of organization and governments. Lack of human and financial resources hinders na-
tional CSIs to come into being and to work effectively. So even if a regional network is founded, aggregating
national interests and speaking with one, legitimate voice in policy negotiations may fail.
Functioning interest aggregation at the regional level requires that national associations exist. ILEAP pro-
motes founding of national private sector associations (ILEAP.WAfrica ). Activities focus on raising aware-
ness of the benefits of organised interests in Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Mali via workshops and studies high-
lighting the impact of coordinated action. However, given the information at hand, no such coalitions of
service industries have come into being so far.
The project team in Central America (CAmerica.MSME) has chosen to institutionalize regional and national
committees representing MSMEs interests in negotiations with the EU. This activity builds on the positive
experience made in Chile and Colombia and is thereby an example of effective cross-country learning. The
approach applies a mixture of instruments. According to the project documentation, the activities have been
responsible for the involvement of the private sector in internal and external policy negotiations. Further, the
EU has accepted the committee as the representative of MSME interests in negotiations. Detailed infor-
mation on the approach is given in Box .
Design of intervention: Budget support; donor second experts; technical assistance.
Effectiveness: Allowed to attend official meeting of the public sector; actively engaged in information sharing with its mem-
bers; formulating private sector viewpoints on key policy issues; organizing PPDs; however, substantial intervention in and
contribution to policy making is doubted.
Impact: Based on an EABC report, regional government solved NTBs to trade.
Sustainability: Constrained in generating income by itself; discourse about the role of association vs. corporative, both are
members of the EABC at the moment; legitimacy is doubted.
Success factors: Long tradition in the region (founded in 1997); many members; constant donor support; NTBI Survey; in
cooperation with TMEA the network level capacity is strengthened in order to develop clusters of knowledge specialized in
one sector; sound cooperation with national private sector apex bodies.
Constraints: Policy recommendations are seen as top-down and prepared with external support instead of relying on mem-
bers’ experiences and information.
Box 4: Example of success: East African Business Council
19
Other examples of collective action in the private sector (not supported by the GIZ)16
Another example17 of regional business associations being responsible for coordinated public-private dia-
logues and information of private sector actors is the SADC Employers Group (SEG) which has changed its
name to SADC Private Sector Forum (see NEDA 2011). SEG’s advantages in representing interests seem to
be i) the long tradition in the region, even though SEG was first based on a loose arrangement between em-
ployers’ associations, and ii) the clear definition of whose interests are represented. However, the group’s
website does not provide information on active advocacy work since 2010.
The case of ASCCI is described in the NEDA study (2011). Even though the apex body proved successful in
service delivery and represented 18 national chambers of commerce, trade associations and employer associa-
tions, the organization has not affected policy-making. Main constraint was that the public officials have not
16 This information is provided because it is valuable for understanding constraints to collective action in Africa. 17 The African Business Round Table (ABR) is an RBO in ECOWAS region which has achieved observer status and which seems to
be actively engaged in private sector development. However, the information provided by the NEDA study and on their website is too limited to evaluate the effectiveness of advocacy activities. Therefore, this example is not described in more detail.
Box 6: Example of success: Comité MIPYME Centroamericano
Box 5: Remarks on projects under the Monterrey Fund
Design of intervention: Consulting a local employee of the partner institution CENPROMYPE in designing a work plan for
integrating MSMEs in decisions; CENPROMYPE is responsible for the launch of the committee; regional committee and
national committees in every Central American country based on the benchmarking with Chilean and Columbian experts;
several meetings to launch the committee; video conferences.
Effectiveness: Coordinated action and aligned policy positions of MSMEs; defined entry point for public-private dialogues;
effective private sector voice in EU negotiations.
Sustainability: National partner is responsible for the process; heterogeneity of MSME sector, financial constraints and low
performance of three national committees may limit the sustainability of the intervention
Success factors: Considering experiences in other countries (Benchmarking with experts); capacity development of commit-
tee leaders; simulations of the bargaining between the private and public sector; video conferences to decrease costs of
transaction
Constraints: Lack of support by EU; heterogeneity of the MSME sector.
Effectiveness: Umbrella organisations were just launched or in planning. Thus, their effectiveness cannot be evaluated. The
launch of the SME committee in the Central America was successful and the committee has proven to be effective to make
the private sectors’ voice heard. However, it is hardly possible to evaluate the long-term performance of the committee due
to the short time period between foundation and this evaluation. ILEAPs initiatives have not shown significant impact on
the launch of CSIs in EAC and ECOWAS/UEMOA.
Sustainability: The sustainability of the committee project is questioned as the national committees are not working effective-
ly in three of the six countries; as the FEAPM is linked to the successful EABC and just represents interests of the pharma-
ceutical sector (simplifying interests aggregation potentially), the outlook for effective, long-term work of the association is
positive. Both projects have put emphasis on donor cooperation to ensure that achievements will last through continued
support of the work of organisations/committees when the project funding ended.
Major success factors: Major success factors are the benchmarking with experts to work out a roadmap how to promote PS
involvement (Committee), linking of national and regional organisations or committees, respectively, (FEAPM) and the
holistic approach of setting up a platform and training the platforms leaders (Committee).
Major constraints: Lack of political will and capacity to create entry points for coordinated public-private dialogue (Central
America).
Outlook: FEAPM could learn from the EABC how to get along with having corporative and member based associations as
members.
20
accepted ASCCI as the legitimate voice of the private sector due to limited scope of membership. In conse-
quence, members withdrew support of the organization. ASCCI is now in the process of repositioning itself
to provide valuable services to its members.18
The example of the SADC Business Forum reveals that if trust between public and private sector is missing,
a successful cooperation and dialogue will not happen. Even though the Regional Indicative Strategic Devel-
opment Plan, the main policy document of the SADC, foresees stronger cooperation with the private sector,
member states refused to engage with a private sector apex body (see NEDA 2011).
Another example where the legitimacy of a regional organisation is questioned is the case of FEWACCI in
ECOWAS region (see NEDA, 2011). While public sector has trusted the association, the private sector repre-
sentatives have been sceptic whether the organisation is truly private sector driven. Membership of state fi-
nanced chambers of commerce has raised the mistrust.
Strengths and opportunities
Organizing interests has proven to strengthen alignment of private sector policy position and to improve
coordination of action. Umbrella organisations are well-received as distributors of political information by
their members. They define a clear entry point for the communication between the private and public sector.
It is expected that the first steps towards acting with common voice will contribute to continued advocacy
activities. However, umbrella organisations have to prove to be effective in influencing policies to the ad-
vantage of their members. Otherwise, they will not value the efforts taken by the organization but will with-
draw the, to date mostly non-monetary, support. Examples of success may invoke collective action and activi-
ties to speak with one voice in other countries and policy fields. Given that lobbying generates profits, will-
ingness to pay for collective action may increase.
Weaknesses and threats
Various internal and external factors hamper the success of collective action. Project reports reveal that the
unbalanced representation of interests and un-clarified roles of different members limit successful and sus-
tainable collective action. Further, if public officials do not perceive the (umbrella) organisation as a legiti-
mate, common voice of the private sector, they will not accept it as contact point and bring the private sector
on board. As private sector interests are heterogeneous within regions and also often within a sector, organiz-
ing collective action is an ambitious tasks. Significant constraints are finding the optimal organisation size,
structure and scope of membership.
Several external factors make improving private sector involvement in policy making through organizing
interests difficult. First, even if (umbrella) organisations exist, a lack of human and financial resources inhibits
their political participation and evidence-based representation of interests. Especially lobbying at the regional
level suffers from severe transaction costs. A lack of political will and capacity to interact with private sector
actors make the outcomes of investments in lobbying unpredictable and risky. While improving the actors’
capacity to interact can be approached with technical and financial assistance, the will to engage with each
other and to be open to fruitful discussion needs time to develop and requires constructive public-private
interactions. In most projects, raising the awareness that private sector involvement can contribute to achiev-
ing policy goals has proven to be successful in overcoming this threat. Once-off consultations and dialogues
with organisations supported by GIZ have taken place. However, if a formal PPD framework is missing,
regular and transparent involvement is not predictable for the private sector and incentives for investments in
collective action are limited. Further, competing and fragmented representation of interests has evolved in
some regions. Such a political landscape complicates participatory policy making because public sector offi-
cials have to identify the correct focal points for contact. At the regional level, limited connection among the
tiers of organisation make effective lobbying difficult.
18 According to the website of SADC Secretariat, a Memorandum of Understanding is signed with ASCCI to ensure private sector involvement in SADC policy decisions (http://www.sadc.int/issues/private-sector/). For further information, see http://www.ascci.info.
21
Figure 7: SWOT analysis: Institutional organisation of interests
5.3 Supporting formal consultation mechanisms
Supporting formal consultation includes two approaches: i) promoting a formal framework for participatory
policy-making and ii) supporting public-private consultations. Promoting a formal framework targets at im-
proving the systemic participation of NSAs through broadly supported regulations of involvement and insti-
tutionalized focal points for interaction. Support of public-private consultations aims at bringing private and
public actors together in order to formulate demand responsive policies. In many cases, non-recurring public-
private consultations are the first step towards building trust among actors needed for long-term cooperation.
In summary, projects have achieved to organise many one-off consultations that brought the private sector
on board and laid the basis for developing regulations for private sector involvement. That is, the private
sector’s point of view has influenced policies, but participatory policy making is not predictable yet. Insecurity
inherent to private sectors investments in lobbying activities still exists in many countries. Further, reports do
not mention how PPDs have to be organised to ensure joint decision-making of public and private sector
actors and binding decisions. It seems that even if organised consultations have made lobbying activities
transparent, the decision-making process is not formalized yet. However, PPDs have had significant impact
on policy strategies in the regions and countries (e.g., MSME friendly political strategy in Guatemala, PPPs in
pharmaceutical production in the EAC).
The EAC- and SADC projects have been effective in putting a PPD framework on the agenda of public and
private actors.19 Final adoption is still pending according to the documents. Both strategy formulation pro-
cesses have been participatory and actors at the national and regional level have been involved. The frame-
work in EAC is exemplified in the following to provide insights on a broadly accepted PSI strategy.
The EAC framework envisages that a forum will be held annually and that the private sector, civil society and
EAC Secretariat agree on the forum’s agenda before the meeting takes place. The approach to participatory
policy-making is quite comprehensive. Besides regional events, national PPDs shall inform regional policy
19 In some cases, business organisations have signed memorandums of understanding (MoU) with the regional Secretariats instead of developing PPD frameworks and strategies (see e.g. ASCII in SADC and EAFF in EAC). The impact of such MoU on PSI cannot be evaluated as GIZ does not engage in promoting these formal agreements and information is not available.
Strengths
- Improved coordination of action
- Aligned representation of interests
- Enhanced information flow between hierarchies of organisations and among members
- Decreased costs of transaction for public-private information exchange
Weaknesses
- Unbalanced representation of interests
- Unlegitimate representation of interests
- Heterogenous interests
- Weak member organisations
Opportunities
- Incentives to organize and to value advocacy work due to positive impacts
- Financial resources with improving economic well being of members, with generating benefits for stakeholders
Threats
- Limited human and financial capacity of members
- Political will to cooperate with organisations
- Political process participation
- Competing organisations/fragmented representation of sector's interests
22
implementation. National organisations informed by their regional apex bodies will meet with national minis-
tries and the positions agreed upon at the national meeting will be forwarded to the regional level. That is the
EAC Secretariat and other relevant EAC decision-making bodies will get feedback on political issues from
different political levels and from private sector and civil society. The framework addresses the risks to sound
PPDs like unbalanced representation of interests or unfocused events. The framework also reflects on the
problem of legitimate and organised representation of interests at the regional level, even though a solution of
this problem is out of scope of the framework.20
Major constraints to the formulation of the EAC framework have been the lack of capacity of the public
sector to engage in the preparation and the low priority given to the project. These adverse conditions are
observed, although the EAC development strategy puts the promotion of private sector involvement on top
of the political agenda. For the SADC-framework, constraints are not mentioned in the reports. Major suc-
cess factor in both projects is the participatory approach and involvement of different political levels.21 Fur-
ther, in both countries regional apex bodies of the private sector already existed when the consultations have
started.
In SADC, GIZ supported successfully a formal involvement of the private sector in customs issues. The idea
to hold regional and national meetings about customs dates back to 2005 and first public-private dialogues
have taken place. However, interviewees in the NEDA study mentioned the lack of resources and funding as
major constraint to achieving substantial results. Therefore, GIZ engaged in promoting a private sector in-
volvement strategy in customs matters that was launched by the Sub Committee on Customs Cooperation of
the Secretariat in 2013.22 The strategy links national and regional actors. Regional consultations are supposed
to consolidate policy recommendations of national PPDs, the so-called National Customs Business Forums
(NCBF). Guidelines for these national PPDs are revised according to the Swaziland model for NCBF in or-
der to increase the ability to monitor customs policy issues. NCBFs based on these guidelines are already
launched in Namibia and Malawi. If other private sector dialogue mechanisms are in place in a country, these
mechanisms are recognised as formal dialogue mechanism. The strategy targets at improving the information
flow between business and custom administration to raise awareness of important agreements and to inform
the public officials about problems in regional trade due to such agreements. However, the strategy has just
been launched and must produce tangible results in the next years to be evaluated positively. Even though the
re-organisation of NCBF addresses issues limiting the success of the former SADC Customs Private Sector
Partnership Forum, continued donor funding will be the backbone of the strategy.
The EAC experience reveals that lack of public sector’s capacity is a major obstacle to PPDs. Therefore,
promoting focal points for private-public sector interaction is supposed to systemic private sector participa-
tion in policy-making. Focal points decrease transaction costs of interaction and by doing so, increase oppor-
tunities of cooperation. With regard to the experiences made in the projects, focal points are an essential
input for a long-term, structured cooperation (see for example the positive perception of the private sector
desk in SADC between 2003 and 2005).
However, both, the public and private sector need to designate focal points to create an enabling environ-
ment for consultations. In the EAC, the strong umbrella organisation EABC is the defined entry point for
the public sector, while a corresponding focal point for the private sector is still missing but in planning.
In SADC, a Private Sector Involvement Task Team developed several options for private sector involvement
mechanisms. Public and private actors then agreed upon the launch of SADC Private Sector Centre. This
centre is designed as an aligned subsidiary organisation of SADC Secretariat and will organise public-private
interaction. The approval of the Council of Ministers is still pending according to the documents. Major con-
straint to the launch of a focal point is the heavy workload of the public officials which restricts the time they
20 See http://www.eacgermany.org/eac-giz-programme/private-sector.
21 No direct information on success factors is found in the documents. 22 See http://www.sadc.int/files/2213/7415/0061/Private_Sector_Involvement_Strategy.pdf.
23
could spend on interaction with the private sector. Regional business organisations in SADC are fragmented,
which increases the costs of their involvement for the public sector. Donors have indicated their interest in
supporting their organizational development in order to enable them to partner with the public sector and to
use the new opportunities arising from the planned PSI strategy. A designated focal point does not exist yet.
Besides improving the regulatory environment and capacity of actors, participatory policy-making can be
strengthened by organizing interaction between public and private actors. PPD events are common form of
interaction. They can take place either in a regular manner when formal PPD frameworks are in place (e.g.,
SG Forum in EAC in 2012 and 2013) or they can be organised as one-off events when political issues de-
mand for broad consultation in order to find solutions and decide upon policies (e.g., PPD about TRIPS in
EAC). Both forms of PPDs have proven to improve private sector participation in policy-making. They are
important mechanisms to achieve consensus among public and private actors (e.g., PPD in Guatemala about
MSME friendly policies). The case of Honduras demonstrates that PPDs enable members of regional com-
munities to use opportunities of regional economic integration are used by national. The lack of PPDs con-
tributed to the second-best implementation of trade agreements according to the project reports.
PPD events can be organised at the regional, national or sub-national level. To hold consultations at different
political levels has proved to be effective in formulating proposals of PPD frameworks in EAC and SADC
region, which will be presented for adoption at the highest political authority. PPD events build also a plat-
form to discuss specific themes or sector issues. A case in point for thematic PPDs is the regional and na-
tional business forums on customs in SADC. They target at involving the private sector in customs and trade
facilitation matters and follow a holistic approach linking public officials and private sector and national and
regional levels. However, even though the Secretariat was backing the initiative and donors funded meetings,
the forums do not produce tangible results. Various issues listed in the NEDA study explain why the PPDs
are lagging behind expectations. Consultation was not backed up with sound evidence on customs matters.
The linking of national and regional PPDs was inefficient. Interviewees also mention the lack of funding by
donors as an obstacle to success. They also state that NCBFs would have carried on if they had an impact on
political matters. GIZ now develops a PSI strategy in customs matter in order to make these PPDs effective
in promoting trade integration (see above).
Another activity for boosting private sector involvement is organising workshops or working groups. Work-
shop seem to be important for bringing both sides of the bargaining together if policy issues have emerged
recently and if the emphasis is on information exchange and strategy discussion instead of making policy
recommendations to be forwarded to the highest government authority for approval. They are well-received
by participants in Mongolia and Central America (Mon.Trade, CAmerica.MSME). Topic of the workshops
has been the implication of trade agreements. The workshop in Mongolia has especially benefited from a
good balance in presenting theory and practical experiences of other countries which already signed agree-
ments with Japan. Public and private sector actors were represented in equal numbers. Private sector actors
were encouraged to propose policy recommendations based on the presentations of the first day. That is, the
workshop in Mongolia has addressed the limited capacity of NSA to obtain information. But it also promoted
their input, based on evidence provided at workshop, into the policy negotiations with Japan.
In Central Asia, a working group on the single-window system was launched (CAsia.REI). The group was
composed of public officials and private sector representatives. It was effective in formulating policy recom-
mendations that contributed to the adoption of a single-window policy that will be implemented after a pilot
phase.
24
Effectiveness: There is just one project for which interventions to improve formal consultation structures were documented.
These interventions in Central America have been effective in improving the quality of the already institutionalized PPDs.
Public private dialogue events have taken place and they have had an impact on future political strategies in EAC and Central
America. In Laos, PPD still need to show impact but sub-national PPD have already been organised in 2 pilot provinces to
raise awareness of the benefits of participatory policy-making. Project activities in Mongolia and Central America demon-
strate that workshops are a widely accepted mechanisms to promote public private information exchange.
Sustainability: The long term impact of the workshop in Central America is judged as positive because practices learnt have
been implemented successfully and capacity in organizing the already institutionalized PPDs is built. As all implemented
PPDs and workshops have been meaningful to the actors, some first steps have been taken towards building trust and a
long-term cooperation among actors. It is expected that future consultations will take place.
Major success factors: Experience with PPDs; willingness to engage with stakeholder organisations; preparation of infor-
mation material in advance.
Major constraints: No information provided in the reports or revealed by the interviewees.
Strengths and Opportunities (PPD events)23
PPD events are an effective tool to boost process participation of NSAs and to develop formal PPD frame-
works. They even enabled consensus building about MSME friendly policies in Guatemala and contributed to
the launch of PPPs in EAC.
Two major factors will improve PPD’s performance in promoting NSA involvement in policy-making. First,
institutional structures seem to develop that will decrease transaction costs of cooperation. For example, PPD
frameworks aim at institutionalizing contact points at the political level for business organisations. The devel-
opments in the communication services sector will also contribute to a reduction in costs of participation by
enabling actors to attend regional meeting via video conferences. The project in Central America, for in-
stance, has used video conferences for successfully launching a regional private sector committee lobbying for
MSME friendly policies. Further, donor projects are likely to improve NSAs’ capacity in debating evidence-
based solutions of problems and attending events.
Weaknesses and threats (PPD events)
Various internal and external factors limit the effectiveness of PPD events. PPDs are justified as mechanism
of private sector involvement only if organisations attending the event have a legitimate mandate to represent
their members’ interests and if capture of the event by special interests is avoided. Their impact on policies is
limited if they do not have a clearly defined agenda. Further, material which enables actors to understand the
complex topics of the discussion and to form own policy positions, needs to be prepared and distributed in
advance in order to ensure evidence-based and meaningful debates. Another important aspect is the timing of
the event. A national PPD could show more impact on regional policies if it takes place before the regional
PPDs. Otherwise, national policy recommendations cannot feed into the regional policy making process.
23 Note that a SWOT analysis is not undertaken for the workshops and promotion of a formal PPD framework, because information on success factors and risks is limited.
Box 7: Remarks on projects under the Monterrey Fund
25
Stable conditions in the public sector and high priority put on private sector involvement ensure that PPDs
are organised. Capacity of private sector in contributing to policy solutions is seen as main bottleneck to
make PPDs meaningful. Because a lack of resources has limited the organisation of PPDs in the past, donor
funding will be essential to guarantee PPDs until the public and private sector are able to invest resources. To
reach this step, PPDs need to produce tangible impact on policies and business environment. Meaningful
consultations will also help to convince public officials of the benefits of private sector involvement. Howev-
er, as the higher authority of policy decision-making, for instance the CoM, is not bound to recommendations
resulting from PPDs on lower political tiers, their impact on policy formulation might be limited.
Figure 8: SWOT analysis: PPD event
5.4 Supporting Public-Private Partnerships
Two projects provide insights on how to promote PPPs but follow different approaches. In the EAC region,
a single PPP is introduced to reach the common goal of better access to medicines (EAC.Pharma). On con-
trary, the project in the SADC region focuses at establishing a PPP framework that could be used across sec-
tors to bring PPPs into being (SADC.REI).24 While activities in the EAC region resulted in a pharmaceutical
PPP, activities in the SADC region still need to prove to be effective in establishing public-private partner-
ships. The SADC project is described in detail below. As the EAC PPP is built with support of the Monterrey
Fund, it is described in detail in the box below.25
With support from the GIZ Team, a PPP network was launched in the SADC region. The network’s main
objective is providing assistance in developing PPP projects, improving PPP planning and regulation and
contributing to cross-country learning of best practices. It has come into being because GIZ has provided
strategic advice and technical support to the public sector from the conceptualisation to the realisation of the
PPP network. For now, the PPP network works together with the private sector and conducts training cours-
es about PPP issues in member countries. Factors that will contribute to an effective work of the network in
future are the close cooperation among German development projects in the region, the successful estab-
lishment of linkages between the network and other donors and the endorsement of the network by the
24 See http://www.sadcpppnetwork.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=featured&Itemid=101. 25 Due to limited time elapsed between implementation and evaluation, the measures are not analysed using a SWOT matrix.
Strengths
- Information exchange between NSA and public officials
- Consensus building between public and private sector
- Bring PPPs into being
Weaknesses
- Unbalanced/unlegitimate representation of interests
- Availability of evidence
- Timing of event
- Lack of a clear agenda
Opportunities
- Establishment of focal points
- Increasing level of organisation and capacity of NSAs
- Use of new information technology like video conferences
Threats
- Limited human and financial capacity of organisations to attend event (especially at the regional level)
- Political will to cooperate/discuss
- Higher level decision-making not bound to results to PPD
26
SADC minister of finance and investment. Due to the limited time passed since the launch of the network,
no evaluation of the network’s impact on PPP projects is given in the reports.26
6 Measures promoting civil society involvement in policy-making
The project EAC.REI is the only project explicitly promoting civil society involvement. Even if information
is limited, the project can provide first insights into why promoting civil society involvement is difficult. A
significant threat includes the sensitivity of involving civil society in policy making. Public officials do not
value civil society involvement because civil society organisations often cannot contribute to a constructive,
problem-solving policy debate due to their limited knowledge about policy impacts and solutions. The re-
gional civil society organisation, EACSOF, is still weak and not capable of doing advocacy work for civil
society interests effectively.
However, in the EAC region, civil society organisations influence on policy decisions was achieved by organ-
izing a Civil Society Forum in the course of Council of Minister (CoM) meeting. Policy resolutions made by
the Forum were submitted to the Secretariat for submission to the CoM. Even though the Secretariat does
not follow up on all resolutions, at least four of them are under review. Project reports bring up the concern
that this would not have happened if GIZ had not acted as a broker for the CSOs. Moreover, consultations
between the Secretariat and EAASI, the Sub-Regional Initiative for the Advancement of Women and other
civil society organisations have been effective in developing a draft protocol on gender equality. EASSI has a
relatively long history of advocacy work in the region and is thereby a well-positioned lobby group. This is
certainly one reason why EASSI was able to influence policy while EACSOF is lagging behind expectations.
Further, promoting PPD frameworks have contributed to civil society involvement in policy making, as doc-
umented by participation of CSOs at the EAC Secretary General Forums in 2012 and 2013. To ensure that
CSOs will lobby effectively for their interests, GIZ also supported national CSO conferences to be held be-
fore the Secretary General Forum in October 2013.27 If such activities boost policy responsiveness to socie-
ty’s needs, is left for future evaluations when information on the SG Forum is available.
Whether the EAC Civil Society Mobilization Strategy will produce tangible effects still depends on its imple-
mentation. The strategy was developed through consultations between the public sector and civil society.
Further, activities are planned to promote EACSOF as focal point for public-civil society dialogue.
As civil society involvement tends to be a complex issue, time is needed to produce trustful relationships and
to promote sustainable, effective and educated interest representation. Therefore and as just one project fo-
cused on CS involvement, it is hardly possible to draw sound and well founded lessons about which interven-
tions pay off and which not. However, to avoid an unbalanced representation of interests in trade negotia-
26 It would be interesting to compare projects’ outcomes and impacts on future PPPs because they have followed quite different approaches to promote PPPs.
27 See http://eacsof.net.
Effectiveness: Private sector is engaged in implementing the plan for promoting pharmaceutical production (EAC.Pharma).
Sustainability: A regional umbrella organisation representing national pharmaceutical associations was launched ensuring
interest mediation and monitoring of PPPs in future; involvement of other donors makes it likely that the implementation
phase will be successful and efficient; PPP legislation, framework or regulation is not mentioned in the report and may hin-
der the sustainable combination of public and private resources to reach the common development goal.
Success factors: Close cooperation with several actors involved in pharmaceutical policy-making; a public-private dialogue
with well-informed and sensitized public and private actors; providing technical support for both sides of the bargaining.
Constraints: No information found in the report.
Box 8: Remarks on projects under the Monterrey Fund
27
tions favouring private sector interests, a deeper evaluation of projects in other regions or policy fields would
be necessary and valuable.
7 Lessons learnt and recommendations for the German Develop-
ment Cooperation
7.1 Lessons learnt
The analysis has shown that a holistic approach is needed to promote private sector involvement in trade
negotiations or in regional policy-making.28 A best practice approach addresses three impediments to effec-
tive involvement: i) political will and capacity to engage with non-state actors, ii) capacity and incentive of
NSAs to provide valuable inputs into the decision-making process, and iii) organisation of collective action.
Depending on a country’s policy landscape, projects could skip activities but it is recommended that they
keep track on a comprehensive enabling environment. Key constraint to a project’s success is a stable politi-
cal environment with low rotation in public personnel which is not overloaded with work. Further, continued
instead of one-off donor funding determines a project’s impact on participatory policy-making. It seems that
actors are not ready to invest own resources in lobbying. Other constraints and success factors are summa-
rized in the SWOT analyses above.
To implement a project, partner institutions have to be chosen. Projects cooperated successfully with both
private and public sector institutions. Choice of the partner institution tends to depend on the major con-
straint to NSA involvement and a country’s or region’s policy landscape.
7.2 Recommendations
This section presents recommendations on how development partners could improve participatory policy
processes based on the good practices examples described in the project reports and interviews. Recommen-
dations for promoting PPPs are not included as the information base is limited and activities still need time to
produce results.
Project coordination:
1. Consider to follow a holistic approach linking all political and organisational levels responsible for ef-
fective non-state actor involvement. Cooperate closely with other donors in implementing this ap-
proach if the project cannot afford funding of every activity.
2. Coordination between GIZ and public partner institutions:
a. Set up a joint steering committee to increase the project’s impact, to foster joint responsibil-
ity and to ensure the project respond to the partner institution’s needs. Consider also to
build technical sub-groups being responsible for implementation of activities.
b. Focus on developing a strategy jointly with the public institutions instead of implementing
ad-hoc activities. See for example the process of formulating a PPD framework in SADC
and EAC which has taken several steps until it could be presented for final approval.
c. Implement regular project monitoring to keep the project on track and to provide evidence
on project’s achievements or problems in meeting with the partner institution.
3. Consider to implement/develop a framework like the PPD evaluation wheel to collect information
about the achievements of different activities in non-state actor involvement.
28 Please consider that the objective of this study is to analyse projects promoting NSA involvement. However, participatory policy processes are just one mechanism to mediate society’s interests, election are another, important channel in a democracy. Promotion of NSA involvement may fail in achieving accountability and better informed policies and may increase elite capture of govern-ments at regional and national level. Investigating these possible adverse side effects calls for a comprehensive cross-country or re-gional analysis using different data than available.
28
4. Consider to support public as well as private sector and the media to get messages about trade nego-
tiations or regional economic integration across. This will help to mobilise non-state actors for col-
lective action and will inform them about the political agenda. Informed society could use opportuni-
ties and may point at risks political actors are not aware of due to limited or unreliable information
about policy impacts.
5. Keep flexibility in project implementation. Respond to changing priorities over trade agreements of
partner institutions. But ensure that your activities will still have a long term impact.
Public-private dialogue events
1. Organisation of the event:
a. Advise on the appropriate political level of the PPD considering which political tier is the
best entry point to invoke political change: region vs. national vs. subnational.
b. Advise on the right timing of the event depending on whether outputs of the PPD shall feed
into higher level PPDs.
c. Ensure and improve process leadership of a national actor in order to build capacity in or-
ganising events and to increase the probability of repeated events (e.g., EABC as partner of
the public sector in organizing PPDs).
d. Promote that public and private sectors agree on a clear agenda of the meeting in advance
jointly. This helps to avoid that the discussions last long and are unfocused.
2. Capacity of public and private sector:
a. Ensure that an evidence based analysis of policy issues to be discussed is available.
b. Raise awareness of public officials for the importance of private sector and civil society in-
volvement in policy making to create an enabling environment for discussions.
c. Strengthen capacity of the private sector and civil society in representing their interests:
i. Address their legitimacy as representative of the private sector or civil society.
ii. Support organisations in representing their members’ experiences in a convincing
way and in making concrete recommendations for solutions of problems instead of
complaining about political issues.
3. Support organisations in monitoring whether public sector officials follow up on the policy recom-
mendations made at the PPD event.
4. Evaluate the potential of the PPD to be sustained in case external funding is withdrawn carefully in
order to address risks to sustainability in advance.
Supporting organised representation of interests
1. Internal organisation:
a. Assist in clarifying and/or implementing rules for membership of corporates in apex bodies.
Otherwise apex bodies run into the risk of being perceived as representatives of big busi-
nesses instead of private sector associations.
b. Advise NSAs on matters of legitimacy in representing private sectors’ policy positions and
concerns. Consider, for instance, developing tools to monitor consensus building and dis-
cussions in organisations to enable organisations to prove their legitimacy.
c. Strengthen information flows between national and regional levels and across sectors (if rel-
evant for coalition formation). Consider, for example, to designate focal points at the na-
tional level for cooperation with regional organisation (see EABC).
d. Support organisations in bringing their members’ experiences and interests into policy rec-
ommendations and PPDs (see NTBI Survey). External studies could be used to underpin
policy positions formulated based on the feedback.
2. Modes of non-state actor representation:
a. Consider sector- or issue-specific committees as alternative to regional organisations in pro-
moting involvement of NSAs in trade negotiations.
29
b. Promote the launch of one apex body incorporating various organisations and associations
to decrease transaction costs of NSA involvement for the public sector. Consider that com-
peting apex bodies will not survive but that clusters or groups could be built within the apex
body to respond to the needs of specific sectors. Be aware of probably negative monopolis-
tic side effects in the long run.
3. Address collective action problems and incentives at the national level first. Regional umbrella organ-
isations shall be seen as institutions representing national interests and as focal points for national
organisations to interact with regional governments.
4. Cooperate with other donors to ensure that a holistic approach linking national and regional bodies
or different clusters of a sector is implemented and funded for several years. Time and long-term
funding are required to lead collective action activities to success.
5. Support regional organisations in providing benefits differently from advocacy work to their mem-
bers. But avoid creating conflicts in service delivery between the national and regional level. Service
delivery could be an opportunity to generate member-based income of the organisation. Further, it
will reduce the incentive to free-ride on the advocacy work which produces group- instead of mem-
ber-specific goods and benefits.
Capacity development
1. Knowledge development
a. Use fellowship programme to create in-country expertise in analysing political issues and to
ensure sustainability.
b. Promote member surveys as a source of evidence and information about policy issues. Non-
state actors criticize that studies are done by external advisors and their information is not
integrated into the organisation’s evidence base systematically.
c. Ensure that study results are distributed among all actors affected by the topic under analy-
sis.
2. Knowledge dissemination
a. Consider whether the event shall inform about policy issues before or after the policy is vot-
ed through at the top tier of government.
b. Ensure that reliable evidence is available in advance to allow invited actors to exchange con-
structive arguments.
c. Align format of knowledge dissemination with overall goal to be achieved. If raising aware-
ness is the major goal, mass events like trade fairs, university lectures or forums reach usually
a broad scope of actors. Workshops and public-private consultations better meet the objec-
tive of discussing evidence and policy learning.
Involvement of civil society:
1. Consider to engage in cross country learning, as benchmarking with other countries has helped to
promote private sector involvement in trade negotiations.
2. Be aware that a lot of time is needed to institutionalize involvement of civil society organisations in
policy-making.
3. Design long term projects that ensure sustainable funding. Insufficient funding might limit project’s
impacts and sustainability (compare limited funding and failure of private sector collective action in
SADC).
4. Consider activities to raise citizen’s awareness of regional economic integration. Interviews reveal
that citizen lack information about the political agenda which might cause a lack of incentive for col-
lective action. However, reports do not provide information on best-practices.
5. Raising the awareness of public officials about the policy impacts on civil society might help to en-
sure that policies balance citizens’ needs and private sector interests, even if civil society cannot sit at
the bargaining table. However, distributing evidence on policy impacts should be an interim solution
30
to the problem of potentially low responsiveness to citizens’ needs. To ensure ownership, commit-
ment and legitimacy of policies and policy processes, the civil society need to make their voice heard
actively.
6. Consider to analyse potential of cooperation with foundations to promote collective action of civil
society
31
References
Ball 1995Ball, R. (1995). “Interest Groups, Influence and Welfare”. Economics and Politics 7 (2), p. 119–
146.
Chevalier, J.M., Buckles, D.J. (2008). SAS2: a Guide to Collaborative Inquiry and Social Engagement. Sage
Publications.
EABC (2011). “The 2011 East Africa Business Climate Index Survey”. Available at
http://www.trade.eac.int/.
Ewart, A. (2009). “The Role of Civil Society in Shaping Trade Policy”. FOCAL Research Paper.
FAO (1990). “The Community's Toolbox: The Idea, Methods and Tools for Participatory Assessment, Moni-
toring and Evaluation in Community Forestry”. Available at
http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5307e/x5307e00.htm.
Galton, F. (1907).”Vox Populi”. Nature 75. p. 450–451.
Herzberg, B. and Wright, A (2006): The PPD Handbook: A Toolkit for Business Environment Re-
formers.
International Trade Centre (undated). “Business Association Profiles Southern Africa Region. Advocacy
for Trade.”
Lohmann, S. (1993). “A Signalling Model of Informative and Manipulative Political Action”. American Po-
litical Science Review 87(2), p. 319–333.
GIZ (2011). “Private Sector Involvement in African Regional Economic Integration”. Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Internationale Zusammenarbeit.
Olson, M. (1965). “The Logic of Collective Action”. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
World Bank (2007). “Social Accountability: What Does It Mean for the World Bank?” In: Social Accounta-
bility Sourcebook. Chapter 2. Available at
http://www.worldbank.org/socialaccountability_sourcebook/PrintVersions/Conceptual%2006
.22.07.pdf.
Websites accessed:
http://www.eacgermany.org/eac-giz-programme/private-sector (last access: 04/10/2013)
http://www.eabc.info/ (last access: 04/10/2013)
http://www.sadcemployers.org/ (last access: 04/10/2013)
www.ascci.info (last access: 04/10/2013)
http://www.sadc.int/issues/private-sector/ (last access: 04/10/2013)
http://www.ttcsi.org/home/ (last access: 04/10/2013)
http://www.feapm.com/index.php?id=42&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=32&cHash=804515d59ad92015bf69a30cbaf
9414f (last access: 04/10/2013)
http://www.tradebarriers.org/ (last access: 04/10/2013)
32
Annex: Project reports
Project Acronyme Document
Trade policy and trade promotion in El Salvador,
Guatemala and Honduras
CAmerica.MSME Final Report
Office of Trade Negotiations – Caribbean Community
Secretariat
CAR.OTN Progress Report No. 3
Support to EAC Integration Process EAC.REI Progress Report 2010
Report of Project Progress Review 2009
Report of Project Progress Review 2012
Offer to BMZ (03.12.2012)
Support of the regional and national institutions in the
implementation of the Economic Partnership Agree-
ment (EPA) in the Caribbean
CAR.EPA Interim Evaluation Report (2012)
Progress Report No. 1 (13.03.2013)
Development cooperation programme: Sustainable
economic development in Mongolia
Technical cooperation measure: Strengthening of the
Mongolian Ministry for Economic Development for
the negotiation of bilateral investment and trade trea-
ties
Mon.Trade Progress Report No. 01
Trade Policy and Trade Promotion Fund: Supporting
African and Caribbean Trade Negotiations
ILEAP.EAC
ILEAP.WAfrica
Half-yearly progress report (31.12.2010)
Development cooperation programme: Trade policy
and trade promotion fund (Monterrey Fonds), su-
praregional
Technical cooperation measure: Promotion of a social-
ly and ecologically sustainable trade integration with
SIECA
SICA.REI Final Report
DC programme: EAC Secretariat – Support to the
Integration Process in Tanzania
TC measure: TRIPS and Pharmaceutical Sector Pro-
motion
EAC.Pharma Final Report
Development cooperation programme: Trade Policy
and Trade Promotion Fund in Germany
Technical cooperation measure: Supporting Laos‘
Integration into regional markets
Laos.REI Progress Report No. 1
Support of regional economic cooperation in Central
Asia
CAsia.REI Report of Project Progress Review (2012)
Strengthening the economic and trade policy capacities
and competences in the SADC
SADC.REI Report of Project Progress Review (29.11.2012)
Progress Report No. 1
Progress Report No. 2
Progress Report No. 3
Offer to BMZ (03.09.12)
Monterrey Fund Report: Good Practices and Lessons learnt
Monterrey Fund
33
Annex: List of interviews
Project/Programme Name Date
Kompetenzcenter Wirtschaftspoli-
tik/Privatwirtschaftsentwicklung
Hartmut Janus (GIZ, Senior Advisor) 23.09.2013
Monterrey Fund Ute Dannenmann (GIZ, Project Direc-
tor)
12.09.2013
CAR.EPA Rainer Engels (GIZ, Project Director) 26.09.2013
ILEAP.EAC
ILEAP.WAfrica
David Primack (ILEAP) 23.09.2013
Mon.Trade Altangerel Amgalan (GIZ, Senior
Professional)
22.09.2013
Laos.REI Petra Polgar (GIZ, Advisor) 22.09.2013
EAC.REI Florian Bernhardt (GIZ, Head of
Component)
05.09.2013
Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg 1-5
65760 Eschborn / Germany
T 06196 79 - 0
F 06196 79 - 1115
I www.giz.de
