IFAD’s experience and emerging approach for engaging in national policy processes

Edward Heinemann19 November 2013

http://www.ifad.org/pub/policy/policy-engagement.pdf

Structure of presentation

• Thinking through what country-level policy engagement means for IFAD

• Past experience and performance

• IFAD’s evolving agenda for CLPE

• Lessons learnt / future learning priorities

IFAD 1.01

• The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the UN, established as an international financial institution in 1977

• IFAD’s goal is to enable poor rural people to improve their food and nutrition security, increase their incomes and strengthen their resilience

• Currently works in >90 countries, financing 250 projects

• 2012 provided loans/DSF grants to member governments worth $ 970m, plus grant programme worth $ 70m

• All projects targeted to respond to constraints / opportunities of poor rural people

Why is CLPE an issue for IFAD?

• Country level policy engagement - CLPE - serves: – Operational agenda: two-way link between policies and

projects

– Scaling up agenda: going beyond projects and contributing to creating an enabling environment for rural people to overcome poverty

– To ensure relevance: especially in growing nos. of MICs, where IFAD resources less vital to governments, support for policy processes an important service to offer

What is CLPE?

• ‘Policy’ can refer to legislation and policy statements and documents; sector plans, budgets, strategies and programmes; high-level rules of government agencies.

• IFAD’s interest is solely in those policies (‘big’ and ‘small’) that shape the opportunities – in agriculture and the larger rural non-farm economy – for rural people to move out of poverty.

• Country-level policy engagement can be seen as:

A process for IFAD to collaborate, directly and indirectly, with its partner governments and other country level stakeholders, to influence policy priorities or the design, implementation and assessment of formal policies that shape the opportunities for large numbers of rural people to move out of poverty.

By objective

By instrument

By activity

How to think about IFAD’s approach to CLPE?

• Create an enabling policy environment for implementing IFAD-supported projects and achieving development impact

• Draw out lessons learnt under IFAD-supported projects and scale up successes through integration into national policies, institutions and strategies

• Strengthen public policies for rural development and their implementation and the responsible institutions, and enhance their pro-poor focus

• Help build capacity of national stakeholders to participate effectively in policy processes and shape national policies

Objectives of CLPE

IFAD-financed investment

projects – through governments

Grant-financed projects – not

only to governments

Direct engagement of CPM/ICO, plus admin. budget

Instruments for CLPE

Through IFAD-financed investment projects

Activities for CLPE (1)

• A policy, strategy or programme is operationalised at local level

• The capacity of government agencies to formulate national policies is supported

• Space is created for policy dialogue between national stakeholders

• Implementation experiences are analyzed to feed into national policy processes

Through the grants programme

Activities for CLPE (2)

• Political participation promoted: farmers’ organizations/ RPOs supported to enable them to conduct policy dialogue / negotiate policy

• Regional / south-south sharing of policy experience and approaches promoted

• Dialogue with government:― Prior to project start-up: agreeing on critical reforms― During implementation: identifying policy bottlenecks

― At completion: drawing on project successes

• Participating in in-country sector working group to identify/ pursue key policy issues with govt.

• Building partnerships for policy influence

• Sponsoring policy analysis work, short-term TA

Through direct engagement of CPM/ICO, plus admin. budget:

Activities for CLPE (3)

• Uganda: Project design process as opportunity to engage with GOU re. policy framework for rural finance, with specific reforms made prior to Board presentation.

• MERCOSUR - REAF (Specialised meeting on family farming): platform for consultations among govts +social movements; contributed to reorientation of nat. institutions, policies and progs. for family farming in all 4 countries

• Burundi: support + training to confederation agric. producers’ assoc’ns, enabling CAPAD to successfully lobby gov’t for policy changes – fertilizer subsidies and agric. budget

• Brazil: State-level projects in NE as vehicle for articulating federal policy, learning about approaches for RPR; Dom Helder federal project to consolidate learning

• Asia: Collab’n. with FAO, conducted series of policy studies in 8 countries, served also for capacity building, sharing of experience, led to concrete policy changes

• Mozambique: through experience of Sofala Bank Art. Fisheries Project, dialogue with GOM over min. mesh size of fishing nets, leading to policy change

Some examples

• In many countries, IFAD’s work has led to significant changes in the policies affecting poor rural people

• IFAD has important strengths – Seen as a credible ‘honest broker’ and facilitator, bringing resources

yet no predefined agenda, no conditionalities– IFAD Country Offices offer new opportunities to engage

• But IOE and Brookings Institute highlight weaknesses:– Achievements not consistent– Over-ambitious policy agendas, not followed through– Limited capacity: country presence, in-house skills– Lack of instruments / tools to support CLPE

• IFAD Consultation report (2012) committed IFAD to strengthening its policy work

IFAD’s performance to date

• Created post of policy advisor, to help define and promote IFAD’s CLPE agenda, and support work of CPMs – CLPE not an ‘add on’– Projects as an entry point for CLPE

• Developed an action plan for CLPE, based on:– More effective integration of CLPE in IFAD country programmes –

COSOPs, project design and implementation support– Policy analysis as resourced tool to provide evidence base – Improved monitoring, reporting on activities and results; and KM– Strengthening capacity – sharing understanding/experience, training– Developing learning partnerships – policy research institutions,

practitioners

So how has IFAD responded?

• Indonesia: project to use experience of implementation and PPPs developed for policy dialogue, mainly at regional level

• Ghana: project as vehicle for assisting GOG to strengthen capacity and processes for developing agric. sector policy, and to develop GASIP

• Nigeria: project as vehicle contributing to operationalisation and outcomes of Agric. Transformation Agenda

• Tunisia: Project as opportunity to innovate, draw lessons of experience and inform GOT understanding of key issues

CLPE in project design – some recent experiences

Monitoring activities: • Build into IFAD’s project/country self-reporting systems

• Ongoing stock taking exercise

Monitoring and measuring

Measuring impact: • Focus on effects and impacts of policy change; not on IFAD

contribution

• Methodological approach depends on the case (quantitative and qualitative elements, small n & large n methodologies)

• Neither ‘one size fits all’, nor ‘fit-for-purpose’; rather ‘adequate for circumstances’ – context, resources, capacity, time

1. IFAD agenda for CLPE shaped by mandate and country programme. Approaches must be context-specific: no one model

2. IFAD’s doubly dual role – both to create conditions for, and engage directly in, policy dialogue; both projects and IFAD itself

3. CLPE often means participating in long-term process, with uncertain results – incentives?

4. Opportunism also important: political space can create openings for engagement, which must respond to government priorities

5. Policy analysis part of IFAD’s role, for evidence-informed policy discussion; but who for, and who has access?

Ten preliminary lessons

6. Having influence requires working in partnerships and coalitions; finding champions; creating relationships and building trust

7. Projects as laboratories for learning about policy issues, and the lessons learned as an entry point for policy engagement

8. Need to understand national context: identifying not only key stakeholders, but also steps/responsibilities for policy development, negotiation, approval and promulgation

9. Importance of a credible chain of causality associated with CLPE, reflected in logframe

10. Structuring project designs for policy influence requires mechanisms for/ linkages between innovation approaches, M&E system, KM function, and CLPE agenda

Ten preliminary lessons

• Expand process analysis: what are the steps and responsibilities for policy development, negotiation, approval, promulgation?

• How to analyse supply of, demand for, policy analysis?• How to use stakeholder analysis as guide for policy engagement?• Toolkits for quick’n’dirty stakeholder analysis• What is appropriate role of donors in policy processes?• How to measure policy effects + impacts with limited resources?• Validation of conceptual model of ‘project design for policy

influence’ – how to structure projects?• More networking – sharing lessons, approaches

What are we looking for from policy process research?