Day 3: Stakeholders: Building Consensus and Moving Towards (Motivating) Action

Fostering Integration from a Donor’s Perspective – Plenary

Chair: Daniel Owen, Sr. Social Development Specialist, SDV (WB)
Speakers: Carla Berke, Principal Economist, Africa Region (KfW); Angelo Baglio, Principal Administrator, European Commission, EuropeAid Co-operation Office, Southern Mediterranean and Middle East

This plenary session aimed to demonstrate how donors are fostering a more integrated approach to local development. KfW Africa Region Principal Economist Carla Berke presented "Fostering Integration: A Donor’s Perspective" (548Kb PDF), with the central message being the need to construct a national framework for local development. She illustrated a relationship between donors, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and local development, where information, budgets, funding and accountability served as the pillars that supported the relationships between PRSPs, local governments and donors. In addition to these resources, Berke identified communication, resource allocation and transparency as required channels to strengthen the relationship between central and local government. In relation, donors should work towards internal coordination, such as budget and sector support, and awareness on the ground of local development efforts. She also urged donors to work with national systems for distributing assistance, as exemplified by the Addis Ababa principle. 

Angelo Baglio reflected on the "European Union Experience with Local Development" (224Kb PDF), focusing on how to achieve sustainable economic growth and social inclusion at the local level. He identified the EU’s new role in the Southern Mediterranean and Middle East Region (MEDA) as relying on subsidiarity, employment strategies and the integrated approach. Local level employment strategies linked entrepreneurship, active labor market policies, new areas of employment growth and intermediate labor markets. With an integrated approach, the collaboration between private and public actors brings added value to local development. These actions help build trust, empowerment and strengthen local democracy. He also recognized risks and precautions involved in this approach. Overall, he identified MEDA’s approach as moving from community projects to creating local development strategies. He provided Algeria as an example of this approach.

Stakeholders’ Perspective on Local Development. In a set of consensus building workshops, participants grouped themselves according to their stakeholder affiliation. With the objective of building on the perspectives and experiences common to each stakeholder category, participants worked in the following pre-assigned groups: (linked are tables of actions identified in response to the focus question below)

• Social Funds and other CDD programs (4 groups)

  Group I (13KB PDF)  Group II (16Kb PDF)  Group III (12Kb PDF)  Group IV (13KB PDF)

• National governments (15Kb PDF)
• Local governments (14Kb PDF)
• NGOs and academics (16Kb PDF)
• Donors (17Kb PDF)
• Multisectoral Russian language group (14Kb PDF)
• Multisectoral Spanish language groups (2 groups)

  Group I (13KB PDF)  Group II (14Kb PDF)

• Multisectoral French language groups (2 groups)

  Group I (12KB PDF)  Group II (12Kb PDF)

Participants appreciated building a vision about local development and acquiring a shared language for its discussion. They learned about the experiences of other countries, in various sectors and of various actors. They also considered the issues of corruption and decentralization as central to the local development debate.

However, many participants questioned how to implement this framework. Specifically, they identified the lack of political will and legal parameters, a concerted discussion on local economic development, and employment as missing elements from the conference . Some participants observed that local development approaches could give excessive responsibilities to communities, without requiring sufficient accountability. Other participants commented that the conference had revolved around the donor and government perspective, without enough input from the local and community level.

As a stakeholder group, participants addressed the focus question: How can we work together with other stakeholder groups to create a more integrated approach to Local Development? Each participant brainstormed several actions and subsequently shared these ideas with the group. As a group, participants clustered these actions and then named each category as a theme pertaining to local development. Nearly all stakeholder groups identified the following themes:

• Information sharing
• Capacity enhancement
• Defining roles of stakeholders
• Building partnerships and linkages
• Empowerment and sustainability
• Developing tools appropriate for the local development framework

Within these themes, commonly identified actions included developing a shared national vision on local development, capacity building for all stakeholders, involving all participants in planning, encouraging project ownership by communities, and developing and implementing the appropriate legal structure for decentralization.

Stakeholder groups concluded with points for further learning and support needed for this framework. They looked for a positive example of local development and recognized the need for examining current resources and capacities at all levels. They anticipated 

Image courtesy of Dr. Sixtus C. Mulenga and Konkola Copper Mines plc

requiring more financial support, flexibility from donors and streamlining procurement procedures. Predominantly, all stakeholder groups expressed a need for decentralized decision-making and effective collaboration between all actors.

How Does Local Development Support Inclusion, Cohesion and Accountability?

Speaker: Steen Jorgensen, Director, Social Development Department (WB)

During lunchtime, World Bank Social Development Department Director Steen Jorgensen introduced participants to the experience of an illiterate women in Malawi. Following her training on community scorecards, she helped monitor the local health facilities. Her efforts contributed to improving the local health system by opening a dialogue between the health providers and beneficiaries, catalyzing changes such as greater accountability for the health center’s management of funds and personnel attitude changes. In addition, the Malawi case exemplified the critical social development themes of inclusion, cohesion and accountability. Jorgensen proposed that if such local catalysts could scale up to national changes, these could lead to global impacts.

Jorgensen explained the World Bank’s approach to local development, through Country Assistance programs, lending via CDD and Social Funds, research and capacity building. He illustrated how inclusion, cohesion and accountability (345Kb PDF) should occur under the local development framework, through conceptual mandates such as involving all stakeholders, building trust and developing institutions that listen to stakeholders. This framework also involved practical steps such as inclusion indicators, involving communities in monitoring and evaluation, and publicizing resources. Jorgensen suggested how donors, CDD and Social Funds groups, and sector colleagues could contribute to local development. In describing the promising results that would follow their collaboration, Jorgensen urged these stakeholders to take action to realize these possibilities.

Reporting back from Stakeholders’ Perspectives Workshops. Representatives from each stakeholder group shared a theme and one action they hoped to pursue to support an integrated approach to local development. Thereafter, participants discussed with country and regional partners about follow up actions they hoped to realize upon returning to their countries. Many groups intended to further understand local development and define related responsibilities within their country. Widespread interest in regional fora on Local Development was expressed and some participants hoped to lobby their central government to advance the decentralization and local development process.

Closing – Plenary

Speakers: Shengman Zhang, Managing Director, MDS (WB); Kurt Hildebrand,Division Chief, Sector and Policy Division Governance and Decentralisation (KfW); Robert Holzmann, Director, HDNSP (WB)

Reflecting on the proceedings of the past three days and the future of local development, World Bank Managing Director Shengman Zhang, Kurt Hildebrand and World Bank HDNSP Director Robert Holzmann offered their closing remarks. Zhang urged participants to share their experience at this conference with others in their country. He challenged them not only to learn about best practices, but to implement them. He emphasized that this realization should not only involve on the ground understanding, but also programs to enhance effectiveness and efficiency, in order to make a difference in the lives of the poor.

Kurt Hildebrand in his Closing Remarks (12Kb PDF) expressed the need to develop a global partnership for local development and continue supporting the World Bank in this initiative. He reminded participants that they must link local development to macro policies and involve all actors in these efforts and detailed multiple actions required for a holistic approach to local development. These included sorting out decentralization and establishing the structures for fiscal reforms at the national level, harmonizing financing instruments and redefining the roles of sectoral institutions.

Hildebrand reminded donors to respect the division of labor within a country’s structure of government. He stressed the potential harms of continued donor fragmentation, such as the current unsustainable transaction costs. If national government funds remain unchanneled, the lack of ownership at the community level will persist. These challenges imply the need for a financing scheme for local development, with a structure shaped according to professional standards.

Robert Holzmann underscored that the innovation of the Local Development approach was combining common elements and developing an inclusive framework. The empowerment, local government and service delivery elements coincided with the current focus at the World Bank, where local government is a key actor. Holzmann identified that this conference accomplished bringing together sectors and allowing the realization of commonalities. He reinforced the message of a need for stronger communication with donors and increasing networks among all stakeholders. In closing, Holzmann called on participants to take these messages home and put them into action.

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