40. Some years ago in country A the government changed and the new government immediately announced, without consultation with its technical services, that in future the new vaccine TRIPKIL against trypanosomiasis would be provided free of charge by the veterinary services to any stockowner requesting it.3. Trypanosomiasis is only a problem in one corner of country A which traditionally has no livestock but which is currently being opened up for commercial ranching. TRIPKIL is extremely expensive, has to be imported, and the veterinary services can only meet, at 20000 doses annually, about half the demand for it but use 60% of their total annual budget for drugs and vaccines in doing so. TRIPKIL has to be stored in a deep freeze until 12 hours before use. The veterinary department has an alternative cheaper scheme for dealing with the problem of trypanosomiasis but lacks anyone experienced in the bureaucratic skills of "project preparation" who can prepare the necessary feasibility study to secure financing.
41. Shortly after the new government came into power donor B offered to fund a new policy unit in the ministry of livestock. Donor B has provided for the unit an expatriate policy expert, an agricultural economist who previously worked in Indonesia, and he has arrived with his micro computer and a special policy software programme for it called WONGO3. At the moment there are no other staff in the policy unit as all the local staff are away on training abroad. The director of veterinary services disapproves of the policy unit, and the policy expert reports directly to the Permanent Secretary of the ministry who until recently was a research scientist in animal genetics. The policy expert frequently sends to the Permanent Secretary thoughtful memoranda full of mathematical equations and computer print-outs. The Permanent Secretary tried to read one of these but could not understand it and, in any case, he is far too busy to do so because for several months he has spent all his time trying to get a consignment of 4-wheel drive vehicles intended for the veterinary services released from the customs warehouse.
3
TRIPKIL and WONGO are brand names fabricated by the author and do not refer to any products actually in existence. In any case, a vaccine against trypanosomiasis does not yet exist.
42. The Permanent Secretary is also very busy trying to get a new US$ 50 million tannery project ready for appraisal and financing by donor B. At this point in time the appraisal team arrives and is very impressed by the tannery project although it realizes that there are going to be problems in securing enough funds from the government's livestock ministry budget to finance the government's contribution to the project. Nevertheless, the team invites the government to send a delegation abroad to B to negotiate the project. On the last night of the appraisal team's visit they have dinner with the policy expert (who is an old colleague of the team leader's from Indonesia days) and he explains the latest output of his WONGO programme and the solution it has found to the problem of the rising TRIPKIL subsidy.
43. When the government's negotiating team reach B they find the donor enthusiastic about financing the tannery, but at the last minute in the negotiations donor B demands, as a condition of the loan, that country A agrees to eradicate the TRIPKIL subsidy along the lines the policy expert's computer has suggested. These are that in the future TRIPKIL is to be handled exclusively by private rural pharmacies who will be required by law to stock it and sell it from their deep freezes at the wholesale price. In country A rural pharmacies have no deep freezes or any use for them except to store TRIPKIL. The negotiating delegation from country A are told by the donor that unless they agree immediately to this condition negotiations will be suspended and cannot be resumed, due to the donor's own timetable, for another 12 months. Country A's negotiating delegation agree, sign the agreement and return home. Shortly thereafter the tannery project starts and the TRIPKIL rural pharmacy legislation is enacted by presidential decree.
44. Soon after the publication of the decree the chairmen of the Rural Pharmacies Association and of the Commercial Ranchers' Cooperative - who happen to be senior officials in the governing political party call on the President one evening and explain how the new law will ruin rural pharmacies by forcing them to buy expensive deep freezes whose cost they will not be allowed to recover from TRIPKIL's retail price. The first time the Permanent Secretary of the livestock ministry gets to know of these discussions is when these two chairmen call on him the following morning bearing a written order to him from the President requiring him to supply immediately, and free of charge, 40000 doses of TRIPKIL and 200 deep freezes for distribution to rural pharmacies.
45. A fantastic story which we all hope could not be true. But it aptly illustrates the critical weakness of the process of much policy formulation in the livestock field in Africa: i.e.
a) Inadequate indigenous capacity in analytic skills.b) Policy makers who are too bogged down in detailed day-to-day executive work to have time to consider policy issues and who lack experience or training in dealing with them.
c) A failure to identify all the policy options.
d) A policy unit whose existence and role is not accepted by one of the technical services in whose subject-area it is supposed to analyse policy.
e) Inadequate mechanisms within the state bureaucracy to discuss policy issues.
f) A divorce between bureaucratic "policy formulation" and the real world of economics and politics as practised by political parties and economic interests, so that "policy formulation" fails to identify practical problems (the deep freeze issue!), to come up with policies which are politically realistic, or to subject special pleading by interest groups to critical analysis in the light of the overall interest.
g) A policy issue that is only tackled either in emergencies and by politicians without consulting their officials or when a donor applies pressure, even though it clearly needs tackling systematically in the country's own interest.
h) A donor who is enthusiastic but naive about policy-making and who believes the timetable of policy-making in any country can-be altered to fit the donor's convenience.
i) An "old boy network" alliance between expatriate technical assistance experts and the staff of a donor that is responsible to no one, and, at the same time, both technically and politically incompetent.
j) The use of "sophisticated" techniques for policy analysis which obscure and mystify rather than clarify issues for policy makers.
46. This section of the paper has identified a number of problems in the process of policy analysis and policy-making but has not provided any suggestion for their solution. Urgent attention needs to be given to consideration of how the process of policy formulation can be improved, and in particular:
a) What bureaucratic organisations and mechanisms are needed for analysis and coordination of livestock policies.b) What extra resources (time!) and skills are needed to facilitate good policy analysis and policy-making. Is there a role for in-service training in policy-making for senior officials appointed late in their careers to posts involving policy issues?
c) How can bureaucrats, economic interests and political parties best communicate with and confront each other so that legitimate interests can be taken into account and illegitimate special pleading exposed to public scrutiny?
d) What helpful role can donors play to improve livestock policy making in Africa?
