Question 4: What are the key challenges faced in formulating and implementing these strategies/policies and what lessons learned from on-going or past processes?
Towela,
You have raised important issues (challenges), especially the over-reliance on foreign expertise resulting in most countries getting cut and paste policies and strategies; not enough attention paid to the development of capacity to provide an evidence-base for policy formulation (which I believe contributes to continued reliance on on foreign expertise); and little documentation on the policy processes in our countries, which in my view contributes to duplication of efforts and also not not learning from the policy formulation process.
Regards,
Justin
The main lessorn lent is to have a shared goal and clear from the beginning on who is doing what among the stake holders, and what are there to build on!
Anju MangalSecretariat of the Pacific CommunityFiji
Many organisations fail in strategy implementation? The common problems that we see frequently are:
1) Insufficient funding --- Once strategies are developed, an action plan is formulated to ensure that the strategies are implemented. The action plan state activities for every recommendation. There are some activities that require funding. If an organisation does not have sufficient core funds, the activities are not completed.
2) Leadership --- if your leader is weak or not able to carry out difficult decisions, there is a possibility that the strategy will not be implemented.
3) Lack of transparency and accountabiliy --- For every strategy that has been developed by an organisation, it is important to ensure that all the staff are made aware of the strategy. One of the constraints we face is that leaders/executives and managers do not share the information with junior officers. There is lack of transparency in defining the role, responsibility and the objective.
4) Sustainability or exit strategy --- most activities that are developed under the strategy/objective do not have an exit strategy. When a project ends, there's no plan on sustaining it for a longer period of time.
5) Lack of team collaboration and or integration --- if you don't have a committed team working together in an integrated manner, the strategy will fail. Staff need to have team spirit in order to progress their work
6) Difficulty in understanding what the strategy entails --- there's lack of collaborative approach and lack of discussions on what the strategy is about. During the formulation of a strategy, all staff should be involved to understand what each objective mean and how this reflects to their terms of reference, job description and workplan.
Thanks Emligot, Eugene and Towela for your much appreciated wishes.
I would like to highlight two persistent problems that have been pointed out in the latest messages above.
Several of the issues raised by Towela pertain to what we like to call in the francophone context the continuity of the state, which follows the premise of a (fully) functional state. In other words, we are facing the problem of state building in developing countries (particularly in Africa, from my perspective). How can we mitigate the adverse effects of letting politics and its fluctuations drive all the agenda? Should we have strong and autonomous government agencies whose mandates do not depend on the political season (or party in power)? (is there any such example in your country?) May we reasonably hope for Think Tanks or other non-governmental structures credibles enough to provide a source of legitimacy for evidence-based policies? What would be the funding structure to make that work? Do you know of examples of such structures in ACP countries?
Regarding leadership as outlined by Anju (and also by Towela with the examples of Heads of State taking up the Agriculture portfolio), that is key. We are dealing with countries with very limited resources and competing demnds, where governments theoretically commit to agendas and yet one has all the difficulties to get them follow through when it comes to implementation or taking actions. So having a recognizable champion sometimes makes a significant difference.
Just to share some experiences both from the broad ICT policy formulation and implementation challenges that cuts across the e-strategies in sectors. In this context, some of the challenges we identify both in working with governments in Africa particularly are the following:
- political will and stability- most of the success stories in terms of ICT sector policy development and implementation is linked to political commitment at the higher level of the decision making. The ICT success stories many refer to Rwanda is one example of this such political will and championship in the leadership. On the other hand the stability and continuity issue is also another challenge where e-strategy development and implementation can face obstacles in cases of change of bureaucratic apparatus and leaderhship.
- participatory approach - as it was noted in some of the discussions, e-strategies development can only be achieved through a broad-based participatory approach. This clearly signifies the cross-cutting nature of ICTs from specialised agencies involved in the infrastructure development aspects to sectoral agencies for the various socio-economic sectors to the policy, legal and regulatory agencies including other non-state actors. Therefore the broad-based participation in e-strategies development and implementation is an important factor.
- priority sectors - as it was also noted in some of the discussions, it is important that the sector gets priority attention to necessitate the need to put strategies in place. There are also other priority issues in terms of the capacity building i.e. human and institutional strengthening, etc. that could contribute to challenges in effective implementation of the e-strategies.
- external factors - some of the challenges particularly in implementation could be those that were not seen in the policy formulation process such as those that require legal and regulatory frameworks that need to be in place. I assume some of the mobile-based agri marketing initiatives would require require legal and regulatory frameworks for such activities as issuing statements with financial values, etc.
Hope these could help in highlighting issues in this area.
In addition, to several challenges that have been highlighted, bureaucracy and lack of understanding among public sector employees, especially in Africa, can also be a major challenge to implementing e-strategies. Sometimes this is exhibited in form of lack of interest, demand for extra-payment (especially if the source of funding for the initiative is external) and administrative "bottlenecks".
Question 4: What are the key challenges faced in formulating and implementing these strategies/policies and what lessons learned from on-going or past processes? 
Towela,
You have raised important issues (challenges), especially the over-reliance on foreign expertise resulting in most countries getting cut and paste policies and strategies; not enough attention paid to the development of capacity to provide an evidence-base for policy formulation (which I believe contributes to continued reliance on on foreign expertise); and little documentation on the policy processes in our countries, which in my view contributes to duplication of efforts and also not not learning from the policy formulation process.
Regards,
Justin
The main lessorn lent is to have a shared goal and clear from the beginning on who is doing what among the stake holders, and what are there to build on!
Many organisations fail in strategy implementation? The common problems that we see frequently are:
1) Insufficient funding --- Once strategies are developed, an action plan is formulated to ensure that the strategies are implemented. The action plan state activities for every recommendation. There are some activities that require funding. If an organisation does not have sufficient core funds, the activities are not completed.
2) Leadership --- if your leader is weak or not able to carry out difficult decisions, there is a possibility that the strategy will not be implemented.
3) Lack of transparency and accountabiliy --- For every strategy that has been developed by an organisation, it is important to ensure that all the staff are made aware of the strategy. One of the constraints we face is that leaders/executives and managers do not share the information with junior officers. There is lack of transparency in defining the role, responsibility and the objective.
4) Sustainability or exit strategy --- most activities that are developed under the strategy/objective do not have an exit strategy. When a project ends, there's no plan on sustaining it for a longer period of time.
5) Lack of team collaboration and or integration --- if you don't have a committed team working together in an integrated manner, the strategy will fail. Staff need to have team spirit in order to progress their work
6) Difficulty in understanding what the strategy entails --- there's lack of collaborative approach and lack of discussions on what the strategy is about. During the formulation of a strategy, all staff should be involved to understand what each objective mean and how this reflects to their terms of reference, job description and workplan.
Thanks Emligot, Eugene and Towela for your much appreciated wishes.
I would like to highlight two persistent problems that have been pointed out in the latest messages above.
Several of the issues raised by Towela pertain to what we like to call in the francophone context the continuity of the state, which follows the premise of a (fully) functional state. In other words, we are facing the problem of state building in developing countries (particularly in Africa, from my perspective). How can we mitigate the adverse effects of letting politics and its fluctuations drive all the agenda? Should we have strong and autonomous government agencies whose mandates do not depend on the political season (or party in power)? (is there any such example in your country?) May we reasonably hope for Think Tanks or other non-governmental structures credibles enough to provide a source of legitimacy for evidence-based policies? What would be the funding structure to make that work? Do you know of examples of such structures in ACP countries?
Regarding leadership as outlined by Anju (and also by Towela with the examples of Heads of State taking up the Agriculture portfolio), that is key. We are dealing with countries with very limited resources and competing demnds, where governments theoretically commit to agendas and yet one has all the difficulties to get them follow through when it comes to implementation or taking actions. So having a recognizable champion sometimes makes a significant difference.
Dear All,
Just to share some experiences both from the broad ICT policy formulation and implementation challenges that cuts across the e-strategies in sectors. In this context, some of the challenges we identify both in working with governments in Africa particularly are the following:
- political will and stability- most of the success stories in terms of ICT sector policy development and implementation is linked to political commitment at the higher level of the decision making. The ICT success stories many refer to Rwanda is one example of this such political will and championship in the leadership. On the other hand the stability and continuity issue is also another challenge where e-strategy development and implementation can face obstacles in cases of change of bureaucratic apparatus and leaderhship.
- participatory approach - as it was noted in some of the discussions, e-strategies development can only be achieved through a broad-based participatory approach. This clearly signifies the cross-cutting nature of ICTs from specialised agencies involved in the infrastructure development aspects to sectoral agencies for the various socio-economic sectors to the policy, legal and regulatory agencies including other non-state actors. Therefore the broad-based participation in e-strategies development and implementation is an important factor.
- priority sectors - as it was also noted in some of the discussions, it is important that the sector gets priority attention to necessitate the need to put strategies in place. There are also other priority issues in terms of the capacity building i.e. human and institutional strengthening, etc. that could contribute to challenges in effective implementation of the e-strategies.
- external factors - some of the challenges particularly in implementation could be those that were not seen in the policy formulation process such as those that require legal and regulatory frameworks that need to be in place. I assume some of the mobile-based agri marketing initiatives would require require legal and regulatory frameworks for such activities as issuing statements with financial values, etc.
Hope these could help in highlighting issues in this area.
Best regards
Abebe Chekol
Dear Abebe,
I agree with your observations. I hope that we will meet next week when I come to ECA.
Regards,
Justin
Dear All,
In addition, to several challenges that have been highlighted, bureaucracy and lack of understanding among public sector employees, especially in Africa, can also be a major challenge to implementing e-strategies. Sometimes this is exhibited in form of lack of interest, demand for extra-payment (especially if the source of funding for the initiative is external) and administrative "bottlenecks".
Regards,
Justin