African Agriculture Planning Scorecard

The challenge Wide variations in how African countries practice agricultural planning and budgeting Some practices are determined by national planning and budgeting, but some not Difficult for good managers in ministries of agriculture to promote reform, both within ministries and with MOFs etc and donors Tendency to focus on process and not results? Opportunities to build on renewed optimism and generate a culture of progress in ministries of agriculture

Purpose Define the main features of best practice in agricultural planning Help focus planning reforms Encourage exchange of experience over which features are most difficult to implement Help ministries of agriculture focus on improving planning across all elements Provide a possible framework for agricultural sector budget support

Other similar scorecards Aid effectiveness criteria PEFA (but AAPS would be less of an external audit and more of a management tool) Transparency Scores Ease of Doing Business Scores Corporate Social Responsibility Indices Technical reviews/benchmarks – Irrigation costs – Energy being led by CDKN

Management and use Scoring done by group of experienced but independent experts, after discussion with government Annual reporting to a central coordinating body that maintains consistency and evolves methodology (CABRI?) Lobbying tool: – For reformers within ministries – For international support (as reward for recent success or future plans) Evaluation of efficiency of agricultural spending (eg correlate scores with agricultural growth)

The criteria A.Strategy 1.Existence of an up to date national agricultural strategy 2.Clear role of government for each department 3.Realistic medium term resource allocations in strategy B.Prioritisation and Budget 4.Separate budgets for departments 5.Recurrent and capital budget jointly managed C.Implementation and Management 6.Expenditure constrained by budget not cash negotiation D.Monitoring 7.Use of performance indicators by department 8.Estimation of benefits of major initiatives E.Evaluation 9.Feedback from farmers and stakeholders to government

1: Existence of an up to date national agricultural strategy Government decisions on priorities should be guided by a clear sector strategy 1.No sector or sub-sector strategies approved in the last ten years. 2.Out of date sector strategy and no plans to renew, but some sub-sector strategies. 3.Out of date sector strategy, but plans to produce a new strategy in the next two years. 4.Fully up to date sector strategy covering most sub-sectors.

2: Clear role of government for each department Need for clarity on what government does and what is done by the private sector 1.Lack of any clear statement on government’s role. 2.A variety of different statements some of which are overlapping and/or inconsistent. 3.Ongoing process for clarifying roles, with good expectation of results within one year. 4.Clear and explicit roles for government, private sector and civil society for each department in agriculture strategy.

3: Realistic medium term resource allocations in strategy Sector strategies are of limited use if they are not linked to resource allocation 1.Latest strategy or associated plan has no references to resources. 2.Latest strategy or associated plan has an incomplete indications of costs, but no spending limit. 3.Latest strategy or associated plan has a complete estimate of costs but with no limit. 4.Latest strategy or associated plan includes an estimate of expenditure for each department constrained by projected funding availability.

4: Separate budgets for departments Some countries have only one budget line for the whole of the Ministry of Agriculture, which makes it difficult to see how priorities are managed 1.Single budget for the whole ministry and no internal reporting. 2.Single budget for the whole ministry internal management processes to monitor performance 3.Separate budgets for each department but limited use of the budget for routine management. 4.Separate budget of each department and use of budgets for managing expenditure.

5. Recurrent and capital budget jointly managed Many countries separate the recurrent and capital budget, often because of donor dependency This overloads of the recurrent budget or collapse of project initiatives Also often results in projects including recurrent costs 1.Separate planning and reporting to MoF and MoP, with projects prepared independently with donors 2.Separate planning with in the ministry, but compilation and joint submission to MoF 3. Separate project planning but compilation within departments 4.Integrated budgets in the ministry, with full analysis of recurrent cost implications

6. Expenditure constrained by budget not cash negotiation In periods of low revenue, the ministry may receive less than its budget which creates big problems for department managers 1.Expenditure is mostly allocated every week or month by negotiation between departments and does not follow the budget. 2.Expenditure follows the budget for between four and eight months of the year. 3.Expenditure is mostly allocated according to the budget and is normally cut proportionally, if insufficient budget is available. 4.Expenditure is almost always in line with budget.

7: Use of performance indicators by department Results based management requires performance indicators to be defined and used 1.No performance indicators defined. 2.Inadequate set of indicators defined. 3.High quality set of indicators defined, but no use of indicators. 4.High quality set of indicators defined and used for monitoring and management

8: Cost benefit analysis for major initiatives Prioritisation of initiatives should refer to a definition of benefits and, where possible valuation of the benefits – ie Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) 1.No CBA used within government and no capacity to use any donor CBA. 2.Some CBA for major initiatives, but undertaken by experts and not used by the ministry. 3.Government requires CBA to be done for large initiatives and capacity exists, but limited use. 4.Government regularly does CBA, at least on major initiatives and uses this for prioritisation.

9: Feedback from farmers and stakeholder to government Evaluation (both ex-ante and ex-post) requires feedback from beneficiaries to understand the successes and challenges facing departments 1.No feedback and participation. 2.Ad-hoc feedback and participation for occasional initiatives. 3.Policy and procedure exist for feedback and participation, but are not widely used. 4.Policy and procedures exist and are widely used.

Other possible criteria Coordination with cross-sectoral policy Budget revisions influenced by policy (ie more than incremental budgeting) Clear procedures in ministry budget to handle unpredictable revenue (eg contingencies, pipeline projects …) ?

Quick exercise Fill in the form for your country on the basis of your personal viewpoint and knowledge (5 mins) Compare with one other colleague from your country and consider variations (5 mins) Answer the questions on the form – Any disagreement with any of the criteria or scoring? – Any suggestions for additional criteria? – Does everyone know already what is best practice? – Would countries be prepared for the possible embarrassment (as well as showing off success)? – Would it be politically OK to have an independent assessor? – Could the criteria be used to lobby MoF for more budget or donors for budget support? – Would you like to participate?