GHANA: NPOA MONITORING AND EVALUATION Presented by Samuel Cudjoe APRM Ghana Workshop on Monitoring and Harmonizing the Zambian APRM NPOA with NDP and MTEF, Lusaka, Zambia Oct 2014

Content of Presentation 1.Introduction 2.NPOA Development 3.NPOA Costing 4.Harmonizing NPOA with National Plans 5.NPOA Financing 6.Monitoring Implementation of NPOA 7.Key Issues

1. Introduction The base document of the APRM states that “the peer review process will spur countries to seriously consider the impact of domestic policies…..” it also adds that “bearing in mind that African countries are at different levels of development ….a timetable (Program of Action) for effecting progress towards achieving the agreed standards and goals must be drawn up by the state in question, taking into account the particular circumstances of that state”

2. NPOA Development The country self-assessment exercise should be about how to improve governance, based on identified governance indicators, consistent with the APRM questionnaire Governance Issues that inform the development of the NPOA is derived from the Country Self Assessment Report (CSAR) that is undertaken by the country in question.

2. NPOA Development The issues come from extensive consultations with ALL stakeholders during the CSAR. And ALL the issues are important to the various stakeholders that championed them. Attempts should be made to develop the ideas and concerns of citizens into coherent policy options Both EXPERTS and CITIZENS are consulted on projects and programmes to be included in the NPOA

2. NPOA Development Care should be taken not to put undue weight on the proposals from experts as opposed to that from citizens the CSAR is a “wishlist” of the citizenry regarding preferred programmes and projects for the NPOA

2. NPOA Development This exercise is a technical process best carried out by the Ministry/Department for Planning The development of indicators to track progress under the NPOA should be supported by the Department of Statistics. This is to avoid the situation of developing indicators that fail to measure higher level impact.

2. NPOA Development But there is need for NEGOTIATIONS between stakeholders to IDENTIFY CRITICAL ISSUES that need to be addressed/reinforced. The public should be afforded the opportunity to scrutinize and validate the consolidated proposals, with openness and transparency. Any pre-existing projects should be integrated into the NPOA before citizens are asked to validate it.

3. NPOA Costing Need to keep a “paper trail” of the costing process to demonstrate how the process is carried out. The exercise is a technical process which is best performed by key line ministries (usually the Ministry of Planning and the Ministry of Finance). Civil society organizations can support by providing budgets of activities that fall under their purview.

3. NPOA Costing The costing of the NPOA should be specific and detailed. All costs, including programme salaries, maintenance, and infrastructure costs should be included in the NPOA. Any ongoing projects included in the NPOA should be clearly indicated Any funding already raised for ongoing projects included in the NPOA should be disclosed in the NPOA

3. NPOA Costing The NPOA costs should distinguish between costs to be borne by the government and costs to be borne by non-state actors The challenge during this stage is double- costing (where budgeted projects are re- budgeted in the NPOA), under-costing (where maintenance and other costs are not captured) and wrong-costing (where costing is done without recourse to key activities to be undertaken and arbitrary figures are inputted)

4. Harmonizing NPOA with National Plans All countries have established institutional frameworks within which project and programme preparation, costing, implementation, monitoring are conducted, The national planning body and NGC seek to integrate the NPOA into the national plan through a range of sector strategic plans.

4. Harmonizing NPOA with National Plans The NPOA is prepared at the same level of aggregation as that used in the preparation of the National Plan and medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) All the NPOA expenditures are identifiable in the MTEF, even when the expenditure is to be made by an entity which is not a government agency NPOA activities are coded in the MTEF in order to facilitate NPOA expenditure tracking and monitoring and evaluation of implementation

4. Harmonizing NPOA with National Plans Ideally it should be possible to identify APRM- NPOA projects within the national plan through all the stages of the planning process The challenge of identification may be due to the fact that national plans capture all commitments of governments (NEPAD, MDGs, MCAs, etc), and there are overlapping projects, e.g.. Gender Equality (APRM) and Gender Equality (MDG). Which process takes credit for a project on Gender Equality?

4. Harmonizing NPOA with National Plans One potential problem of this harmonization exercise is that of cycles – completion period of the NPOA vis-à-vis development of the national plan Ideally, if the NPOA is completed before the country develops its national poverty reduction strategy paper, the NPOA can be easily harmonized with the PRSP. Where this cycle is missed it may pose problems for the harmonization.

4. Harmonizing NPOA with National Plans In cases where the PRSP has been completed and implementation has started, the NPOA may be stood down till the next medium-term expenditure cycle. This has the potential of rendering most of the issues in the NPOA redundant by the time of implementation. A validation of the harmonization process is critical to ensure ownership!!!

5. NPOA Financing Potential sources of finance for the NPOA – Domestic governments – Locally based private sector – Locally registered civil society organizations – Foreign governments – International agencies – International philanthropic sources Bulk of financing, however, falls on domestic governments

5. NPOA Financing Need to distinguish between the APRM as a governance assessment mechanism and as a capital investment programme. Determining the state of governance in the three governance thematic areas – DPG, EGM and CG – is an activity that can be conducted using government funds; However, the decision to improve governance and performance indicators by way of targeted investment programmes as contained in the NPOA may require support outside government sources.

5. NPOA Financing In some cases, the government’s input has involved developing policies that make it easier for the private sector providers of a service (for example, provision of high performing primary, secondary and tertiary educational facilities) Budgetary priorities can be re-allocated in order to provide funding to implement key projects identified in the NPOA

5. NPOA Financing CSO financing of NPOA activities are difficult to assess. In cases where development partners that support CSOs route their funding through the Ministry of Finance it is easy to capture the volume of support, but where this is not so it is difficult to know as CSOs are “not very forth coming with such figures”

5. NPOA Costing Ghana NPOA Budget USD 5 Billion NPOA life span – 5 years = approx 1 B/year Annual Budget GHS20B (average) Remember most of APRM is in sync with government development plan Additional annual “NPOA burden” equivalent to about USD100,000 – USD250,000

6. Monitoring Implementation of NPOA This has been the least discussed aspect of the APRM process Monitoring and Evaluation frameworks for the NPOA should be developed during the development of the NPOA Budgetary allocations for the framework should be included in the NPOA

6. Monitoring Implementation of NPOA Because the NPOA is integrated into the national plan, and implementation is largely the responsibility of government, citizens are generally excluded from the monitoring phase, NPOA reporting in most cases is equivalent to the planning authority reporting on implementation of the national plan (the voices of citizens are lost) This is becoming the bane of the APRM

6. Monitoring Implementation of NPOA How do we get citizens involved in the monitoring and reporting of NPOA implementation? Various strategies are being adopted: – Citizen validation of national reports (South Africa, Ghana) – Civil Society tracking (South Africa and Uganda) – Citizens tracking via Report Cards (Ghana)

7. Key Issues Integrating the NPOA and the PRS facilitates policy coherence and more effective use of existing capacity Where the PRS is informed by the NPOA there is greater scope of integrating the two processes Greater transparency improves citizen participation and ownership (guard against CSO-ization of the process)

7. Key Issues The APRM provides a platform where sections of the society who are normally excluded from national planning exercises have the opportunity to make inputs into project and programme identification. The NPOA can serve as a powerful tool in transforming the economies of countries