Transcript EVIDENCE-BASED POLICY ANALYSIS IN SOUTH AFRICA: …

EVIDENCE-BASED POLICY ANALYSIS
IN SOUTH AFRICA:
Critical assessment of the emerging
GWM&ES
Fanie Cloete
Department of Public Governance
(UJ)
[email protected]
(c) F Cloete: GWM&ES as CAS, Cairo 2009
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Outline
• Evidence-based assessment
• M & E as higher order management
function
• The Emerging GWM&ES
• Assessment of the GWM&ES
• Complex adaptive systems (CAS)
• Policy and GWM&ES as CAS
• Conclusions
(c) F Cloete: GWM&ES as CAS, Cairo 2009
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Evidence-based policy assessment 1
• Evidence-based analysis largely theory before info
revolution
• Info society enabled effective evidence-based
assessments
• = approach that helps people make well informed
decisions about policies, programmes and projects by
putting the best available evidence at the heart of policy
development and implementation (Segone 2008: 27)
• = not opinion-based policy practice, which relies
heavily on either the selective use of evidence (e.g. on
single studies irrespective of quality) or on the untested
views of individuals or groups, often inspired by
ideological standpoints, prejudices, or speculative
conjecture (Segone 2008:27).
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M&E as higher order management function
• M&E = not an isolated activity
• M&E = integral part of good policy
management process
• M&E = an applied research and planning
function needed to ensure goals are
achieved.
• It is a higher order management function
that compiles evidence of progress
towards goal achievement and interprets
the data to determine the extent of change
(c) F Cloete: GWM&ES as CAS, Cairo 2009
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Evaluation as gap assessment
Start date: Current base
line data & goal to
improve
Formative
evaluation
Projected future end
date: End or culmination
data (feasibility/viability)
Process/
ongoing
evaluation
Summative
output
Mid-term review: Activity progress data
(Resource conversion processes:
Efficiency, effectiveness, productivity)
evaluation
Summative
outcomes
evaluation
End data: Culmination data & concrete outputs/ services
or products (Programmes/projects/instruments/ like
quantity & quality of jobs, houses, water, police, roads)
Summative
impact
evaluation
Intangible short & medium term sectoral outcomes/results (mission)
(Improved literacy, health, safety, affluence, communications,
social security, environment)
Intangible long term multi-sectoral impacts/consequences (vision):
(Poverty alleviation, quality of life, growth, empowerment, equity, accountability,
democracy, sustainability)
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Emerging GWM&ES in SA 1
• SA behind many developed states but ahead of
many developing states
• Until 2005 no coordinated M&E function in govt:
Isolated line function M&E by PSC, Treasury,
DEAT & other depts
• Then:
–
–
–
–
Mil goals: 2015
WSSD: 2002
Presidency: POA
Donors
• Resulted in GWM&ES: 2005
(c) F Cloete: GWM&ES as CAS, Cairo 2009
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Emerging GWM&ES in SA 2
• Presidency coordinates GWM&ES
• Emerging framework intended to provide
min structure and min uniform procedures
(eg indicators, Treasury performance
reporting framework, SASQAF)
• Implemented in decentralised way,
maintaining existing systems & procedures
asap
• Establish reporting system from
community & eventually NGOs through
prov, national depts to Presidency.
(c) F Cloete: GWM&ES as CAS, Cairo 2009
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Main GWM&ES stakeholders
• Presidency: GWM&ES Policy Framework, PoA,
NII, Mid-term dev indicators, 10 & 15 Yr Reviews
• PSC: Guidelines & evaluations
• Treasury: Perf reporting framework
• StatsSA: SASQAF
• DPSA: PERSAL, BAS data
• DEAT: SoE, NFSD
• DPLG: Prov & Loc Govt Key perform indicators
• PALAMA: M&E Training
• Line function depts: Nat, prov, distr, local
• Businesses,(c) FNGOs,
CBOs,
Cloete: GWM&ES
as CAS, Cairo 2009
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Structural components of the GWM&ES
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Treasury performance
information model
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Shared understanding of Local government indicator
development across all three spheres Phase 2
GWM&E System
GPOA
National
PGDS
Provincial
IDP
District
Indicators
Local
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IDP
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Pres Mid-term dev indicators
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•
•
•
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•
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Economic growth and transformation
Employment
Poverty and inequality
Household and community assets
Health
Education
Social cohesion
Safety and security
International Relations
Good Governance
One environ indicator only (greenhouse gas emissions)
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Complex adaptive systems 1
• Simple, complicated, complex
• Cooksey 2001: complexity = “…a non-linear
systems-oriented perspective that attempts to
conceptualize, understand and intervene in
organizational systems at multiple levels…in full
recognition of the dynamic linkages and
influences that operate within and between
aspects of those system levels through time and
space” & “…guiding instead of prescribing,
adapting instead of formalizing, learning instead
of defending, complexifying instead of
simplifying and including instead of excluding”
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Complex adaptive systems 2
Van Buuren & Gerrits (2008: 382) …(e)very
decision can be regarded as a temporarily stable
state of equilibrium in which streams of
negotiation, deliberation and fact-finding are
connected stepping stones in an ongoing policy
process which at the same time is influenced by
parallel policy processes competing for the same
resources
(attention,
money,
legitimacy,
support). Decisions that are made persist until a
sufficient amount of system pressure (internal or
internal) destabilizes the policy system towards a
new state of equilibrium…
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Complex adaptive systems 3
Teisman & Klijn, 2008: …(w)e already know that
managers are not the rational beings presented
in many managerial handbooks and that they try
to avoid choices or act according to the
circumstances. The complexity theory gives us a
different image of the manager as someone who
is trying to survive in the ‘fitness landscape’ that
he is creating jointly with other agents, by slightly
bending and changing the conditions and using
the moments and possibilities perceived. This
will, almost certainly, also provide us with
different
prescriptions
for
these
managers..(2008:297).
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GWM&ES assessment 1
• GWM&ES not integrated, coherent system
• Regulated by collectivity of different sectoral
policy docs from different stakeholders not
coherently integrated
• Many details still fuzzy or absent
• Still emerging system: no time frames
• SASQAF problems with stats quality
• Not enforced
• Rollout to provs & lower problematic
• No vision: what to M&E: outputs, outcomes, etc?
• Focus mainly
on how:
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GWM&ES assessment 2
• No link to African or other eval guidelines
• Mid-term Dev Indicators very crude,
incomplete & unsystematic
• Turf battles detrimentally affect system
implementation (eg PSC & DEAT).
• Implementation capacity limited
• Massive training effort needed by
PALAMA
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GWM&ES assessment 3
• A policy system = a complex adaptive system
• Evidence-based policy assessment relies on
integrated higher order M&E function in govt
• GWM&ES = emerging, complex adaptive
system:
– many simple variables/components
– of an open system subject to external influences,
– interacting with each other in a dynamic, rich
historically determined and non-linear manner,
– defying full understanding,
– operating far from equilibrium (hovering on the
edge of chaos),
– but surviving and expanding in a self-learning and
self-regulatory manner
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GWM&ES assessment 4
• GWM&ES does not have a formal hierarchical structure
• operates as loose network of autonomous agencies
periodically interacting with one another.
• No clear line of authority
• frequent turf battles cause confusion and conflict
among stakeholders.
• System still evolving, as new rules of the game are
being formulated or clarified, changing power and
authority relationships among the main stakeholders.
• System has an inherent survival capability
• Learning lessons in a self-regulatory manner illustrates
complex nature of system
• The complex nature of the system justifies the
decentralised implementation approach
• Optimal balance between centrifugal and centripetal
forces in the system
is essential for success.
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GWM&ES assessment 5
• GWM&ES improvement strategies:
– Need for coherent and feasible, integrated and holistic
national vision to guide M&E activities;
– Environmental and sustainability indicators to be
integrated into Mid-term dev indicators, distinguishing
output from outcome and impact indicators.
– Fast-track roll-out of system to prov & local govt levels
– Improve capacity of M&E Coordinating Unit in the
Presidency
– Improve inter-govt communication and marketing for
GWM&ES.
– Reduce internal turf battles and overlapping M&E
mandates among main stakeholders
– Build organisational culture of network co-operation
rather than hierarchical
competition
(c) F Cloete: GWM&ES as CAS, Cairo 2009
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