Each country team will discuss and put on flip charts:

• Obstacles encountered and why; how you overcome them
• What made process go well and why?
• Lessons learned

Key Points to Include in Discussion

• How team members were selected
• Choice of secretariat
• Development of MOU
• Roles played by each of 3 actors
• Role of I.A
• Goals and objectives of team and how chosen

Selection of Country Team Members – (no obstacles):

• decided to maintain the previous tripartite country team

Selection of the Secretariat – (no obstacles):

• chose CONGAD based on:
• 1. 2003 decision of US PVO & local NGOs
  2. ALPI secretariat selection criteria

Development of MOU – (no obstacles)

• Country team led drafting of MOU

Role of Each Actor

• Necessary time to share appropriate information prior to organising ALPI initial meetings (E-mail)
• Timely disbursement of grant to fund regional workshops (CONGAD prefinanced activities)
• Lack of time to organise the final regional workshop (merged it with the final & regional workshop)
• Delay in grant disbursement (interaction to find solution)

Goal & Objectives - High Expectations (shared information about resources available & revised Action Plan activities to match resources.

ALPI PROCESS (things that helped)

Continuity

• Secretariat (CONGAD)
• Country team (CONGAD, CRS, USAID)
• Even individuals involved

Use of New Communication Technology to disseminate information (heavy reliance)

Participants interest in ALPI & the Country Team

Lessons Learned

• Value of time for communication & exchange, especially with local NGOs (3 to 6 months necessary
• Opportunity for linkages (MCA, AGOA)
• Need to mobilise PVOs, HQs for participation & support for country office
• Need for country team to reach out to:
• • USAID mission
  • US PVO in country
  • Local NGO leaders

How team members were selected:

Obstacles

• Discovery that the youth representative was not legally registered. So they were lost
• Staff / Leadership changes at the initial secretariat (instability)

Lessons learned

Need for stability

Secretariat:

Lessons Learned

• Need for open-door policy
• Frequent feedback to the members – e-mail
• Outreach to encourage member participation

MOU

Lessons Learned

• Useful for relationship with Interaction
• Need for separate Country for the team. It provides base for more linkages and major strength for the team

ROLES

Lessons Learned

USAID

• Having a liaison person and frequent participation of USAID makes it more available to the other actors
• US PVOs erractic, but the Country team still tries to accommodate them

Interaction

• Broad coordination of all Countries
• Provision of Technical Assistance
• Facilitation to Washington Week

Obstacles – Lack of close monitoring of Country level issues (need more autonomy)

Goals & Objectives

Lessons Learned

• Need to be more specific with the limits of resources and time

Obstacles

• Initial mistrust among Ghana Country Team (inherited perceptions – working on a common non-contentious issue)
• Strong commitment on Ghana Country Team organisations / spirit of voluntarism (no anticipation / expectation for external resources)
• Weak national platform – GAPVOD; weak institutional capacity

Solution

• GAPVOD signed up membership of Ghana Country Team and is bound by decisions
• Recognition and involvement of other networks
• Expanding the Ghana Country Team – Action Aid ; Center for Democracy and Development (CDD) – for broader base of decision making

Lessons Learned

• Knowing about each other
• Effective national platform is CRITICAL

• Issues: are networks members of GAPVOD?
• review of statutes
• deal with issue of developing an effective national platform

Obstacles

• Departure of key persons from CCA
• Consensus building around the elaboration of goals and objectives
• Imbalance in the motivation of the different parties

Why?

• Problem of management
• Inappropriate approach
• Diversity of interests

Solution

• Balance the interests / incentives (remains to be done)
• Recruitment of a permanent secretary
• Series of meetings around the issue until consensus is reached

Favourable Factors

• CCA’s experience in the first phase of ALPI
• Joining of USAID, US PVOs, and local NGOs
• Commitment of participating members

Lessons

• Environment that inspired friendliness and openness to dialogue; mutual knowledge and sharing of best practices
• Mutual reinforcement of Knowledge
• Progressive lessening of stereotypes between the different partners

By Mr. Sylvain Browa

Questions / Comments / Clarifications

Q1. From the charts around the room, it is obvious that funding has been utilised quite well, but inadequate. Is it likely that Country Teams would receive an increase in funding in the future? Secondly is ALPI thinking of an expansion?

Response: Country Teams would have to do with what they have currently and examine how much has been done to date. The evaluation would inform any future increments and how to go about securing the needed funding. On the issue of expansion, ALPI focus would remain on the 5 Countries and involve others later. As far as contractual obligations go, 5 is the maximum. Probably the next phase of ALPI would be to expand to new countries, while the experienced countries run their own programme.

Q2. Two years ago Tanzania expressed interest in joining ALPI. How far has this proposal gone?

Response: Tanzania was originally on the programme. There were 2 trips to Tanzania but there wasn’t enough interest to launch the programme there. For most of the countries in East Africa, it took two trips to establish the programme while in other countries it took only a trip each to establish interest and move the programme forward.

Q3. Apart from the ALPI budget, what additional support is given Country Teams / are the same budget subventions given all Country Teams?

Response: Yes, but in some cases ALPI has provided additional funding for training in Ghana and Kenya, because additional resources were available but that is not always the case.

By Dennis Weller – Deputy Director USAID Mission in Ghana

USAID’s Governance and Democracy Programme has brought him in close contact with Ghanaian CSOs. USAID is working currently at the district level with other civil society organisations who engage with the grassroots through its Governance Accountability Improves Trust (GAIT) programme.

Currently, one of the largest US investments is the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) and Ghana has signed the largest US compact to date (US$547M). ALPI counterparts in Ghana made major inputs into the MCA design. Some donors expressed concern about and the fact that the proposal presented by the Government of Ghana wasn’t a very tight document, but it is acknowledged that civil society input has been quite effective. A recent workshop in June 2006 looked at how the MCA could be effectively used in providing schools, hospitals, water etc, and CSO input in this process was equally useful. It must be noted that the implementation of the MCA would be tracked very vigorously. Another activity which was bourne out of ALPI is the Code of Standards currently being developed by the networks in Ghana. This is a sort of peer review among CSOs which is quite a useful process particularly when there is some level is mistrust of NGOs and CSOs. It would serve as tool as for how other interest groups and not just NGOs view themselves.

On the part of USAID, there is a strong commitment for continuous dialogue with the various CSOs and NGOs such as POSDEV, CARE, and OICI etc.

It must be noted however that, a critical area that requires decisive attention in Ghana is decentralisation. Currently decision making tends to be top heavy thus denying the decentralised level, the critical development required in areas such as agriculture, health, education etc. The lack of decentralised decision is the basis for mediocre developments being seen presently. It is for the communities to decide where tax dollars contracted by the government should be spent.

In conclusion, it must be said though, that USAID is learning through these processes and activities.

9.1. Questions / Comments / Clarifications

Q1. You mention the need for CSO involvement in governance at the decentralised level. How does USAID see its role in bringing together government and CSOs on a common platform to work towards this?

Answer: (Mr. Clemence Tandoh – USAID Democracy and Governance Officer) the GAIT programme works mainly at the district level with CSO groups. Additionally, USAID along with other donors was instrumental in making sure CSOs were part of the recent Consultative Group (CG) meeting donors have with Government. USAID will additionally continue to advocate for continuous CSO engagement in all sectors and strategies such as the private sector strategy, health, education etc. Additionally, the GAIT programme works with Civic Unions in the communities to build their capacities to engage with the District Assemblies (DAs). Groups such as Hairdressers Associations, Driver Mechanics, and the Ghana Private Road Transport Union, are all dynamic groups the programme works with.

Q2. Has USAID attempted to build the capacities of CSOs under the ALPI?

Answer: USAID worked closely with POSDEV under GAIT 1. POSDEV assisted in identifying groups at the local levels and currently the civic union networks are the strongest, receiving funding from USAID and other programmes. The initial hardwork was initiated by POSDEV.

Q3. Coming from the Brong-Ahafo (BA) region of Ghana, this is the first time I am hearing of this programme

Answer: In Brong-Ahafo, Techiman has one of the strongest GAIT centres. Techiman was part of GAIT I and is still part of GAIT II. Berekum is also part of GAIT II. Actually there are 3 districts in BA out of a total of 25 under the GAIT programme. USAID is even trying to encourage non-GAIT districts to adopt the concept.

Q4. We know Interaction has great interest in the MCA and there has been interaction at very high levels, but what is USAIDs role in this process?

Answer: The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is not part of USAID. USAID has no authority over the MCC. However in Ghana, when MCC was launched, the MCC team was interested in the level of analysis and work done by USAID in order to build upon it particularly in the area of Agriculture, which is a key focus of the MCA. At the same time the Ambassador and her team is taking a very active role in the implementation and tracking of the MCA. It is a high level programme but MCC is not part of USAID. It is more of a sister organisation.

Q5. What impact will the change in US foreign policy focus / direction have on USAID work in Ghana?

Answer: Despite gains made, there are still major gaps to be closed. Unfortunately decision making is still centralised and not decentralised, but the blue print which covers 3 areas will be followed: Governance, Education and Investing in People – education and health and Economic Growth. There is flexibility is deciding how the USAID country team implements these sectors.

Q1. Noticed that in Senegal there was emphasis on issues of funding – delay in disbursements – were they able to implement the Action Plan?

Q2. For Mali – How did they succeed to get linked to the USAID website and how is it working?

Response: There are two windows. USAID window and ALPI window. The ALPI window is also on the USAID website. The Country team got linked only a week ago on the USAID window. At the time of developing the action plan, it was envisioned that a website or a newsletter would form a basis for information sharing but this actually took effect only recently due to a number of factors. There were several delays due to that constant change of USAID staff. Additionally, the USAID quarterly information bulletin delayed and came out only last year.

Q3. The time frame is missing from some of the submissions, for e.g. the case of Ghana and Mali. It was therefore not easy to understand the challenges outside the timeframe – how much could be accomplished within a particular timeframe?

Responses: MALI - The question is a challenge for all. Mali just began implementing activities in October last year. Consultations were lengthy, such as meetings for the Country teams, MOU and the signing of contracts

Q4. Noticed that in the case of Ghana, USAID work with NGOs is growing smaller, and is working with much bigger contractors. What is the future of smaller NGOs in Ghana?

Response: The plan is to get the bigger NGOs to take the money and break down into smaller grants to smaller NGOs. The thought behind USAID’s process is to have a principal applicant who will work with local NGOs. This process is more of capacity building – particularly in reporting to USAID.