Topic #2: “Challenges and solutions to creating an MfDR culture in African organizations"

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Permalink Reply by Arunaselam Rasappan on June 15, 2009 at 9:07am

Hello Alice - thanks for your feedback on this topic. You are right of course, as creating a culture of MfDR in an organization is not a linear or unilateral effort. Creating any value system is subject to many variables and often takes time. In the case of creating such a MfDR culture within an organization, it is also important to identify and create agents of change or champions of change from within the organization.

This is one reason why in an ongoing experiment in Asia, I'm taking a multi-prong approach to creating a culture of development results and M&E within three pilot countries. This ranges from identifying and working with key policy level officials, to training of trainers for long-term sustainability, working to build awareness and capacity among the actual practitioners, and lastly working with the top leadership to create the policy level buy-in and ownership for such initiatives. Luckily for us, the entire effort is being supported by the Asian Development Bank but still the onus of adoption of the MfDR and M&E aspects within the country and withing public sector organizations still rests with the government and the various stakeholders/players within the respective countries/organizations..

As you suggested, it is important to work from different levels and entry points to be able to create the culture of MfDR. The more challenging the country situation, the more strategic and multi-prong the entry points for bringing about the MfDR culture.

If you have any specific examples of such entry points for a MfDR culture initiative, please do share with us.

Many thanks

Aru Rasappan

ALICE ATIENO ODHIAMBO said:

I am totally in agreement with my fellow AfCoP members who have contributed robustly to the discussion on challenges and solutions for creating an MfDR culture. Without re-inventing the wheel, the issues on
the need for having champions, positive attitude and internalising a
culture geared towards an MfDR outlook within an organisation etc, are
imperative and cannot be over emphasised. What I have also found
practically usefull , has been informal engagements with key
stakeholders and more so the top management, through conciously and
continuosly utilizing available opportunities, such as informal
interractions to demostrate the importance and value added by MfDR,
this, in addition with other approaches contributes to a positive mind
set .

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Permalink Reply by Cyril Blet on June 16, 2009 at 9:11am

Dear all,

As you may know the same topic is now being discussed on the francophone site. Dick van Blitterswijk and Melinda Wezenaar have summarized its main points to update you on the content of this discussion. Here is what your francophone counterparts have been saying!

Individual versus collective results

Several contributions mentioned that a “results culture” was not new for African societies. Issa Abdoul Razaou recalled that individuals focus on results simply by acting in their everyday life, managing their own budget. However, once we are looking at development results, different actors (often public actors) are trying to fulfil collective needs of others (outcome level) by delivering certain services or products (output level).
The available incentives to act in a very result focused way are also different between the individual and public actors. In this context, Issa Abdoul Razaou suggests to reinforce citizen’s control mechanisms. This accountability mechanism could lead to an incentive for public actors to achieve the development results they promise.

The State contributing to development (collective needs)

Moreover, the state makes use of public resources, via annual budget cycle, to fund its expected outputs. As such, signs of a results culture, as identified during the discussions, are very much linked to systems, structures and tools. Dr. Nahorbe Kabo stated that the first precondition for a results culture is the existence of “a State focusing on/serving development of the Nation”. Another crucial point is also raised by Patrick Elat, who related that in the past, African societies were very much organised around “social cohesion” and looking for ways to serve common interests. He mentioned the need for the survival of the community and the notion of African solidarity. He seriously questioned, however, if most African States act in line with these values today. Then, the conditions to make the State acting more in line with these values would bring us closer to a (collective!) results culture in public management.

Systems, leadership and culture

Mr. Sani described the establishment of the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation more than 10 years ago in Niger. He stated that the launch of national tools to collect results information linked to the different development interventions were important steps toward creating a results culture. He also explained that an MfDR-leadership in the administration is of critical importance.
Senator Jameleddine Khemakhem stressed the necessity of having a rigorous planning with indicators and clear mandates and accountability mechanisms to set up a results culture. As a consequence, a real change in results culture could easily take decades.

Even though an increasing number of institutions manage for development results, a results culture – defined by Dr. Geert Hofstede as a “collective mental programming” – might not exist in many places at the moment.

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