Results of CAP-Scan in Senegal and Next Steps

From June 30 to July 1, 2010, the Senegalese Community of Practice (SENCOP) on Managing for Development Results (MfDR) and Senegal’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, in partnership with the AfBD, World Bank, UNDP and GTZ, held a results validation workshop in regard to the MfDR CAP-Scan of Senegalese Public Administration. The 55 participants included representatives of the CAP-Scan pilot committee, SENCOP, technical departments with medium-term sectoral expenditure frameworks (MTSEFs), departments seeking MTSEFs for 2010–11 and representatives of technical and financial partners (the ADB Tunis and SNFO (ADB Senegal), GTZ and the UNDP).

In June 2009, Senegal, like Niger and Mauritania before it, launched the CAP-Scan process, which involves a systematic self-assessment of MfDR capacities with a view to building such capacities, using an action plan. This analytical framework includes the five central pillars of MfDR: leadership, planning and budgeting, statistical capacity, monitoring and evaluation, and accountability and partnerships. In Senegal, the analysis was carried out using a sampling of 10 (ten) government departments that had carried out the participative analysis of MfDR internal capacities, and served as the basis for the development of an action plan.

In this context, the aims of the workshop were as follows:

• to share the methodological approach and results of the CAP-Scan in Senegal with all stakeholders;
• to validate the MfDR capacity building action plan, as well as the institutional mechanism;
• to define the terms and conditions for introducing the CAP-Scan tool into the process for the development and generalized adoption of MTEFs.

Results of analysis

The graph below sets out the results of the analysis of the Senegalese public administration’s capacities. The results are based on a rating on a scale of 1 to 4 – awareness; exploration; transition and full implementation – and were derived from a consensus among all the participants in the process. They show that the accountability and partnership capacity is relatively high, with an average of around 3, approaching the sustained implementation stage. The CAP-Scan also shows that monitoring and evaluation in Senegal is still at the testing stage. However, it is not so much the rating as the arguments developed during the consensus-building process that matter for devising courses of action aimed at improving the capacities and competencies of the agents responsible for public policy.

Implementation of action plan

Senegal’s process is firmly directed toward improving the MfDR capacities of the public administration. An action plan has been developed to this end. Its implementation must fit into other capacity building processes under way. It will be up to the “network” facilitator, CEPOD (Center for Development Policy Research), to organize a broad consultation process to identify initiatives under way and facilitate bridge building between Senegalese MfDR stakeholders (groups, MTEFs, DGP, DREAT (delegation for state reform and technical assistance), DPs (country directors), UCSPE (economic policy coordination and monitoring unit), ANSD (statistical agency), etc.). The following actions have been identified for improving the MfDR capacities of Senegal’s public administration:

Leadership

• Building the departments’ RBM and MTEF capacities
• Systematizing planning and monitoring bodies in all departments
• Harmonizing policy planning documents

Monitoring and evaluation

• Strengthening the planning units
• Increasing the number of departments under MTEFs
  
• Strengthening the departments’ monitoring and evaluation capacities
• Linking the monitoring-evaluation systems related to the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)

Accountability and partnership (coordination of TFPs)

• Systematizing quarterly meetings of the advisory group with the Prime Minister
• Conducting an annual review of the implementation of the ACAB (budget support framework arrangement)
• Bringing the different monitoring matrices (PRSP, ACAB, EPSI, RBF plan) into line with one another
• Involving the TFPs in the process to develop the third-generation PRSP.

Planning and budgeting

• Applying the UEMOA (West African Economic and Monetary Union) guidelines on finance legislation
• Bringing the MTSEF indicators into line with the priority PRSP indicators
• Performing checks on the actual development of MTSEFs, by sector
• Developing an overall MTEF
• Improving the guide for developing annual performance reports
• Producing performance reports annually

Statistical capacity

• Raising awareness and simplifying the content of the statistics and demographics master plan
• Determining user expectations with regard to national surveys

Implementation of the action plan will be very closely monitored to ensure that it is yielding results, and an annual evaluation will be conducted. Progress will be reported to the members of the AfCoP-MfDR. Moreover, building on the success of the CAP-Scan, Senegal is in the process of developing a pilot phase involving a sampling of key government departments. Depending on the results of the pilot phase, the next step will be to extend it to other sector bodies or even other categories of stakeholders. The CAP-Scan could be particularly useful for assessing the capacities of departments seeking MTSEFs.

Strengths and limitations of Scan

Over and above this result, the CAP-Scan was generally seen as a useful tool for assessing MfDR capacities for the following reasons:

• it prompts questions concerning the sphere of our daily actions;
• it encourages the sharing of experiences and perceptions among stakeholders in the same institution;
• it fosters comparisons of performance between agencies;
• it provides an ex ante assessment of capacities in the context of the generalized adoption of MTSEFs.

Participants nonetheless raised several limitations inherent in the CAP-Scan, including the following:

• the subjectivity of the rating system, which is based more on the perception of the members of the community of practice of their own intrinsic capacities than on the findings of previously scientifically validated studies;
• problems related to the names by which the pillars and dimensions are known, the wording of key questions, and the translation of concepts from English to French;
• the overly generalizing nature of the summaries of the findings of institutions operating in different environments and with different means of action.

Recommendations and next steps

To improve the CAP-Scan methodology, the Group of International Experts responsible for updating the tool should focus on a number of issues, relating to the following:

• the rating system for dimensions and pillars;
• the generalizing nature of the summaries of analyses, which do not always reflect findings by individual entity;
• the wording, definition and linguistic translation of the concepts used.

Click here for the full validation workshop report in French.

Mr Oumar Diakhate, Senegal
Expert economist responsible for institutional development
CEPOD (Center for Development Policy Research)
Member of the AfCoP Core Management Team

[This article has been translated from French]