Final Draft December 2009 Bhavna Sharma, Marta Foresti and Leni Wild Table of contents

Section 6: EC tools to support NSA engagement in new aid modalities

A number of tools, some of which are well established within most EC delegations, are available to EC staff to take forward the options for NSA engagement in NSA presented in section 5. However, it is important to recognise that some of these tools, particularly mappings and consultations, were not originally designed in the specific context of new aid modalities and as such are meant as generic tools in support of a wider variety of EC aid processes and instruments. [Whilst these tools do offer some scope to be used in the context of GBS and SBS, it is important to recognise that, at present, they are not seen as an integral part of budgetary aid cycle. Hence, there is a risk that if strictly prescribed as mechanisms to involve NSAs in GBS and SBS, they become perceived as ‘add ons’ to the main process and instruments, with limited practical value. However, this could be overcome by linking mappings to the identification and formulation process undertaken by the delegations and to the stakeholders' analysis and beyond that to issues to be considered such as policy definition, MTEF, implementation and monitoring.

Furthermore, it should be recognised that whilst there is a genuine need and demand among EC staff to have some better guidance to carry out consultations and mappings, also based on the challenges described in section 2, this goes beyond the scope of this study which is meant to focus primarily on forms on NSA engagement in new aid modalities and GBS and SBS in particular.

6.1. Mappings

NSA mapping exercise is an analysis of the NSA landscape to understand who the key actors are, their role (i.e. service provider, watchdog, advocacy organisations, etc.) and their relationship to one another and the state. Mappings are considered to be a key tool and step for the initiation of a participatory development process involving substantive engagement of NSAs. The logic of NSA mapping is that better knowledge and understanding of NSAs constraints, potential, needs, sectors of involvement and activities will improve the ability of the EC to facilitate their engagement in development processes.

Currently, many mappings conducted by delegations end up being descriptive exercises, often resulting in a static analysis of a wide range of NSAs in any given country, with little indication of the dynamics at play between them and, crucially, between state and non state actors. To some extent this is due to the scale of the exercise which privileges breadth over depth in the analysis: this can in part be addressed by a more sectoral approach to mapping. Currently, it is often an exercise that requires significant EC delegation time and resources, and one that quickly becomes out-of-date if not repeated regularly. The feedback received from the EC delegation during the India case study was that the sheer size and scale of India made a mapping exercise virtually impossible, and that included scaled down mappings focused on particular geographical areas or sector-specific mappings. Another issue is that mapping exercises often turn into a descriptive long list of the existing NSAs rather than a dynamic framework which includes analysis of changing socio-political dynamics as well as an analysis of the potential risks and benefits of engaging specific NSAs or types of NSAs.
However, what is increasingly being recommended by EC guidelines⁵² is a “political economy approach” to mappings which is dynamic and reflects power and other relationships between actors and is not static and descriptive (see Box 12 below). This takes away from a focus on NSAs only, to include a more holistic perspective of the whole political and economic context where NSAs operate. At the heart of this approach is an attempt to understand the interaction of political and economic processes in a society, the distribution of power and wealth between different groups and individuals, and the processes that create, sustain and transform these relationships over time⁵³. One of the key advantages of a political economy approach to mapping would be that it would allow the EC to identify the most suitable and relevant partners to work with to help support the design, implementation and/or monitoring of EC programmes, rather than all possible NSAs present in any one country. This would help the EC to make a better informed judgment as to how, when and if at all it should encourage the engagement NSAs in GBS and SBS processes, based on a thorough analysis of the political and institutional contexts where they operate.

Box 14: EC recommendations for conducting mapping exercises
Mappings should be dynamic exercises that provide a combination of quantitative information (presence of NSAs, networking experiences, political dialogue, etc) with a differentiated analysis of NSAs (NSA typologies, their role, capacities and added value to policy processes), linked with an in depth understanding of the context and political economy.
The EC capitalization study of 9 EDF capacity building programmes outlines the following defining features of mappings:

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  Be dynamic and not static;
  
• 
  Be a tool that facilitates the identification of the programme;
  
• 
  Deliver a qualitative and quantitative approach;
  

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  Quantitative approach:(i) evolution of the association movement in the country; (ii) presence of NSAs in the different regions of the country; (iii) presence of typological and thematic NSAs (on a national and regional level if possible)
  
• 
  Qualitative approach:(i) identification of the stakes; (ii) the positioning of different typological actors at the heart of the socio-political fabric of the country; (iii) the capacity building needs of different NSA typologies; (iv) the legal and institutional framework which governs NSAs.
  

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  Adopt a guiding logic for the actor;
  
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  Respect the spirit of the Cotonou Agreement;
  
• 
  Capitalise on the existing studies and sources.
  

In addition, the fundamental elements of a mapping exercise are identified as the following:

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  “Map out” the NSA sector, on the basis of major trends;
  
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  Identify the national stakes and future perspectives for NSAs in the social, political and economical contexts;
  
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  Identify the key actors at the heart of NSAs (at the centre of each family and structural level);
  
• 
  Evaluate their capacity building needs (in terms of the different levels and families);
  
• 
  Analyse the juridical and institutional framework and environment in which the NSAs are evolving;
  
• 
  Analyse consultation processes between government actors and NSAs (the room for cooperation between the different rungs of the administrative ladder);
  
• 
  Identify a map of stakeholders (including the adopted approaches) in the domain of support to NSAs (donors, programmes, NGOs, universities, private contractors etc.)
  

Source: Floridi, M. and Sanz-Corella, B. (2009) Capitalisation Study on Capacity Building Support Programmes for NSAs under the 9^th EDF, Brussels: EC.

NSA mappings at the sectoral level would be easier to perform and they would be more likely to yield useful findings, if built upon general mappings, utilising the political economy approach, and integrating key findings from the general mapping into the sectoral mapping (such as legal framework, how it is applies in practice, historical trends and challenges, etc.). This new and more targeted approach, already tested by the EC (in Guatemala for instance] and other donors within an established sector policy (in terms of health, education, rural development etc.), acquires significant importance to the extent that the exercise can provide indications for the implementation of a local or subsector strategy based on sector priorities⁵⁴.

Finally, it would be highly desirable that mappings, rather than stand alone exercises and products produced exclusively for NSA programmes, were more generally integrated in all EC policy and programming processes. Among other things, this would allow the process and findings of mappings to be brought to the attention of EC staff in charge of different sectoral and thematic programmes (i.e. not only those concerned with NSA issues). In particular, it would be very useful if mappings were integrated in the Reference document on Addressing and Analysing Governance in Sector Operations⁵⁵ as part of a set of tools specifically aimed at better understanding the relationship between NSAs and other key actors in the sectoral political and governance context.
If mapping was to be re-orientated along the suggested lines, it would become a more useful analytical tool on support of NSA engagement on new aid modalities as it will allow to (i) formulate a better informed judgement of what is the role of NSAs in a particular sector (and country), including their relationship with other key actors; (ii) make an assessment as to whether NSA engagement with GBS and SBS could indeed be useful and conducive to reform process or, as it is likely to be the case in some countries or sectors, risk undermining the role of the state and the partnership between the EC and the government in budgetary aid dialogue.