United Nations Development Programme The Republic of Yemen Local Governance Support Project

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Local Governance Support Project (LGSP) was launched in May 2010. This is the first Annual Progress Report of the LGSP, covering the first seven month of the period from May 2010 to December 2010. This period can be looked upon as an inception period, which focused on establishing the project, carrying out outreach activities and paving the ground for the coming years. As the first step, the project put in place the project assistance component consisting of the finance, administration and other support staff. By November 2010, the LGSP management team comprising of the Chief Technical Advisor (CTA), National Project Manager (NPM) and the Finance Manger were on board.

This inception phase, which was geared towards establishing the project, dealt mainly with establishment of project management systems, including staff performance management and development systems and internal finance management and administrative systems, completing staff recruitment, conducting outreach activities and consultations.

The late start of the project as well as continuous delays with the launch of the National Programme for Local Governance (NPLG) and related management structures allowed the LGSP to achieve only some of the targets set in the annual workplan for 2010.

Yet, despite delays in recruitment of project staff, the project has made good progress in two important areas. Firstly, the project refocused the attention of the government, particularly the Ministry of Local Administration, on decentralization and local governance. Two events were particularly instrumental in this respect: the Uganda Global Forum on Local Development and the study tour visit to France, both in October 2010. The high level of participation (the delegation at the Uganda Forum was headed by the Minister and the delegation in France was led by the Vice Minister and also included seven governors) resulted in gaining experience from other countries in decentralization and the re-establishment of the Drafting Committee for the National Programme for Local Governance, which has been operational since then with the support of the project. These activities were a significant contribution to output 1 of the project despite the fact that the National Programme was not organizationally launched.

Secondly, the project re-established itself as a reliable and credible partner of the MoLA and renewed relationships with all major stakeholders in local governance, national as well as international both in the centre and in the field. This was a challenging task after a relatively uneventful period of transition between the LGSP and its predecessor, the Decentralization and Local Development Project completed in March 2010. In December, the project supported the General Women Department of the MOLA to initiate gender mainstreaming of the governorates’ annual development plans and create a community of practice for knowledge sharing and experience exchange in this area. Together with the MoLA deputy minister for monitoring and administrative units’ affairs and his team, the project team visited the governorate of Hadhramout and two districts in this governorate to study the DLDSP experiences and to allow for a more informed and participatory designing of the project’s work plan for 2011. For the same purpose the project held a series of consultative meetings with national and international stakeholders, including major development agencies, to prepare for the next year’s plan. These activities have created favorable conditions for the project’s rolling out of the three outputs in 2011.

In addition, the project provided substantive support to UNDP through participation in the joint assessment for the Joint Initiative for Sa’ada (JIS). LGSP was engaged in the Local Governance thematic component of JIS and provided inputs for methodology development; recruiting consultant to conduct the assessment; conducting preliminary field visits and communicating the preliminary findings. The findings of this assessment will help the project to collect baseline data on local development, development and service delivery needs and costs of meeting these needs to inform local development planning, as envisaged in output 3.

1. CONTEXT

In 2008, the Government of Yemen (GOY) approved the National Strategy for Transition to Local Government (NSTLG), which articulates transformation of the Local Administration to Local Governance System. The main areas of reform include:

(1) Building and developing a legislative structure by defining the needed development functions to be transferred to the local government units and define the roles required to exercise such role by the local level's organizational frameworks;

(2) Identifying sources and sizes of needed financial resources for local government and developing the local financial management system to enable the units to exercise their development function effectively and efficiently;

(3) Designing and developing Institutional building to enable local government units to perform their function efficiently and effectively on top of which engage all social groups in the local community in achieving local development;

(4) Building and enhancing required human capacity of the local government to exercise its tasks and function defined in the institutional structure effectively and efficiently, are the pillars of the national strategy, with community participation and gender as crosscutting.

The aim of the LGSP is to support the Government of the Republic of Yemen (GOY) in its effort to transform its Local Administration to a Local Governance system as articulated in the National Strategy for Transition to Local Governance (NSTLG). The core activities of the project will be articulated around supporting the development and implementation of the GOY National Programme which will guide and manage the implementation of the National Strategy for Transition to Local Governance (NSTLG).

The LGSP has three interlinked components: Legal Reform, Institutional Development and Local Development, with community participation and gender mainstreaming as crosscutting. Through the Legal Reform component, the LGSP will contribute to the creation of an enabling environment during the transitional period by amending of some articles of the Country’s Constitution and formulation of a new Law for Local Government in replacement of the current Law number 4 of 2000 on the Local Administration.

The Institutional Development component will provide support to designing systems and tools to foster the capacity of MOLA, other central institutions and local authorities as part of the National Strategy for Transition to Local Government. Focus will be given to gender mainstreaming into the work of decentralization at all levels and advocacy will be undertaken in order to increase public participation/transparency and promote the sense of ownership.

Under the Local Development component, participatory development planning process at local level will be promoted; tracking system for local development and MDGs at local levels will be established and applied; costing modules for local services and infrastructure will be introduced; and Public Expenditure Management at local level will be expanded, along with required capacity for local development planning to deliver results.

The project will be implemented by MOLA using National Implementation modalities. This involves a cooperative operational arrangement in which Government entities take responsibility and assume accountability for the formulation and management and reporting of UNDP supported projects. The NP, MOLA, target sector and central ministries, LGAs and CSOs will be the direct beneficiaries of the project.

During the reporting period, the expected results of LGSP are pursued in line with the National Strategy for Transition to Local Government. The project is intended to support the realization of the overall UNDAF outcome “Enhanced transparency and accountability of public institutions and participation of all constituencies in systematic national and local decision-making within the scope of international treaties ratified by the Republic of Yemen.” Project resources have been applied towards the achievement of the CPAP outcome 3 “Improved government structures and mechanisms at both centralized and decentralized levels responding to citizens’ needs and rights” and CPAP outputs 3.1 “National Decentralization Strategy (NDS) operational, with strong engagement of local authorities and civil society entities in managing and overseeing local development in a participatory and equitable way manner”; 3.2 “An institutionalized system of participatory national and local development planning”; 3.3 “Strengthened capacity for an effective fiscal decentralization, that allows local districts to meet investment requirements and operational costs”; and 3.4 “Increased participation of children, youth and women as decision makers in decentralized governance”.
This is demonstrated by progress towards the following intended LGSP outputs:

1. 
   Enhanced government efforts to develop comprehensive institutional, legal and regulatory framework for local Governance;
   
2. 
   Enhanced government efforts to develop required capacities at central and local levels for a functioning local Governance;
   
3. 
   Improved Local Governments capable of equitably and strategically investing public resources and effectively promoting local development and contributing to the achievement of some of the MDGs.
   

UNCDF, UN Women and the Ministry of Local Governance Administration are the primary partners in the implementation of this project. Other stakeholders include Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MoPIC), Ministry of Finance (MoF), a number of sectoral ministries, the Social Fund of Development (SFD) and the Public Works Project (PWP). The direct beneficiaries of the project include central ministries and agencies as well as local governments at the governorate and district level and non-government and community-based organizations.