Much of the literature advises that more focus should be given to the process of sequencing. Sequencing is part of the wider process of prioritisation of reforms. This thinking has led to the development of a variety of frameworks to structure strategic planning and coordination, diagnostic tools to identify and monitor need and capacity, and donor toolkits to guide overall approaches.
Despite the many frameworks and tools that have been developed, choices over sequencing and prioritising are still highly complex. As there is no one sequence that a country should follow, there is also no one definition of what ‘successful sequencing’ or ‘successful prioritisation’ would be, or how it could be measured. While donors have become increasingly effective at producing cogent analyses, they are often less effective at applying these analyses to their programmes (CIC, 2011; Yanguas & Hulme, 2014).
Donors in FCAS are increasingly using ‘frameworks’ to coordinate aid, strategies (e.g. linking national development plans, aid, political and military strategies), resource mobilisation, and programming with other actors (e.g. the national government and other donors) (Leader & Colenso, 2005). These frameworks tend to support sequencing decisions by aligning all actors behind one peacebuilding and statebuilding plan, and by dividing up tasks.
Examples of different types of frameworks are provided below.
Multilateral joint assessment: Post-Conflict (or Crisis) Needs Assessment (PCNA)
The PCNA is a multilateral needs assessment that creates a platform for national and international partners to conceptualise, negotiate, agree on, and finance a shared strategy for recovery and development in FCAS. The PCNA includes a needs assessment, a process of prioritisation, and the costing of needs in a Transitional Results Matrix. PCNAs are the most commonly known tool, and assess post-conflict restructure needs. PCNAs have been undertaken in: Timor-Leste (not formally a PCNA), Afghanistan (not formally a PCNA), Iraq, Liberia, Haiti, Sudan (North/South), Somalia, Sudan (Darfur), Pakistan, Georgia, Zimbabwe (only preparation) and Yemen.
UK Government: Joint Assessment of Conflict and Stability (JACS)
The JACS is a UK government cross-departmental strategic conflict assessment tool. It aims to build an analytical framework, based on analysis of existing primary and secondary data, to help develop an integrated approach both to understanding the conflict and stability challenges in FCAS, and to planning the calibration of diplomatic, development and defence tools. It includes a focus on the processes of joint working. The exercise therefore models how the relevant government departments should come together in the operational phase, once the analysis is complete.
Compacts
A ‘compact’ is a framework that brings together statebuilding and peacebuilding actors to agree on: priorities that require a collective effort; implementation methods (who and how); mutual accountability; and funding commitments (Bennett, 2012). There is no blueprint, instead compacts are country designed and should be led by a national vision (IDPS, 2013). More comprehensive compacts have seen compacts try to align and coordinate statebuilding and peacebuilding reforms of different actors behind a set of priorities. In the latter type of compact, the UN has played an important role in developing and implementing the compacts (IDPS, 2013). Compacts have been signed in: Liberia, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sierra Leone, and Timor-Leste (IDPS, 2013).
Mutual accountability frameworks
Mutual Accountability Frameworks work much like compacts (and are sometimes called compacts). They aim to bring together actors around one development plan, with shared objectives. They emphasise the delivery of objectives of both the host country and the donor (e.g. with a host country responsible for specific policy reforms, and the donor responsible for providing funding) (Byrd, 2012). This type of framework can also be called conditionality. Mutual accountability frameworks have been signed in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone (Byrd, 2012).
Strengths and weaknesses
IDPS (n.d.) suggests these frameworks have produced useful experiences in integrating conflict and fragility issues and aligning donor support. They also aim to help build national consensus on, and ownership of, the framework and plan. Based on analysis of five FCAS, Bennett (2012) concludes that some compacts have been ‘instrumental’ in focusing reform agendas and resources on a few select goals. However, case study analysis of 16 MDTFs in FCAS by Commins et al. (2013) found that host governments may also engage bilaterally with donors, in addition to MDTFs, in politically important instances.
IDPS (2013, p.5-6) identifies success factors of the first generation of compacts as: strategic timing and political will; focused, but inclusive, participation; narrow, realistic prioritisation and short timelines; mutual commitments and accountability for results; explicit links between priorities and financing; and flexible agreements and non-bureaucratic language. Bennett (2012) also finds that compacts are most useful when they are focused and prioritised, include mechanisms for implementation, and when they consider national capacity and public appetite for the reforms.
Lessons from using conditionality in peacebuilding and statebuilding suggest that plans should have: a reform constituency in country to provide support; achievable and realistic objectives; a limited number of essential targets/benchmarks; flexibility and responsiveness; a medium-term perspective; and a collaborative design process (Byrd, 2012, p.2). Byrd identifies technical design issues including: ‘ex-ante versus ex-post provision of funding, how to balance incentives for reform actions with predictability of financing, whether to do a series of separate operations or a single multi-tranche operation’ (Byrd, 2012, p.2).
In terms of sequencing, the PCNA recognises that not all needs can be addressed immediately and simultaneously, and establishes mechanisms to prioritise and sequence. Its Transitional Results Matrix can help identify timelines and inform expectations of what can be achieved and when. However, Commins et al. (2013) found that donors are frequently over-optimistic about time-scales.
Some compacts are thought to have diverted time and resources from more critical concerns – due to high transaction costs, and often overly bureaucratic implementation and monitoring mechanisms (Bennett, 2012). With all of these frameworks, which bring together international partners with different mandates and priorities, there are risks that each actor pushes their own perspective (deliberately or through bias).
- See the UNDP’s discussion of Post-Conflict Needs Assessments
- For example, the Mutual Accountability Framework for Sierra Leone signed in 2014 has also been called a New Deal Compact.
- Bennett, C. (2012). Aid Effectiveness in Fragile States: Lessons from the First Generation of Transition Compacts (Policy Paper). New York: International Peace Institute.
See document online - Byrd, W. (2012). Mutual Accountability Lessons and Prospects for Afghanistan Post-Tokyo (Peace Brief 132). Washington, DC: USIP.
See document online - Center on International Cooperation. (2011). Strategic Planning in Fragile and Conflict Contexts. New York: CIC, New York University.
See document online - Commins, S., Davies, F., Gordon, A., Hodson, E., Hughes, J., & Lister, S. (2013). Pooled Funding to Support Service Delivery Lessons of Experience from Fragile and Conflict-Affected States. London: DFID.
See document online - IDPS. (2013). Transition Compacts (Background document for the Third International Dialogue Global Meeting “The New Deal: Achieving Better Results and Shaping the Global Agenda”, 19 April 2013). Accessed via email.
- IDPS. (n.d.). Strategic Planning Recommendations Paper. International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding.
See document online - Leader, N. & Colenso, P. (2005). Aid Instruments in Fragile States (PRDE Working Paper 5). Poverty Reduction in Difficult Environments Team/ Aid Effectiveness Team Policy Division, DFID.
See document online - Yanguas, P., & Hulme, D. (2014). Can aid bureaucracies think politically? The administrative challenges of political economy analysis (PEA) in DFID and the World Bank (ESID Working Paper No. 33). Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre, University of Manchester.
See document online