Governance and the Institutional Framework of Development Management in Africa: Reversing the Decline in Quality Delivery

The Institutional Framework of Development Management:?As I stated in an earlier blog post, development management, in scholarly and practical perspectives, serves as a tool for executing institutional agendas within the measure of planning, implementation and monitoring of development oriented programmes. Governments and the public service generate policies, provide research based analysis of development situations, introduce and monitor corresponding projects in development at every level of decisions - international, regional, national or local.

Studies into the typology and versatility of the term reveals that a good or bad development programme depends largely on the quality of the institution through which actions are channelled.?Derick and Jennifer Brinkerhoff (2005) in their analysis of the process and definitions of development management saw multilateral organisations such as the United Nations, and International Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as examples of institutions. They remarked that in the attempt to achieve results institutions may sometimes find their agendas overriding even the real needs of the local populace, towards whose welfare developments actions are being planned in the first place. It is worthy of note however that those development institutions alike, despite espousing policies regarding country participation and adaptation to local priorities and needs, share a common set of principles and objectives. Most donor policy frameworks incorporate a combination of market liberalisation, privatisation, state downsizing, democratic governance, equitable delivery of basic services, and poverty reduction. They take a comprehensive approach to country-level planning[1].

Although Cooke (2003) who took a more radical position on the issue in the context of developing countries, argued that the institutional agenda facet of development management reveals a connection to the imperialist agendas of colonialism, and that today’s development management is the instrument of donor-imposed priorities just as colonial administration enabled Western imperialists to rule their acquired territories for their own purposes[2], the country level planning follows the need for local participation which is?considered indispensable as the turning point from the one-size-fits-all approach of external development agencies in order to allow for the best local adaptations of programmes which will meet the need of the population without working against the indigenous cultural and traditional traits as well as the natural mode and rhythm of development[3].

Country-Level Implication and the Africa Specifics:?In the light of the above analysis, the participation of Governments and the civil service platform in the interior of a country remains very crucial in the carriage of development management. Of a truth, international NGOs and intergovernmental organizations help government achieve development goals in technical support or even field assistance, the proper planning of the economy as well as assistance in underground studies of local situations, statistical analysis and provisions is mostly ensured by main stream ministries such as education, development, environment and culture, etc. Apart from the technical services, public institutions render, they are also the ones that manage the spending of official development assistance funds provided for states.

In most African states, government co-operations are major providers of basic infrastructures and amenities which ensures smooth running of the economy, social cohesion and minimum welfare of the populace. This is in part due to the fact that shortly after the decolonization of many Sub-Saharan African States, the question of nationalization of co-operations and infrastructure producing enterprises as a measure to economic growth was the order of the day[4]. At that period, there was faith in public institutions at the expense of the private sector, believed to be instruments of colonial masteries.

Fresh indigenous governments in many of the states feared continuous colonial intervention and therefore pushed for nationalization. Since then, the force that drove development administration, provision of amenities and infrastructural construction has been concentrated on the states and today, the push for privatization has become another major challenge for the developing countries of Africa, due to the mass failure recorded by governments’ agencies in meeting up with the growing complexity of development administration and management. The fact that governments and politics have disappointed with the display of inefficiency and lack of commitment to the common good cannot be overemphasised in the present Africa’s predicament.

The question of woeful economic and social development performance began to come in the limelight about the late 1970s[5] in Africa. Successive military coups in countries like Nigeria, the dictatorship administration in Uganda and the Congo were the first signs of political breakdown, to be followed by the massive economic depression in the 80s.

Within three decades of self-governance in Africa, a continent that showed enormous promises in respect of its natural resource endowment began to manifest symptoms of suffering in the midst of plenty. This prompted attempts of the international community to begin to find solutions to the endemic economic and social development breakdown, leading to the introduction of programmes like the Structural Adjustment Programmes. The Organization for African Unity (OAU) shortly after its creation has been spearheading many initiatives for Africa’s economic and social development.

Many initiatives were taken and introduced in these countries[6], but it seemed that the problems continued to escalate. This is needless to say that actions have not been lacking as far as African development strategies are concerned, but the difficulty remained how the institutions who are supposed to implement initiatives go about it...Read on.