6 Governance
59. DFID's White Paper Eliminating World Poverty:
Making Governance Work for the Poor was published in 2006.
In the preface it states:
"Whether states are effective or not-whether
they are capable of helping business grow, and of delivering services
to their citizens, and are accountable and responsive to them—is
the single most important factor that determines whether or not
successful development takes place. Good governance requires:
capability—the extent to which government has the money,
people, will and legitimacy to get things done; responsiveness—the
degree to which government listens to what people want and acts
on it; and accountability—the process by which people are
able to hold government to account."[138]
A further document, Governance, Development and
Democratic Politics: DFID's work in building more effective states,
was published in May 2007 and sets out in more detail how DFID
will implement its governance policy.
60. The White Paper committed the Government to establishing
a Governance and Transparency Fund which would:
"support activities aimed at building the capacity
and skills of local organisations so that they can be more effective
on issues such as campaigning on freedom of information, corruption
etc and make them better able to hold their governments to account."
The Fund was launched in February 2007 with a budget
of £100 million over five years to support "civil society,
a free media, parliamentarians and trade unions" in developing
countries "through a variety of local partnerships and networks".
DFID says in the Annual Report that "We plan to have assessed
proposals and allocated the full £100 million budget before
the end of 2007."[139]
61. The Permanent Secretary told us that DFID had
been "inundated" by responses to its call for concept
notes and had received over 400 from all over the world. Eighty-five
per cent of the Fund will be allocated to organisations in developing
countries. DFID has appointed KPMG as managing agents to assess
the bids against specified criteria and recommend projects for
funding, which must be for between £750,000 and £5 million
for periods up to five years. In December DFID will select projects
for funding, to begin early in 2008.[140]
It was too early in July for DFID to tell us in oral evidence
what the key themes of the bids for funding were but they subsequently
provided us with a breakdown of the categories into which the
293 concept notes which met the criteria and which have been invited
to submit full proposals fell.[141]
The most popular themes for funding are: access to justice, safety
and security (74 notes); access to public services (51 notes);
controlling corruption/increasing transparency (37 notes) and
administrative reform (34 notes).[142]
62. DFID
has clearly demonstrated in the publication of its 2006 White
Paper the importance it attaches to effective governance as a
means of tackling poverty. We agree that without proper governance
and accountability in developing countries little real progress
will be made towards the Millennium Development Goals. The Governance
and Transparency Fund offers an opportunity to advance effective
governance through small-scale projects in a number of developing
countries. This requires projects to be selected against clear
and specific criteria which reflect DFID's objectives. We request
that DFID supplies further information on the allocations made
from the Fund after funding decisions begin to be made in December
2007.
63. Parliamentary scrutiny and accountability are
clearly key elements of effective governance and we explored with
the Permanent Secretary the potential contribution to strengthening
accountability and transparency which might be made if DFID officials
were to appear before parliamentarians in countries which receive
DFID funding. DFID officials could not recall specific examples
of this taking place and this was confirmed in subsequent written
evidence.[143] However,
DFID country offices have contributed to parliamentary scrutiny
in recipient countries in a number of ways. For example, DFID
India has occasionally answered parliamentary questions from the
Indian parliament; the DFID Pakistan office has prepared reports
on DFID assistance for the National Assembly Standing Committee
on Economic Affairs; and DFID Tanzania has made a presentation
on budget support in the Tanzanian parliament.[144]
64. We
believe that DFID should lead by example in working with national
parliaments in recipient countries to strengthen parliamentary
scrutiny and to promote accountability and transparency in the
way DFID funding is allocated and used. We welcome the steps already
taken in this area and recommend that DFID country offices actively
seek opportunities to contribute to public scrutiny by offering
briefings and specific and detailed information to parliamentarians
and others in recipient countries.
65. The Department acknowledges that "the 2006
White Paper commits DFID to work more with parliaments in developing
countries and to increase their effectiveness".[145]
It has provided us with details of a number of parliamentary development
projects which are in the planning phase, including a research
programme at the University of Cape Town to build an evidence
base for measures of parliamentary effectiveness; and a joint
project with the FCO, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy
and other Westminster organisations to establish a UK contact
group on parliamentary strengthening.[146]
However, DFID then cast doubt on its willingness to fulfil this
commitment to parliamentary strengthening in telling us "There
is little to be gained […] from 'stand alone' programmes
with parliaments" because "parliaments and parliamentarians
are embedded in a political, social and cultural context".[147]
DFID has told us that bilateral expenditure on strengthening parliaments
is on "an upward trend"[148]
but the current allocation of £14 million seems paltry to
us and fails to support the commitments made in the 2006 White
Paper on governance.
66. We
disagree with DFID's view that the impact of individual programmes
of parliamentary strengthening is limited. Effective accountability
and scrutiny and proper transparency of course require contributions
from a number of different elements of society but parliaments
and parliamentarians are uniquely placed to provide leadership
in this area and amongst the various stakeholders in developing
countries they are most likely to have the mechanisms and resources
available to perform a scrutiny role at the highest levels. We
believe that this should be reflected in DFID making an increased
level of funding available for parliamentary strengthening.
67. It is also vital, in promoting good governance,
to build the capacity of people in developing countries to scrutinise
governments and hold them to account. We commented in our report
on the DFID Departmental Report 2006 on the impact of the withdrawal
of DFID's funding to Ethiopia through budget support as a result
of human rights and political governance concerns arising from
the 2006 elections, and its replacement by a new funding mechanism,
the Protection of Basic Services Grant.[149]
This mechanism requires the Ethiopian Government to make public
at local level how much funding is being allocated for specific
services and to whom. The Director General, Country Programmes
told us that there were two elements to this accountability requirement:
to ensure that the way funding was allocated was not politically
biased and to strengthen civil society's capacity to hold the
government to account for the quality of service delivery.[150]
68. We were able to discuss these new arrangements
with local communities during our visit to Ethiopia in February
2007. We saw examples of notices posted on school gates showing
how much the government had spent on education in that village.
Similarly, local health clinics displayed information giving details
of the funding allocation they had received. Indigenous civil
society is weak in Ethiopia so this is very much a first step
in capacity building of this kind but it is a positive development.
In other countries such as Tanzania and Kenya, civil society is
more developed and mechanisms for local people to hold governments
to account are better-established.[151]
69. We
have observed in Ethiopia the potential benefits to transparency
and civil society capacity-building that DFID can bring by incorporating
accountability to local people into its funding arrangements.
We recommend that DFID continues to promote good governance by
ensuring that, as part of funding agreements it makes with recipient
countries, information is provided to local people on how much
the government is spending in their area on essential services
such as health, education, and water and sanitation.
138 Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance
Work for the Poor, DFID, 2006 Back
139
Development on the Record, DFID Annual Report 2007, Box
5.5, p 132 Back
140
Qs 13-14; Ev 57-58 Back
141
Ev 57-58 Back
142
Ev 57-58 Back
143
Qs 16-17; Ev 58 Back
144
Ev 58 Back
145
Ev 58 Back
146
Ev 59-60 Back
147
Ev 59 Back
148
Ev 59 Back
149
First Report from the Committee, Session 2006-07, Department
for International Development Departmental Report 2006, HC
71, paragraphs 39-47 Back
150
Q18 [Nemat Shafik] Back
151
Q18 [Nemat Shafik] Back
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