BENIN:

BENIN DECENTRALIZATION SUPPORT PROGRAM

IPA Associate Drew Horgan is presently on mission in Benin as the Team Leader and Senior Decentralization Specialist of the Decentralization Support Program. Activities to be implemented will prepare central level officials, regional authorities including Technical Directorates (health and education) and local actors to fulfill their responsibilities right after the local elections are held in December 2002. The current priorities for the mission are: a general needs assessment, the identification of key actors to be engaged in both the decentralization implementation process itself, and in the training-pedagogical support process, and the organization and conduct of the National Assessment Roundtable. Contact: Patrick Sommerville

ERITREA:

DECENTRALIZATION IN ERITREA

With funding from the United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS), IPA Senior Staff member Paul Smoke and IPA Senior Staff member Ernest Leonardo assisted Eritrea's Ministry of Local Government in identifying and assessing sources of revenue for Eritrea's urban centers. This project also provided assistance in the design of financial management systems.
Contact: Patrick Sommerville

GHANA:

TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN GHANA

IPA Associate Yoshihiro Asano has been working as a team leader for a technical assistance project in West Africa since March 2000. The project is funded by Japan's foreign aid agency - Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The objective of the study is to strengthen technical and vocational education in Ghana. According to the Long-term Vision for Ghana, the national economy will be improved by the year 2020 at the current economic level of some Asian countries like Singapore or Malaysia. In order to achieve this goal, Ghana Government realized the importance of strengthening technical education sector, especially polytechnical tertiary education. This TA will develop a master plan to improve technical education in Ghana as a whole, and it also provide a feasibility study for selected Polytechnic, such as curriculum development, financial and management development, institutional program, and facility and equipment development. One of the key issues is to develop linkages between technical education and industrial or economic sector. Dr. Asano will take about 6 trips of 4-6 weeks each to Ghana until August 2001 for the implementation of the study. Ms. Marcia Burick, IPA Associate, will also participate in the project as a non-formal education and training specialist, and Mr. Cornelius Adesze, a Wagner Graduate Student from Ghana, is involved as a local consultant.
Contact: Yoshihiro Asano

MOROCCO:

FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION IN MOROCCO

Former IPA Senior Staff member Leonardo Romeo recently completed an assignment as Senior Decentralization Specialist on a project to improve current processes and practices in the decentralized management of local government in Morocco. Mr. Romeo led a four-week field investigation of 17 Local Government Units in the Tangiers and Marrakech regions. The investigation led to a Diagnostic Report on local capacity for good governance. This report, a major substantive task under the SSDLD project, formed the basis of the normative framework and indicators of good local governance. Websites were also designed for the two Regions of Tangiers and Marrakech. They will be used for information and dissemination, and policies/practices discussion forums. There may be plans to develop the websites as model "interactive" sites, supporting some on-line access of the population to administrative and other services by the local governments. This project is part of the USAID sponsored Democracy & Governance Decentralization initiative and is being performed under subcontract with the Research Triangle Institute.
Contact: Liz Kingsley

RWANDA:

KIGALI ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

The City of Kigali, Rwanda, prepared an economic development strategy to strengthen its growth potential and address poverty. A grant was awarded by the Cities Alliance program of the World Bank and UN Center for Human Settlements to help implement the project, with counterpart funding from the City of Kigali and USAID. IPA Senior Staff member Ernest Leonardo served as Senior Economic Development Advisor, and helped to structure and monitor local research and drafted the strategic action plan. This work was part of the USAID-sponsored Sustainable Urban Management project. IPA performed this work under subcontract to The Urban Institute. Click here for the KEDS strategic action plan*.
Contact: Liz Kingsley

SOUTH AFRICA:

SOUTH AFRICA LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL REFORM PROGRAM

The South Africa Local Government Financial Reform Program, funded by USAID, is designed to assist the South African Government in policy analysis on local government revenue, expenditure and related topics. It will produce a fiscal information database which will result in a policy study of the division of fiscal powers and functions between categories of municipalities and the local dental implants government equitable share of nationally raised revenue. The Project Director is IPA’s Paul Smoke leading a team of local municipal finance experts that is evaluating the local government equitable share of nationally raised revenue and developing a more transparent framework to determine local government fiscal allocations. IPA Associate Andy Reschovsky is examining methods of determining the distributable share for local government finance and carrying out policy analysis for the current system of revenue sharing in South Africa. IPA will be instrumental in the overall evaluation of the present system as well as identifying revenue reform options.
Contact: Liz Kingsley

SOUTH AFRICA: ACCESS TO HOUSING FINANCE FOR LOWER INCOME HOUSEHOLDS

IPA Associate Nicole Barnes provided technical support to promote a program of increased access to credit for lower income and historically disadvantaged people. The activities included undertaking analytical and evaluative research, providing a range of local lending models garnered from international experience, and developing actual lending systems. IPA worked with the Urban Institute on this USAID-funded project.
Contact: Patrick Sommerville

UGANDA:

LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM PROGRAM

This project was designed to provide technical and financial resources to enable the development, testing and application of a range of participatory planning, budgeting and resource allocation procedures, and program management systems in a sub-set of Local Governments. The Uganda Local Government Act of 1997 gave formal recognition to the long discussed movement to devolve many central government service functions to district (regional), municipal and division (ward) levels of government. The Act specifies the responsibilities and allowable sources of revenue of local government. While the Act provides a platform on which to base the structure of Kampala government, achieving the broader goals of the decentralization program requires a process to design and continuously redesign the organization and working relationships of city government. IPA is assisting with the reform initiated by the Uganda Local Government Act in the World Bank funded Local Government Development Program. IPA's work began in April 1999 and will continue through June 2002. Work being done by IPA Associates in Kampala includes the evaluation, recommendation, and installation of a new computerized financial management system, and assistance in the restructuring of municipal government.

Program Mid-Term Review :IPA Senior Staff Ernest Leonardo carried out a Mid-Term Review of the Project in February 2002 to review the effectiveness of the implementation of the Project and to develop strategies for better implementation of the remaining activities under the Project. The assignment involved a critical review of the Project, including an assessment of the compatibility of the project objectives and the components designed to achieve the development objectives; the effectiveness of the project design and the implementation level so far achieved. There were 4 components to this review: 1) analyse how the Project was formulated, what rationale was used in the selection of project components, and how the project costs were derived under the demand-driven concept environment; 2) ascertain whether the Project is compatible with the Government of Uganda's Public Investment Plan and sector policies; 3) critically examine the role of the Donors, the Borrower and other stakeholders in the designing of the Project and subsequent gains and/or failures, and; 4) advised on the possible way of improving design of future projects and how best to improve the monitoring and evaluation system currently in place to ensure more effective control of the budgets and activities by the Local Governments.
Contact: Debora Brakarz