Policy Paper

August 2011

Country Ownership
For more information, please contact: Carolyn Long Director Global Partnerships InterAction clong@interaction.org

InterAction welcomes this second in a series of roundtable meetings between its members and U.S. government representatives to discuss key issues that will be dealt with at the Fourth High Level Forum (HLF) in Busan. This paper presents InterActions ideas on the application of country ownership and its role in aid effectiveness. Country ownership remains one of the primary issues of focus within the HLF process. Only with country ownership can governments and their populations influence how foreign assistance is used in their countries, and people can hold their governments accountable for development commitments. The Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action have helped advance ownership principles understood primarily as state ownership among donors and partner country governments. The commitments made in Paris and Accra should be evaluated and modified, retaining the elements that encourage broad and inclusive ownership. In light of this, the definition of ownership within these processes should be expanded to ensure that all members of a society are included, both a government and its people. One way the U.S. government can lead on these efforts is to endorse the work of the Open Forum on CSO Development Effectiveness, in which InterAction is actively engaged. Open Forum is a CSO-led global process initiated before the 2008 Accra High Level Forum to deepen CSO accountability for effectiveness as development actors. In 2010, this process involved national consultations with hundreds of CSOs in over 60 countries, culminating with endorsement of the Istanbul Principles for CSO Development Effectiveness at the Open Forums first Global Assembly in Istanbul in September 2010. CSOs have now completed the Siem Reap Consensus on the International i Framework for CSO Development Effectiveness. This includes implementation guidelines, accountability mechanisms and affirmations of the importance of an enabling environment to uphold country ownership and other Paris principles. This International Framework will be presented for endorsement at Busan. In our first roundtable, we raised concerns that a restrictive environment for CSOs and other non-state development actors has emerged in many partner countries. We argued that support for an enabling environment ought to be an essential expectation of donors in their dialogues with host country governments to uphold minimum standards to providing an enabling environment in all countries for CSOs to carry out development practices consistent with the Istanbul Principles. InterAction has held two U.S. Open Forum consultations, the first in May 2010 on the development effectiveness framework where a dialogue on the enabling environment with key U.S. government agency representatives began. At the second in May 2011, InterAction members affirmed that progress on an enabling environment is a prerequisite for ensuring country ownership because it enables people and civil society organizations to engage in the process of their own development.

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The U.S. government can advance international commitments towards broad-based country ownership by pushing for a continuation of the aid effectiveness agenda internationally, leading on the call for an enabling environment for civil society and leading by example by implementing good ownership principles in U.S. foreign assistance. The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review released by the U.S. Department of State calls for country ownership to be a key factor in selecting specific programs and uses of aid funding. InterAction welcomes this initiative, which serves as a perfect opening to discuss and develop more effective definitions, mechanisms, and strategies for applying country ownership as a means to augment aid effectiveness. To build on this understanding of country ownership, we propose four additional principles and key priorities for the U.S. government to consider in the lead up to Busan.

Two Priorities for Country Ownership within U.S. Foreign Assistance

First, we ask that the U.S. government establish a clear definition of country ownership, accompanied by guidelines and criteria for implementation and accountability. This request is meant to build on the positive initiative of the Department of State and USAID in establishing country ownership as a central criterion for assistance programs. We acknowledge the difficulties the U.S. government faces in ensuring national development strategies incorporate country ownership principles, particularly in fragile contexts or areas with high levels of corruption. We believe that to address this challenge, the U.S. government must put forward a definition of country ownership that is inclusive yet flexible in application able to be adapted to different contexts. a) Country ownership should be defined to include national governments as well as national, local and community-level civil society organizations, local and regional government, legislative bodies, and international non-governmental organizations. b) Through a multistakeholder engagement process, the U.S. government must build a set of guidelines which determine how missions implement this country ownership definition in various contexts. These guidelines should be common to all U.S. agencies implementing humanitarian and development assistance, to which those agencies will be held accountable. These guidelines would also need to acknowledge the difficulty inherent in codifying a standard approach to ownership and account for it with an appropriate degree of flexibility. For instance, in a fragile context or conflict situation, mechanisms of implementing country ownership should be modified to mitigate risks. Second, we call on the U.S. government to partner with host governments, international and host country CSOs, and other implementation partners to establish formalized mechanisms to ensure adherence to these guidelines, aimed at fostering better development of policy dialogue, accountability, and the removal of barriers to country ownership.

Country Ownership Principles

When discussing country ownership, we use the following defining principles: 1. Country ownership is the full and effective participation of a countrys people and institutions, both public and private, in development assistance programs. E.g. Through CSOs, legislative bodies, private sector, and government at all levels. 2. Country ownership is a vital component of aid accountability. E.g. Participation of actors at all levels can ensure local authorities are held accountable for results to their population. 3. Inclusive and broad-based country ownership is key to sustainable development. E.g. Participation that is truly inclusive is necessary to achieve long-term impact. 4. Country ownership is crucial to implementing programs based on local priorities and needs. E.g. Encouraging participation and ownership helps direct resources to local priority issues.

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A clear definition of inclusive country ownership must be utilized as a foundation for guidelines incorporated into the operations of all U.S. government agencies involved in development and humanitarian programs, and enforced through actionable mechanisms which hold U.S. government agencies accountable to these aims. The primary mechanisms should be timely and accessible information, consultation, and participation. a) A country ownership approach makes information on U.S. humanitarian and development assistance publicly accessible (including local language translation and dissemination) to both U.S. and partner country stakeholders. The U.S. government must also operate with the expressed expectation (or condition if necessary) that partner governments make development information publicly accessible in a timely manner to their populations. b) U.S. government assistance plans must take into account not only specific host national government objectives, but include objectives owned primarily by local authorities, civil society groups, and local communities. The U.S. government should also urge the development of national development strategies through participation. Current program examples that provide helpful points of analyses include the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and Feed the Future (FtF). Based on the original authorizing legislation for the MCC, the organization expects country partners to incorporate practices and procedures that protect the democratization ii of ownership. InterAction members, through the MCA Working Group, engaged early on with MCC staff, advocating for and contributing to the development of guidelines for consultation that provide clarity about the requirements of the consultation process. The evolution of the Feed the Future strategy reflects increased appreciation for the potential contributions of a wider range of development actors across the program cycle, yet significant challenges remain. These include establishing appropriate definitions, standards and oversight for stakeholder engagement. Additionally, focused effort will be required to disseminate an understanding across FtF country programs and staff of the need to align policies on civil society partnerships with the agencys business processes. And finally, perhaps the most difficult and important challenge lies in explaining to partner country governments the development gains to be had from

robust engagement. Diplomatic and development staff can both play key roles in conveying the intent and practice of inclusive country ownership. The U.S. government has an opportunity to lead this process by example in strengthening its relationship with international civil society as a model for its country partners and the FtF initiative. We believe this must occur by ensuring that stakeholders are not only consulted, but participate in every step of the process in a decision-making role from formulation and design of an initiative to implementation and evaluation. In the example of FtF, the positive direction shown through its strategy revision could be realized in practice by a stronger commitment to working with partner governments and international NGOs that are well positioned to ensure that host country stakeholders see their contributions reflected in decisions and actions which shape agendas and outcomes. Necessary preconditions to effective contribution such as a better understanding on all sides of the purpose of consultation, stakeholder preparedness for consultations, inclusion of marginalized groups, and outreach outside capital cities must be prioritized. We are recommending U.S. government actions to improve and reinforce its understanding of effective country ownership, achieved through the processes and commitments described above, because the U.S. government must lead by example at Busan. By presenting there the challenges and lessons-learned in recent U.S.-led efforts to achieve country ownership the U.S. can lead this important discussion with donor and partner countries and reaffirm that all core elements presented earlier information sharing, consultation, and participation leading to measurable outcomes are essential in the application of the Paris principle of country ownership. These must be achieved against the backdrop of fostering an improved enabling environment for CSOs and other actors in order to realize true country ownership.
i The Siem Reap Consensus on the International Framework for CSO De-
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velopment Effectiveness can be found at: www.cso-effectiveness.org. Phillips-Mandaville, Alicia. MCCs Approach to Country Ownership, Work- ing Paper: A Draft for Comment and Discussion. Revised February 2009.