• Download Evaluation (Adobe Reader PDF format)

Final Report ------------EAGER Mid-Term Evaluation with  Follow-On Activity Implications

SUBMITTED TO
USAID/Washington
Bureau for Africa

SUBMITTED BY
Nathan Associates Inc.

UNDER
Contract No. AEP-I-04-96-90028-00
Delivery Order No. 04
 

February 9, 1999
 
  Contents

ILLUSTRATIONS

Tables

Figure

Glossary

Executive Summary
 
 

The Project

The Equity and Growth through Economic Research (EAGER) program seeks to accelerate economic growth with equity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by effectively applying research to public policy. The program has two principal components: (1) improved utilization of research capacities in the United States and SSA in order to design and apply more effective public policies, and (2) strengthening capacities for such research by selectively reinforcing institutions and developing human resources.

The objective of EAGER was to produce research results that could actually be employed in decision making by using research methods that would ensure a strong sense of ownership on the part of participating African researchers and policymakers. The means to achieve this objective were to (1) pair African researchers with expatriate researchers, and to (2) require the paired researchers to find local policymakers who would commit time to overseeing the research to ensure that the results would be of real use in policymaking.

In 1995, under EAGER, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) signed a cooperative agreement, Trade Regimes for Growth and Equity (TRADE), with Associates for International Research and Development (AIRD) to conduct the research under the project. USAID signed a second agreement, Public Strategies for Growth and Equity (PSGE), with the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID). Both AIRD and HIID were the lead cooperative agents of a research consortium, consisting of five and nine members, respectively. The USAID Bureau for Africa (AFR/SD/SA) obligated US$13 million for EAGER, US$9.5 million for the two U.S.-led research consortia, and US$2.861 million for BHM to support the two consortia. The remaining US$ 8.774 million was distributed between the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), the International Development Research Center of Canada (IDRC), the Implementing Policy Change (IPC) project of USAID and Management Systems International (MSI), and the African initiatives of the International Center for Economic Growth (ICEG). USAID was already supporting these programs before EAGER. By early 1998, AIRD and HIID were involved in more than 50 research studies with some 200 researchers.

IMPACTS OF POLICY RESEARCH UNDER EAGER

The overall evaluation of EAGER’s research component was based primarily on examples of the impacts of research on policy. In general, the cooperative agents have been doing excellent work and are conducting excellent research and producing excellent results. We found a number of important policy changes that are at least partly attributable to EAGER researchers. For example, the Government of Mali revoked an export tax on raw hides and skins after an EAGER-funded study publicized the costs of the tax to the hides and skins industry and to the national economy. Similarly, the Government of Madagascar eliminated the export tax on vanilla following the recommendations of a study conducted under EAGER. In Tanzania, the Minister of Energy and Minerals abandoned plans to launch a police attack on gold and gem smugglers after a Tanzania Minerals Marketing study demonstrated that high taxes led to the high occurrence of smuggling activities. Instead of launching the attack, the Minister eliminated almost all taxes on the miners because the study demonstrated the enormous size of the small-scale mining sector.

At this stage of EAGER, it is not possible to point out the policy effects of all the research components, because in many cases research is still under way. Also, some effects might not be realized until after the end of EAGER because of the long-term nature of actions taken in response to recommendations.

EAGER IMPLEMENTATION: LESSONS LEARNED

We have identified a number of shortcomings in EAGER implementation regarding resources that would have been available under EAGER. These shortcomings were nearly unavoidable given the constraints of the project: large U.S.-based consortia, the need to reach agreements democratically within each consortium, the need to clear each major decision with a USAID office, the pioneering nature of efforts to involve Africans as research partners, and the difficulty of finding influential African policymakers for oversight. Such shortcomings may be avoided in EAGER II by changes that we suggest on the basis of lessons learned from the selection of topics for research, project implementation, and policy impact. The major lessons can be summarized as follows:

• If African researchers find their relationship with the expatriate researchers to be unequal, despite the best intentions of the cooperative agents, research quality is jeopardized because the African researchers cannot embrace the work. The greater the degree of ownership, the greater the African researchers’ commitment and concentration.
• The use of the Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) has brought policymakers into the research process early enough to permit them to offer some advice on implementation and to make them informed advocates for the researchers’ recommendations. But if they are to remain sufficiently involved, PAC members must be told of setbacks and delays in the research as well as the research results.
• When EAGER was designed, few African research institutions were ready to manage all the elements in the research process. Today, research institutions in five or six countries have the potential to play a leading role in managing the African end of joint research.
• The more senior and experienced the researcher, the stronger her or his interest in joint research of the type EAGER intended.
• To be effective, policy research must be timely. If African researchers do not have a sound reputation at home, their research results will not be credible to the policymakers.
• Policy Briefs appear to be a powerful tool for disseminating research results, but researchers have been slow to produce them. Interim Policy Briefs for the PAC could provide notice of policy change and would keep PAC members involved.
• EAGER’s biannual workshops have brought together current and prospective researchers and have been highly effective in helping participants improve their own work and understand the work of their peers. The workshops are also needed to help African researchers conducting similar research in different countries to share inter-country comparisons and analysis.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EAGER II

USAID staff have always recognized the importance of and played a major role in building up local institutions and skills. Through EAGER, USAID has delegated the management task to U.S.-based cooperative agents. Our findings indicate that USAID should continue to provide for even greater decentralization of research management in EAGER II.

The recommendations for each of the suggested components of EAGER II and its additional activities are directed toward ensuring more meaningful involvement of strong, reliable African-based researchers, enabling more cost-effective communication and dissemination of research findings and policy impacts. Their involvement would mean a greater likelihood of changes in public policies to achieve accelerating growth with equity and a higher probability of sustaining policies beyond current USAID support. In the following paragraphs we summarize our recommendations for the following components under EAGER II: Large-scale research, small grant research, research networks, disseminating research findings, and workshops, which would all be conducted and managed by African institutions. The second major component of EAGER II would consist of USAID support to research institutes.

Thematic coverage for large-scale research can be based on the positive results from the Restarting Growth project initiated by HIID. Topics can cover the following:

• Economic management, where research should focus on the design, sequencing, and credibility of fiscal, monetary, and debt policies.
• Trade, exchange rate, and investment policy, which remain central to accelerated growth through outward orientation of the economy and ongoing efforts to advance regional economic cooperation.
• Growth opportunities, which African nations need to identify and exploit as a result of abandoning strategies based on industrialization through import substitution.
• Equity, that is, changes in the distribution of income and assets, which could be complemented with transdisciplinary inquiry into perceptions of the betterment of socioeconomic groups.
• Governance and public institutions to complement surveys of external perception of African economies with more focused country-specific inquiries.

Large-scale research should be conducted in a core set of up to eight countries offering a variety of settings, such as location, climate, resource endowment, wealth, population size and density, political cohesion, leadership, and economic policy. It should be contracted to a consortium, headed by a U.S.-based contractor or lead cooperative agent. African members of the consortium would be responsible for the overall research agenda, publication of the research program, undertaking of country-specific research, appropriate technical support, and monitoring the research and disseminating the findings.

The advantages of this scenario include better determination of country priorities, stronger inducement for qualified Africans to participate in research programs, and most of all, continuing local capacity to promote policy reforms beyond EAGER II.

The decentralized approach for organizing and managing large-scale research should be extended to small-grant research. This approach should lead to more rapid responses to locally perceived and determined research priorities, a transparent, efficient, and standardized procedure for contracting and monitoring research, cost-effective use of non-African expertise, and more efficient and timely transmission of research findings to key audiences.

Collaborative research can be conducted through research networks. USAID is currently financing research on poverty and income distribution through a network of African and non-African researchers managed by AERC. In francophone Africa, USAID is funding locally based research on industrial policy through the Reseau de Politique Industrielle. Although different in several aspects from the research conducted under EAGER, a continuation of this effort should be considered under EAGER II. Because networking can enrich and validate large-scale and small grant research, we recommend a continuation of funding to these or similar networks, provided that research findings are presented periodically and published in various forms that ensure research quality and value.

African institutes should have principal responsibility for disseminating research findings through workshops, media briefings, and meetings with policymakers. A greater impact in terms of changes in public policy is more likely to occur as a result of local institutions’ intimate knowledge of the decision-making process, continuing presence in the country, and ownership of the research findings and recommendations.

Workshops can be a highly cost-effective mechanism for raising the quality and relevance of research through the exchange of ideas and findings, for raising the profile of policy research within SSA, and for identifying gaps in topic and thematic coverage. Workshops can serve as a motivation for researchers to complete their work as well as a platform for feedback, new concepts, approaches, and issues. EAGER II workshops should be held biannually and organized and managed by a reliable professional U.S. agency because the costs of organizing such an event will be higher for African institutes. The workshop should, as a minimum, include plenary sessions to review large-scale research projects, allow peer review of draft final reports to be presented in individual sessions, and it should include sessions explaining techniques for disseminating findings.

We recommend that funding be continued for institutional support, the second component of EAGER. Support for institutions such as the Secretariat for Institutional Strengthening in Economic Research in Africa (SISERA) should be continued in order to expand the potential audience for policy research within SSA and to broaden the number of institutes that could potentially support small-grant research. Similarly, ICEG’s African program, which promotes economic growth through commissioned publications and articles, periodic conferences, and visiting scholars and guest lecturers supplemented with small institutional and research grants aimed at strengthening teaching and policy research, should continue to receive USAID support under EAGER II.

The African Economic Research Consortium, a broad-based consortium of international donors, receives USAID contributions for collaborative research on poverty and income distribution and for research on reducing dependency on aid. These contributions should be considered complementary to EAGER’s contracted policy research because the two activities serve different purposes. Another complementarity between the two programs is EAGER’s reliance on African scholars for its policy research. These scholars’ skills development and broader intellectual interests are being accommodated through AERC research, training, institutional strengthening, and publishing activities. Therefore USAID should maintain its current share of funding for AERC; such funding is especially valuable in the length of its commitment because it allows for longer-term programming.

Through EAGER, USAID financed two major efforts in economics education at the master’s degree level. The collaborative M.A. program for anglophone Africa is managed by AERC. The Programme de Troisième Cycle (PTCI) in francophone Africa is executed by the Conférence des Instituts d’Enseignement et de la Recherche Economique et de Gestion en Afrique (CIEREA), an association of economics departments and research institutes overseen by the International Development Research Center of Canada (IDRC). USAID’s continued investment in human resources will further increase the number of qualified African professionals potentially available to undertake policy research supported through EAGER II.

In the medium term, the PTCI program can expand the pool of more junior researchers. Two serious shortcomings in PTCI should be addressed before USAID continues to support the program under EAGER II. First, there is serious conflict of interest in that representatives of institutions receiving grants from PTCI also sit on its governing body. Second, the independent Comité de Bourses determines grants to institutions independently of CIEREA, and the allocation of grants to research institutions is neither transparent nor accountable. Consequently, USAID should withdraw its support to PTCI until potential and actual conflicts of interests are removed and some transparency is introduced for its various structures.

In the longer term, the pool of qualified African researchers can only be increased through investment in education at the Ph.D. level. Although EAGER did not seek improvement in higher education, the EAGER concept depends on a growing pool of highly qualified African researchers. Therefore, EAGER II should serve as a vehicle for USAID’s contribution to improving the research qualifications of African scholars and allow for funding to educational institutions.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

Our conclusions from the mid-term evaluation of EAGER can be summarized in three general observations. First, AFR/SD/SA staffs were correct in assuming that enough high quality African professionals had become available to participate as partners with Americans in a wide range of policy-related research, and that many senior African policymakers had become aware of their need for research results. Second, basing EAGER’s design on these two assumptions has already brought a significant number of important policy reforms, and it promises many more under EAGER II. Third, the EAGER experience points the way to the design of an EAGER II that will take advantage of the recent increase in the research-management abilities of African institutions partly funded by USAID, both directly and through the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF).

1. Introduction

This report contains findings and recommendations of an evaluation of the Equity and Growth through Economic Research (EAGER) program. The evaluation was contracted to Nathan Associates Inc. and carried out by Dr. Alan Batchelder and Mr. Jeffrey C. Fine between September 15, 1998, and January 31, 1999.

Pursuant to detailed Terms of Reference (see Appendix A), the evaluators undertook two principal tasks:

1. Conduct an in-depth review of EAGER activities to date, with particular reference to policy research managed by two principal cooperative agents, the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) and the Associates for International Research and Development (AIRD), both based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
2. Provide detailed recommendations, derived from findings—including "lessons learned"—that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) can apply in designing the sequel to EAGER. (EAGER is scheduled to end in September 1999.)

In addition to the contracted policy research on which this evaluation concentrates, the EAGER project supports other activities, namely:

• USAID’s contribution to the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), a broad-based donor effort aimed at improving research and graduate training in economics in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA);
• A grant to the International Center for Economic Growth (ICEG) for its Africa program, managed from Nairobi, for strengthening local research capacity through small grants to African researchers through a network of economics departments and research institutes;
• Collaboration with the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC) in francophone Africa in graduate training (Programme de Troisième Cycle, PTCI) and in industrial (Reseau de Recherche sur la Politique Industrielle, RPI) and subsequently economic (RPE) policy research;
• A large grant to the AERC as part of multidonor support for research into poverty and income distribution, conducted by African economists in collaboration with a consortium of non-African universities headed by Cornell University; and
• A recently launched IDRC Secretariat for Institutional Support for Economic Research in Africa (SISERA) directed toward strengthening economic policy institutes in the region.

These other activities are the object of separate ongoing evaluations conducted by the respective supporting donors, including USAID. Nonetheless they are featured in this report for four principal reasons. First, they share a common concern, namely the need to improve economic policymaking, through sound and timely research, as a necessary condition for reducing poverty through accelerated growth. Second, there is an underlying presumption that the quality, use, and impact of such research depend on a parallel strengthening of local institutions and professional skills. Third, as intimated by some USAID officials, expanded support for such activities might represent an alternative to policy research contracted through a U.S. organization. Finally, as their common financier, USAID wants to exploit the synergy among complementary activities by undertaking and applying the research that is most likely to accelerate economic growth and thereby lead to a significant reduction in poverty.

This evaluation involved the following:

• An extensive review of documents covering the implementation, management, and output—at various stages—of contracted research, as well as its dissemination to different audiences. Also included are other materials publicizing the project’s activities and reporting on its progress. (Documents used in preparing this report are listed in Appendix C and a list of projects is provided in Appendix J.)
• Observation of a biannual meeting of EAGER researchers, African policymakers, and representatives of target audiences for policy research, held in Dakar, Senegal, November 3–6, 1998.
• An initial briefing by USAID staff in Washington, D.C., and various exchanges with them in the course of preparing this report.
• Interviews with EAGER-supported researchers, as well as research managers, in Washington, D.C., Boston, and Dakar, and meetings with African researchers, policymakers, consultants, research managers, and opinion shapers in Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, and Tanzania. Also included are USAID Mission staff in these countries. Appendix D contains the calendar of field activities, and Appendix E lists individuals contacted in the course of the evaluation.
• Preparation in November 1998 of an initial set of recommendations for the USAID staff charged with drafting the sequel to EAGER.
• Drafting, presentation, and revision of this report.

Following this introduction, the report is structured as follows:

• Chapter 2 presents an overview of the program, findings of the evaluation, and principal recommendations. Further elaboration of these recommendations, with particular reference to their implementation, is provided in Appendix I.
• Chapters 3 and 4 describe the implementation and outcomes of policy research conducted by the two principal cooperative agents, HIID and AIRD.
• Chapter 5 sets out the principal conclusions giving rise to the recommendations presented in Chapter 2. Appendixes F, G, and H contain more detailed findings.
• Chapter 6 presents the evaluators’ principal observations of other activities financed under the aegis of EAGER, insofar as these bear on contracted policy research (Chapters 3, 4, and 5) and our recommendations (Chapter 2 and Appendix I).

2. Overview and Recommendations
 
 

Overview of the Program

The EAGER program seeks to accelerate economic growth, with equity, in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), through the effective application of research to public policy. The program has two principal components. The first is effective utilization of research capacities, in the United States and SSA, to design and apply more effective public policies. The second is strengthening of capacities for such research, through selectively reinforcing institutions and developing human resources. The overall impact of the EAGER program depends on an informed balancing of these two components and a creative tapping of synergy between them. In the evaluators’ view, EAGER II should retain both components. Indeed, a major aim of our more detailed recommendations is to exploit more fully the potential synergy between the components.

The EAGER program is distinct in other respects. We believe that its sequel should seek to retain these important, if sometimes overlooked features:

• The EAGER program permits African professionals to focus directly on policies and initiatives likely to accelerate the rate of growth significantly. This focus on accelerated growth, a necessary but by no means sufficient condition for alleviating poverty, is compelling to African leaders, officials, business people, and academics.
• The program does not link support for research and capacity building to the provision of development assistance. Thus, USAID can support research in circumstances where development assistance is not advisable because of misguided public policies. Because the need for better policies may be greatest in such economies, EAGER activities may have a considerable impact, albeit over the longer term.
• Research supported through the EAGER program can be eclectic, in discipline and approach, provided it satisfies norms for quality, rigor, and relevance.
• The strengthening of local capacity has extended beyond support for local institutions and skill development to active participation—in principle if not always in practice—by African researchers and policymakers. Such collaboration is more likely to ensure that the research is relevant to local circumstances and that there will be continuity, with respect to both further inquiry and debate over policy choices, once the non-African researchers have departed.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Near the beginning of the field study, the evaluators were asked by USAID to comment on the desired content and structure for a follow-on project, termed EAGER II in this report. The evaluators tested and refined their initial concept over the course of the field study and in further discussions with the U.S. cooperative agents as well as USAID staff in field Missions and Washington. From a detailed assessment of projects, the findings of which are presented in Chapter 4, they have derived broader conclusions (Chapter 5) that have also shaped their recommendations for EAGER II. These pertain both to contracted policy research and to other activities, currently financed through EAGER, that are aimed at accelerating growth with equity.

POLICY RESEARCH: FUTURE DIRECTION

Our recommendations, shown in Figure 2-1 as the principal components of EAGER II, are directed toward ensuring the following:

• More meaningful involvement by African-based researchers and stakeholders,
• More cost-effective communication and dissemination of research findings and policy outcomes,
• Greater likelihood of changes in public policies toward accelerating growth with equity, and
• A higher probability of sustaining appropriate policies once USAID support has been terminated.

Large-Scale Policy Research

Thematic Coverage

Part way through the EAGER program, responding to growing concern that the initial set of research projects lacked a strategic focus and critical mass, one of the cooperative agents, HIID, initiated a "mega" project on restarting and sustaining growth. This project involved collaboration with AIRD, the other U.S. cooperative agent. Under three major themes (macroeconomic policy, competitiveness, and governance and institutional strengthening), the mega-project has provided unusually wide latitude to African researchers—working through contracted research entities in the countries of coverage—both in setting priorities among these themes and in their analytical approach to different topics within them.

Notwithstanding some shortcomings and criticisms, the project has yielded positive results:

• Some tantalizingly new policy-relevant findings that warrant further inquiry;
• The value of transdisciplinary approaches and cross-country comparisons, and
• The enthusiasm and commitment of senior African professionals where they have been given a major role in determining the research agenda and allocation of resources.

This project offers a good point of departure for determining large-scale research under EAGER II. The list of themes and topics in Table 2-1 sets out what the principal focus for policy research should be.

Economic Management

Research should be sustained on the design, sequencing, and credibility of fiscal, monetary, and debt policies. Furthermore, rapid liberalization of the financial sector in many African countries, further

Table 2-1. Large-Scale Policy Research Themes and Topics

informed by recent experiences in South East Asia, underscores the need for in-depth inquiry into policies for its effective regulation of the financial sector.

Trade, Exchange Rate, and Investment Policy

This broad theme remains central to accelerated growth predicated on outward orientation of the economy and ongoing efforts to advance regional economic cooperation in the subcontinent. Studies into the structure of protection provide a necessary framework for more intensive inquiry into specific opportunities.

New Opportunities

As the corollary to abandoning a growth strategy based on industrialization through import substitution, Africans need to identify and exploit opportunities for export. Many African governments, business communities, and labor unions lack the necessary "mindset" for competing in a global economy. Positive measures and strategies, derived from successful African experiences, are key elements in designing policies for accelerating growth. Also important are analyses of factors affecting international competitiveness.

Equity

Poverty alleviation is a major concern and often a precondition for sustaining policies aimed at accelerating growth. More formal investigation into changes in the distribution of income and assets could be complemented—as in the current project—with transdisciplinary inquiry into perceptions of the betterment (or otherwise) of socioeconomic groups. Also important is research into the delivery and distribution of essential public goods, notably education and health, and opportunities for advancement through employment and self-employment. Finally, future research should accommodate growing interest in the performance of the labor market and trends in labor productivity and employment.

Governance and Public Institutions

Perceptions, local and external, regarding the integrity and legitimacy of leadership, public institutions, and the rule of law significantly influence saving, investment, and business behavior, as well as the credibility of public policies, including those aimed at accelerating growth. Surveys of external perception of African economies should be complemented by more focused country-specific inquiries.

Country Coverage

Large-scale research should be conducted in a core set of up to eight countries offering varying settings of location, climate, resource endowment, wealth, population size and density, political cohesion, leadership, and economic policy. Not all the countries need necessarily be selected at the outset. Other considerations for determining country selection should be taken into account:

• Locally available capacity to undertake research on the different themes;
• Administrative capacity in country to manage the research and disseminate results to key audiences (see below);
• Availability of data and information;
• Prior research under the EAGER project; and
• Appropriate, high-level expertise, which can be provided by the U.S.-based cooperative agent.

Our own findings suggest that Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda should be considered for possible country coverage.

Organization and Management of Large-Scale Research

Large-scale research should be contracted to a consortium, headed by a U.S.-based cooperative agent. The latter must be able to provide high-level expertise in all themes and topics, either through in-house capacity or formal linkages with other institutions. The consortium must also include African institutions in the proposed countries of concentration. Of particular note is the growing presence of public policy institutes, which were still being set up when EAGER began its own research. In their respective countries, African members of the consortium will be responsible for various aspects of the research:

• Actively participating from the outset in setting out the overall research agenda (covering themes, topics, and methodological and disciplinary approaches), including activities to be conducted in their respective countries;
• Publicizing the research program in-country through a Web site, the media, and meetings;
• Undertaking country-specific research in-house and through competitive contracts offered to other local professionals and organizations, in the private as well as public sector; Ensuring appropriate technical support for researchers; and
• Monitoring the research and disseminating findings in different forms through their own Web site (and those of consortium partners), periodic workshops, briefing sessions for public officials and different organizations, and the media.

This decentralized approach offers significant advantages over the current arrangement:

• Better determination of country priorities within the rubric set for thematic research;
• A flexible framework facilitating greater responsiveness to country-specific priorities but nonetheless allowing for consistency in overall approach and for comparative analysis;
• Much stronger inducement for qualified Africans, especially senior professionals, to participate in the research program;
• Greater accountability by Africans for the timely delivery of high-quality, policy-relevant research, and for the effective communication of their findings;
• More appropriate use of high-level non-African expertise in designing research, providing timely and sound technical guidance, interpreting the findings, and disseminating the results to an international audience;
• Considerable savings achieved through greatly reduced costs for time and travel for expatriates in identifying qualified African researchers, contracting research, monitoring ongoing activity, and disseminating findings;
• Stronger commitment to and advocacy of recommended changes in policy among those vested in the process; and
• Continuing local capacity to promote policy reforms following termination of USAID support.

The decentralized approach to research management assigns a pivotal role to African institutes. The principal factors determining their performance constitute a major concern for prospective U.S. cooperative agents, African researchers and policymakers, and USAID. Hence, our field inquiry devoted considerable attention to this issue. The principal findings, presented in Appendix F, should prove helpful in the selection and strengthening of good African partners. For EAGER II we recommend the following measures:

• Targeted core support along the lines proposed by the IDRC’s SISERA initiative, currently assisted by USAID under the aegis of EAGER;
• Technical guidance by USAID to potential African partner institutions regarding accounting standards and procedures, in order to qualify to receive funds; and
• Preparation for competing U.S. cooperative agents of a short list of African institutions, private as well as public, that prequalify by means of having
  — an appropriate governing structuring allowing for professional management of research;
  — a track record indicative of capacity for undertaking and/or managing policy research;
  — effective leadership;
  — the willingness to invest in strengthening financial management and accounting procedures; — the willingness to subcontract to outside researchers;
  — credibility in facilitating public policy discussions in a professional, nonpartisan manner; and
  — the infrastructure, equipment, and connectivity needed to manage the research efficiently.

To reduce the opportunity cost incurred in using expatriates, the contracting African party would be charged for their services at rates equivalent to comparable African professionals locally. The additional amounts necessary to compensate expatriates fully and to pay for their travel and communications expenses would be financed from the budget of the U.S. cooperative agent. This arrangement would ensure appropriate timely use of non-African professionals. Detailed recommendations on the organization and management of large-scale research are presented in Appendix I.

Small Grants Research

Definition and Aims

Large-scale research, under the Restarting Growth project, has emerged as a centerpiece of the EAGER program alongside small grants. Hitherto the latter have been the main instrument for conducting policy research, with projects grouped—as in the Dakar workshop—under various themes. In contrast to large-scale research, these smaller grants have focused on specific topics. In terms of the thematic spectrum for large-scale research presented in Table 2-1, small grants—properly structured and managed—can fulfill the following functions:

• Validate, qualify, and enrich findings of research conducted on a large-scale basis;
• Initiate research into a high priority, country-specific issue that is not easily accommodated within a multicountry framework;
• Ensure greater involvement by a wider range of qualified African professionals;
• Facilitate involvement by emerging U.S. researchers in African policy issues;
• Strengthen capacity for policy-oriented research in SSA and the United States; and
• Support work in countries not included in large-scale research.

Organization and Management

We recommend that the decentralized approach for organizing and managing large-scale research be extended to small grants. Our detailed recommendations are set out in Appendix I.

This approach should lead to

• Rapid response to locally perceived and determined research priorities within the overall thematic coverage of a program;
• A transparent, efficient, and standardized procedure for contracting and monitoring research;
• Cost-effective use of non-African expertise;
• Less cumbersome and more accessible procedures for eliciting proposals from emerging non-African professionals and from African professionals more generally; and
• More efficient and timely transmission of research findings to key audiences.

Collaborative Research through Networks

USAID is financing research into poverty and income distribution through a network of African and non-African researchers managed by AERC. Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden also support this research. A sizeable portion of the USAID grant is passed on by AERC to Cornell University. This program is distinct from the research contracted through EAGER in the following respects:

• A more prominent role for African scholars in determining research topics and methodology;
• Dissemination within Africa (via AERC) of research results in various forms;
• Capacity building through institutional attachments of African researchers to overseas collaborating partners, notably Cornell University; and
• Linkage of the African researchers to networks on poverty alleviation in their respective countries.

The terms of reference for this evaluation did not extend to a systematic in-depth review of the collaborative research initiative. Nevertheless, from discussions with African participants in Kenya, South Africa, and Tanzania, we have observed a high level of enthusiasm and commitment. Published output to date, although limited, points to insights extending beyond more accurate measures of the incidence of poverty to an analysis of its underlying causes, as well as the impact of macroeconomic adjustment policies. The quality of research and overall cohesion of this activity appear to have benefited from longer-term training attachments of African scholars, (e.g., from South Africa at non-African participating institutions, e.g., Cornell University). This research initiative appears promising and warrants continuing support under the current arrangement.

During our field inquiry we were also informed that AERC is planning to initiate research within Africa on the general theme of African competitiveness in the global economy. To this end, it has commissioned a series of thematic papers to be presented at its biannual workshops scheduled for December 1998, May 1999, and December 1999. USAID support for this effort, to be structured along similar lines as the collaborative research on poverty and income distribution, may also warrant consideration within EAGER II.

Another network to which USAID contributes through the EAGER program is the Réseau de Politique Industrielle (RPI), managed by IDRC. RPI conducts locally based research into industrial policy in francophone Africa. A separate evaluation of this network, conducted between September and December 1996 concluded that RPI’s research activities were not sustainable. Our recommendations, including a refocusing on institutional support, especially in francophone Africa, were not formally endorsed by IDRC. However, they appear to have been accepted in practice insofar as a sizeable portion of RPI’s remaining funds have been shifted, with IDRC’s approval, into the proposed SISERA initiative, also to be headed by IDRC.

Our evaluation has also revealed the potential contribution to policy research of smaller, sometimes fledgling networks, often resulting from other USAID-backed initiatives. Among these are the Agricultural Policy and Enterprise Networks in West and East Africa. Research through such networks, focusing on policies affecting growth, could enrich aspects of the proposed thematic coverage for EAGER II. Such inquiries should be undertaken through support contracted by the U.S. cooperative agent with the network in question.

The general principle of setting aside funds for collaborative networking efforts appears sound where they enrich and validate both large-scale and small grant research. To ensure this outcome, we recommend that research findings be presented periodically at the program’s biannual conference. These findings should also be put on the Web sites of the U.S. cooperative agent and African institutes involved in thematic and small grant research.

Summary

The types of research and their organization are summarized as follows.
 

Communication and Dissemination

Research Opportunities and Dissemination

The participating African institutes should publicize upcoming EAGER II activities as well as procedures for submitting research proposals. Such information should be available in electronic as well as printed form. Ongoing activities should also be publicized in country and in a newsletter issued at regular intervals by the U.S. cooperative agent.

To ensure timely and effective dissemination of research results, the capacities of participating African institutions should be strengthened through

• Training senior personnel in communicating effectively using the press, radio, and TV;
• Assistance in the preparation and dissemination of publications; and
• Improved electronic access, Web site development, and management.

The African institutes should have principal responsibility for disseminating research findings in country through workshops, media briefings, and meetings with policymakers. A greater impact, in terms of changes in public policy, is more likely to occur as a result of their intimate knowledge of the decision making process, continuing presence in country, and ownership of the research findings and recommendations. The U.S. cooperative agent’s activities would be directed toward international and U.S. audiences. Editing and disseminating the findings should be directly managed by the institutes and the U.S. cooperative agent and should not be subcontracted, as in the current project, to a separate organization.

The publication, dissemination, and communication activities outlined above—that would be undertaken by African institutes—should be specified among the contractual obligations of the U.S. cooperative agent. Alternatively, some of these could be undertaken through the SISERA program for institutional strengthening.

Biannual Workshops

The practice of a biannual workshop, pioneered by AERC, was initially adopted by one EAGER cooperative agent (AIRD) and subsequently by both for the joint presentation and discussion of ongoing and completed research. Logistical support services have been contracted to a U.S. firm, BHM.

The biannual workshop can be a highly cost-effective instrument for

• Raising the quality and relevance of research through the cross fertilization of ideas and findings;
• Raising the profile of policy research within SSA;
• Identifying gaps in topic and thematic coverage;
• Relating research conducted by the program to parallel initiatives in SSA;
• Motivating researchers to complete their work;
• Introducing new concepts, approaches, and issues; Obtaining feedback from important groups influencing or affected by policy reform; and
• Transacting program business.

To achieve these ends more effectively in EAGER II, the workshop should be carefully structured.

Scheduling and Venue

The workshop should be held at fixed biannual intervals in predetermined venues in Africa. Six months after being awarded the contract, the winning consortium should set out a tentative schedule of workshop dates and venues to allow for planning and full participation.

Content

The workshop should encompass the following items:

• Review of large-scale research at several plenary sessions;
• Peer review in concurrent sessions of small grant research, grouped under appropriate themes. In principle, all draft final reports should be presented at a biannual workshop. The institute or U.S. cooperative agent should record comments and suggestions and oversee appropriate modifications in the research program and final report. (The small grant itself should cover the costs of attending the workshop, with those monies to be disbursed at the discretion of the African institute or U.S. cooperative agent responsible for it.)
• A session spent on presenting topics of immediate local interest in the country where the workshop is being held;
• A session devoted to the techniques for best disseminating findings to key audiences;
• One or more invited papers on emerging research and policy issues; and
• A closed session to transact program business.

Workshop Management

The African institute in the country where the workshop is being held should advise on appropriate venues and facilities (photocopying, translation, and communications), obtain the necessary official clearances, and publicize the meeting locally. However, management of the workshop itself should be contracted to a reliable professional agency. This practice is desirable because the opportunity costs for the African institute of actually running the workshop will be extremely high relative to its other pressing responsibilities for research, communication, and dissemination.

Insurance for Participants

We recommend that suitable arrangements be made to ensure that participants, especially from SSA, have adequate health, accident, and life insurance coverage.

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT

Under the rubric of the EAGER program, USAID is contributing to the Secretariat for Institutional Strengthening in Economic Research in Africa (SISERA), an IDRC-headed project. The funds in question will be reallocated from RPI and PTCI, collaborative efforts also managed by the IDRC.The proposed aims, activities, and geographical coverage of SISERA are not entirely congruent with the institutional support proposed for EAGER II. SISERA will encompass institutions conducting academically as well as policy-oriented research and in countries not covered by EAGER II.

Support by USAID for SISERA is recommended under EAGER II in order to

• Expand the potential audience for policy research within SSA, and
• Broaden the number of institutes that could potentially support small grant research under EAGER II.

USAID should provide such general support in line with agreed-upon program objectives and budget, and the contributions of other donor partners.

Additional support should be provided in the following areas to African institutes contracted to manage research under EAGER II:

• Institutional governance;
• Financial and program management;
• Development of two data banks, the first containing information on local professionals undertaking research in various fields and the second tracking ongoing research in country;
• Electronic connectivity;
• Communications and media relations; and
• Fundraising.

Such services could be provided through SISERA or other agencies selected by competitive bidding.

These activities will help expand the pool of in-country researchers and ensure greater value added from research financed through EAGER II. Were SISERA selected, it should be able to attract additional support from other donors who recognize the potential benefits to be gained from strengthening local institutes so that those institutes can manage in-country research activities on the donor’s behalf.

The international program of the International Center for Economic Growth (ICEG), based in San Francisco, promotes economic growth in Africa, Asia, and Latin America through commissioned publications and articles, periodic conferences, visiting scholars, and guest lecturers. Its Africa program supplements these activities with small institutional and research grants aimed at strengthening teaching and policy research. USAID has financed these undertakings through EAGER.

Evaluation of ICEG’s program has focused on potential synergy between it and the decentralized management of contract research proposed for EAGER II. In our view, ICEG’s African staff can offer valuable guidance to USAID and potential U.S. cooperative agents for EAGER II in identifying suitable African partners. They can also advise on strengthening African institutes. However, more extensive involvement by ICEG should be predicated on specific proposals that its own board may wish to present to USAID.

AERC is a broad-based consortium of international donors, including USAID, which was among its founding members in August 1988. Through EAGER, USAID contributes to AERC’s core funds and to collaborative research on poverty and income distribution and on reducing dependency on aid.

From our investigation, we have concluded that USAID’s contributions to AERC should be considered complementary to contracted policy research into growth with equity. The two activities serve different purposes. A major distinction is that AERC seeks to improve policymaking through research and capacity building but deliberately eschews advocacy of a particular policy agenda.

Nonetheless, we perceive important complementarities between the two. The most notable is EAGER’s reliance, in its policy research, on African scholars whose skill development and broader intellectual interests are being accommodated through AERC research, training, institutional strengthening, and publishing activities.

USAID’s contribution to AERC’s core funds is valuable—not only in terms of amount, but the length of the commitment—because it permits longer-term programming. AERC’s senior management hopes to expand its core activities by about 15 percent during its next phase from 1999 to 2002. In this context, it has commissioned a study to explore funding prospects. We recommend that USAID maintain its current share of overall core funding for AERC.

INVESTMENT IN HUMAN RESOURCES

Support through EAGER

Through EAGER, USAID finances two major efforts in economics education at the master’s degree level. The collaborative M.A. program for anglophone Africa is managed by AERC on behalf of 20 teaching departments in 15 countries, 7 of which offer an M.A. degree. The 2-year program takes in 200 students each year and has graduated about 500 students to date. Financing for this program comes from core contributions of consortium members, including USAID.

The Programme de Troisième Cycle (PTCI)is managed by CIEREA, an association of economics departments and research institutes in francophone Africa overseen by IDRC. Five of the collaborative departments offer a doctorat de troisième cycle, roughly comparable to the M.A.

These programs are evaluated separately by the supporting donors. Our own recommendations are directed toward those aspects bearing on EAGER research activities. We highlight links between USAID investment in human resources and EAGER-supported policy research in the short, medium, and longer term.

Short-Term Context

In the short term, the quality and output of EAGER research is directly affected by the pool of available African professionals. Considerable effort—highly commendable if not always successful—has been expended on engaging such individuals, often in the face of competing demands from other programs. Our investigation has revealed several measures, many noted earlier, that should increase the number of qualified African professionals, especially women, potentially available to undertake policy research supported through EAGER II.

• More effective in-country publicity of forthcoming opportunities for research, especially for individuals in the private sector;
• A more transparent, responsive, and systematic procedure for processing proposals and providing feedback;
• Increased African involvement in the selection of research topics and approaches;
• Speedier research and dissemination, allowing qualified professionals to undertake more projects during the program’s lifetime;
• More rapid and widespread dissemination of research results, a major attraction for committed scholars;
• More accurate information, from data banks of professionals and ongoing research, that will avoid replication of effort and reduce the time devoted to identifying qualified researchers; and
• Strengthened skills in policy analysis, achieved through small grants research.

Medium-Term Context

The graduate education programs of PTCI and AERC can expand the pool of more junior researchers over the medium term. Although external evaluations of the AERC collaborative M.A. program have been very positive, our investigation has revealed two disconcerting shortcomings of the PTCI program.

First, PTCI does not include financing and management of the thesis, which is needed to obtain the doctorat. This situation is especially frustrating for students sponsored by institutions that do not offer the doctorat, namely, all but five among the collaborating institutions. Without a doctorat, these students cannot embark on a career in teaching and research or compete successfully for professional positions in the public and private sectors. The investment in postgraduate education has been tantamount to leaving a bridge half completed insofar as it results in a waste of funds and frustration of student expectations. Unless this serious shortcoming is rectified, we strongly advise USAID to withdraw its support.

Second, we have identified serious problems in the governance of PTCI. Representatives of institutions receiving grants also sit on its governing body (Conseil d’Administration). Thus the program’s manager reports to a board that includes some grant recipients. In addition, grants to institutions are separately determined by a Comité de Bourses, which operates independently of, and is not directly accountable to, CIEREA, the agency actually charged with executing the program.

PTCI is currently being evaluated by its supporting donors: Coopération Française, USAID, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), and IDRC. We strongly advise changes in PTCI’s governance to (1) remove potential and actual conflicts of interest, and (2) introduce transparent lines of accountability among its various structures.

The reformed structure should provide for

• A board, composed of the contributing donors, that establishes overall policy, approves operating procedures, and determines an annual program of work and budget;
• An executing agency, accountable directly to the board for the program’s performance, that functions autonomously of the program’s recipients and controls the instruments necessary for undertaking its various activities; and
• An academic committee, comprising the collaborating institutions, that determines the program’s academic standards, structure, and content.

Without changes along these lines, we strongly recommend that USAID reconsider support for this program.

Longer-Term Context

Over the longer term, the pool of qualified African researchers can only be increased through investment in education—that is, training Africans in economics at the Ph.D. level. People with doctoral degrees are needed for teaching and research at all levels within the profession of economics. A comprehensive study, undertaken by AERC, has concluded that fewer than 20 Africans are receiving doctorates annually from institutions within and outside SSA.

A solution to this looming crisis lies outside the purview of EAGER II. Nonetheless, the declining stock of Africans with Ph.D.s puts at risk attempts by USAID (and others) to sustain economic research and indeed policy reform. We therefore highlight the recent set of studies undertaken by AERC proposing an internationally accredited doctoral program for SSA, with a strategy for achieving financial sustainability over the medium term. The program itself need not be implemented by AERC. We recommend that USAID convene a meeting of donors to assess potential interest in supporting Ph.D. training for Africans in economics. Should the meeting reveal sufficient commitment, EAGER II might well provide a suitable vehicle for financing USAID’s own contribution to the program.

3. Implementation of Policy Research
 
 

PHILOSOPHY

The EAGER project grew out of the Africa Bureau’s concern that so much research, some funded by USAID, had so little usefulness to policymakers. Simultaneously, the Bureau recognized policymakers’ need for research results as important and growing. Equally important, Bureau staff observed two new circumstances: (1) Africa’s limited number of well-trained and experienced researchers had become large enough to play a leading role in policy-oriented research, and (2) many influential African policymakers had come to realize their need for research results. When formulating EAGER in 1992 and 1993, the AFR/SD/SA was clear about the project’s ultimate objective and, in general, about its means to achieve it.

The ultimate objective was to produce research results that were actually used in decision making and to do so through research methods that would ensure a strong sense of ownership on the part of participating African researchers and policymakers. The means to achieve this objective were to (1) pair African researchers with expatriate researchers so they would work side by side in research implementation, and to (2) require the paired researchers to find influential local policymakers who would commit time to oversight of the research in the expectation that the results would be of use in policymaking.

The prime cooperative agents specified these means as EAGER’s basic principles, stated succinctly in the introduction to every issue after the first of the EAGEReport, the quarterly newsletter providing updates on EAGER’s contracted research. Thus, EAGER policy analysis is guided by two basic principles. First, outstanding U.S. and African institutions and analysts work side-by-side on collaborative investigative teams. Second, stakeholders and decision makers are involved in selection, design, implementation, and dissemination of EAGER research.

IMPLEMENTATION

USAID staff had never before funded a range of joint African- expatriate research that had to involve African policymakers in overseeing its design and implementation. Partnership and the need for ownership with respect to policy reform had been thoroughly discussed, but EAGER was a pioneering effort to create research partnerships producing policy recommendations from a research process that would involve African policymakers from beginning to end.

USAID precedents of a somewhat different kind did exist outside Africa. Beginning with President Kennedy’s insistence in 1962 that the newly created U.S. Agency for International Development concentrate its assistance in countries that were implementing policies supporting economic growth, many USAID economists, Missions directors, and other USAID staff had established close and trusting relationships with host nations’ policymakers. These close working relationships were critically important in policy changes that accelerated and sustained equitable growth in countries such as Costa Rica, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Few of these USAID staff were themselves researchers. But in most of these countries, USAID had assisted infant policy-related economic research institutions and had financed graduate economics training for young scholars. In these cases, countries with large USAID Missions were able to commit extensive staff time in providing direct assistance to policy reform and in helping the new research institutions become widely respected sources of policy advice. Mission staff had time to work directly and extensively with cooperative agents assisting with research and policy implementation.

In Africa in 1994, however, in contrast to the past, EAGER’s ideals had to be realized with few—and already overcommitted—Mission staff. Therefore, as had become commonplace with much of USAID’s research and policy work, AFR/SD/SA staff had to initiate contracts with private consultants to implement EAGER’s policy-oriented research with only minimal USAID supervision.

From this perspective we see EAGER as an experiment seeking means to involve African scholars and policymakers in research and policy reform where Mission staff could no longer participate extensively. Based on the experience of EAGER, we have formulated recommendations for an EAGER II. We see EAGER as an experiment moving USAID along a continuum responding to cuts in Mission size and increases in numbers of skilled African researchers and of reform-minded African policymakers.
 
 

A ------------------------- B ------------------------- C -------------------------------------------------- D
 
 

A represents USAID, where Mission staff, often with the help of consultants, played the lead role in policy research and reform; B where, in the 1980s and 1990s, reductions in Mission staff compelled USAID to delegate much of its research and policy implementation work to cooperative agents; C is EAGER, experimenting with means to take advantage of the growth in the numbers of able African researchers and of African policymakers, aware of their need for research results; and D is EAGER II, further decentralizing implementation through U.S.-based cooperative agents, using newly strengthened African institutions to manage research process.

Before the start of EAGER, USAID was already funding AERC, ICEG, IDRC, and the Implementing Policy Change (IPC) project run by Management Systems International; but none of these simultaneously demanded immediate policy results while pairing expatriate researchers with African researchers. In September 1991, USAID/AFR authorized US$10 million (US$5 million up front) for the World Bank’s African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). By 1994, ACBF funding was strengthening African research institutions. However, the ACBF neither paired researchers nor concentrated on policy. At EAGER’s founding, AFR/SD/SA staff agreed that some 40 percent of its funds would be used to continue partial funding of AERC, ICEG, IDRC, and IPC. The staff also understood that IPC would not become a research program and that the research results from AERC and ICEG would often be of use to policymakers but that policy change was not and would not become its primary purpose.

To achieve the special goals of EAGER’s policy research component, other cooperative agents were needed to identify and pair researchers, choose research topics, and persuade important policymakers to commit time to research oversight. AFR/SD/SA staff had to answer at least four implementation questions—or delegate them to the cooperative agents.

1. What kind of cooperative agent or cooperative agents should they seek to implement EAGER?

2. What institutional arrangements would serve to involve policymakers in topic choice and research implementation?

3. How should a cooperative agent go about identifying African researchers and pairing them with expatriate counterparts?

4.How would research topics be selected?

COOPERATIVE AGENTS

In their initial design, AFR/SD/SA staff decided to

• Use one cooperative agent to lead on trade topics and a second to lead on all other topics;
• Require each prime cooperative agent to set aside 10 percent of its budget for disadvantaged enterprises and 15 percent for African researchers.
• Exclude from eligibility research topics involving agricultural, educational, health, or environmental policy on the grounds that other USAID offices were aggressively promoting growth-enhancing policy research and reform in those areas;
• Let the lead cooperative agents decide, as they went along, and in consultation with AFR/SD/SA staff, how to identify topics, researchers, and policymakers;
• Specify no particular capacity-building activities; and
• Use a third cooperative agent to arrange conferences, create a Web site and electronic list of participants, handle distribution of research results, and edit research report drafts.

Later, in 1995, AFR/SD/SA staff recommended that the contractor for "all other topics" undertake only topics with applicability to more than one country. Missions would be asked to fund any desired country-specific research, in the event this recommendation had been interpreted loosely by both USAID staff and the cooperative agents. A number of studies involve field work in only one country, although the principle continues to be observed that findings should have implications that might be relevant elsewhere in Africa.

In the summer of 1996, a year after the two prime contracts had been signed, AFR/SD/SA staff became concerned that all topics chosen to that point were narrow when compared with the broad question, "Why, given the many reforms implemented over the previous decade, had so little subsequent growth occurred?" In response to the question and after extensive discussions, Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) initiated a major five-country study, Restarting and Sustaining Growth, involving both largely U.S.-based work on cross-cutting themes, and five country studies in which African research institutions played a leading role in the design.

CONTRACT WINNERS

AFR/SD/SA allocated some 60 percent of EAGER’s fiscal year 1993–1998 funds to two cooperative agreements with U.S research institutions, a support firm to assist them, and 40 percent to four African-based research institutions previously assisted by USAID.

In May and July 1995, USAID awarded the trade contract, Trade Regimes for Growth and Equity, hereafter referred to as TRADE, to Associates for International Research and Development (AIRD) and the other contract, Public Strategies for Growth and Equity (PSGE) to the Harvard Institute for International Development, two dissimilar institutions. HIID is large and university-based, with a large permanent staff and a large number of part-time and visiting scholars. AIRD has a small research staff, no university affiliation, and the agility of its small size. HIID offers expertise and experience in almost every aspect of development. AIRD also offers some breadth in development but is specialized in trade issues.

To add more options within the contracting scheme, AIRD led a consortium including Amex International (later replaced by International Business Initiatives [IBI]), Purdue University, the Centre de Recherche en Economie et Finance Appliquées (CREFA of Université-Laval), and HIID in addressing trade topics. HIID led a consortium including Clark-Atlanta, Howard, Northeastern, and Michigan State Universities, and MayaTech Corporation, Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS), Development Alternatives International (DAI), and AIRD in addressing other topics.

Together, the two consortia totaled 12 separate research institutions differing widely from one another. By early 1998, they were involved in more than 50 research studies with some 200 researchers. However much the lead cooperative agents tried to hold all their players to common practices, this institutional variety ensured differences in practice as a diverse cast of characters chose topics, researchers, and policymakers in a dozen countries. In March 1996, USAID contracted with BHM to provide support services to the AIRD and HIID consortia. Table 3-1 shows the division of EAGER appropriations.
 
 

Table 3-1. EAGER Obligations,
Fiscal Years 1993–1998

During fiscal years 1993–1998, USAID obligated US$13 million for EAGER: US$9.5 million to the two U.S.-led research consortia; US$2.861 million to BHM to support the two; and a total of US$8.774 million to the two African institutions (AERC and IDRC), MSI for IPC, and the African activities of ICEG, all of which USAID was already supporting. AERC’s US$4.65 million had three components: US$3.0 million for core support, US$250,000 for its study of means to reduce African dependency on foreign aid, and US$1.4 million for Research on Poverty Alleviation. Of the latter, AERC was authorized to use one-half to pay vouchers submitted for poverty-alleviation research at Cornell University. In other uses of EAGER funds, US$3 million was paid for Resources for Support Services Agreement (RSSA) staff working in the AFR Bureau, and US$ 1.65 million went to Cornell University: US$0.45 million to pay for an All African Conference reporting the results of Cornell’s USAID-funded poverty research, and US$1.2 million to pay for further country poverty studies.

CONSORTIA AGREEMENTS

When it awarded the contracts to AIRD, HIID, and BHM International, USAID answered the first of the four implementation questions cited earlier. AFR/SD/SA staff then asked the cooperative agents to take the lead in answering the other two questions. The two lead cooperative agents organized their own teams.

HIID

To coordinate its eight fellows, HIID created a project coordinating team (PCT) consisting of HIID’s chief of party (COP) and its senior adviser (SA), the consortium coordinator (CC) from each of the other eight, and the AFR/SD/SA project officer. The PCT first met in July 1995, later meeting twice a year, and, subject to AFR/SD/SA approval, made the tentative and final choices of PSGE research topics and their research design.

AIRD

AIRD formed a TRADE management committee (TMC) consisting of its chief of party (COP), senior adviser (SA), and representatives of the other four consortium members. The TMC met twice a year. To choose research topics and approve research designs, AIRD formed a technical committee consisting of AIRD’s COP and SA, the two trade regional coordinators—one for west and central Africa (the TRC for WCA), the other for eastern and southern Africa (TRC for ESA), and two African members-at-large. The technical committee met twice a year starting in December 1995, and—subject to AFR/SD/SA approval—made the tentative and final decisions about trade topics and their final design.

Coordination Committee (CoordCo)

To ensure coordination between the prime cooperative agents, a coordination committee (CoordCo) was formed consisting of the cooperative agents’ COPs and SAs and the AFR/SD/SA project officer. The CoordCo met first in September 1995 and a more than once a year thereafter. The management cooperative agent, BHM International, joined the CoordCo at its March 1996 meeting, shortly after signing its USAID contract. (For more detail about the steps HIID, AIRD, and BHM took in implementing EAGER, see Appendix G, Calendar of the Cooperative agents’ Implementation Measures.)

At the first CoordCo meeting in September 1995, the members agreed on the use of policy advisory committees (PACs, called Research Supervision Committees on PSGE studies). This decision answered the second of the four Implementation Questions. Each research study would have a PAC in each of the countries it studied. Each PAC would comprise influential local policymakers in the area of that research topic. Prospective researchers would have to identify senior policymakers with sufficient interest in a topic’s outcomes that they would commit time to overseeing the research. AIRD’s TC and HIID’s PCT would not approve topics until the prospective researchers had identified their PAC. One PAC, with broad membership, oversaw all EAGER studies in Mali. Elsewhere, almost every other study had its own PAC.

The CoordCo also agreed that the ultimate written product of every country topic study would be a policy brief of three to five pages detailing the policy implications of the research results in English or French or both. Easily read and easily understood, the policy briefs would be the principal written tools for reaching the press, electric communications media, and policymakers.

At the March 1996 CoordCo meeting, with BHM participating, participants agreed that in addition to arranging and running workshops and editing and distributing reports of research results, BHM would produce a quarterly EAGER newsletter. They also agreed that BHM would (1) establish an EAGER Web site; (2) build an e-mail network among current and future EAGER researchers and the EAGER institutions; and (3) explore means to use the new and expanding electronic technologies and networks to further the goals of the project, including monitoring the results of projects of USAID’s Leland Initiative. Subsequently, BHM subcontracted these three activities to Abt Associates Inc.

BHM and Abt published the first issue of EAGEReport in winter 1997 and has published issues every three months since. Each issue describes EAGER’s purpose and reports on current EAGER research, concentrating increasingly on final and near-final results as they come in. BHM and Abt has also created the EAGER Web site and connected it directly to USAID’s site.

Once organized, the cooperative agents began to answer the other two implementation questions, how to choose researchers and research topics. In a number of ways, HIID and AIRD senior staff followed similar procedures. Two factors helped shape the initial efforts of both HIID and AIRD staff. The first was the combination of long-standing personal contacts and work experience among the senior researchers of the two prime cooperative agents. The second was their use of existing African networks as they asked the staff of RPI and AERC for references to particular African researchers and policymakers.

During all their early visits to EAGER countries, the COPs, SAs, and TRCs visited the staff of one or more local research institutions—including, sometimes, those of private consultants. In most cases, HIID and AIRD obtained the services of African researchers by contracting with local research or university institutions. These contracts also provided payments for some of the overhead costs of these institutions.

These contracts, with generally satisfactory performance by the African institutions, have established that, in most of the EAGER countries, one or more research institutions is capable of playing a leading role in managing the design and implementation of policy research. Further, EAGER training workshops and EAGER workshops reporting research results have increased the competence of many of the staff of the research institutions beyond the increased competence coming directly from their participation in joint research.

In other ways, the two prime cooperative agents followed different processes in choosing researchers, policymakers, and research topics.

TRADE CONSORTIUM ANSWERS

In April 1995, the month before AIRD signed its EAGER cooperative agreement, the AIRD COP and SA visited Kenya, asking Kenyans and the staffs of the USAID Mission and the Regional Economic Development and Services Office (REDSO) for advice about topics, researchers, and policymakers. Immediately after signing the cooperative agreement, AIRD’s COP and SA met with AFR/SD/SA in Washington, D.C., to discuss implementation. In June and July, the COP appointed the TRCs for WCA and ESA. In July and August, the COP and SA, with the two TRCs, visited Mali, South Africa, Tanzania, and Kenya. They held extensive discussions with policymakers, researchers, private sector leaders, and staff of USAID and other donors. The purpose of the discussions was to understand the most pressing policy issues to which research could contribute and to identify who might take part in the research. In November 1995, this same delegation visited Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, and Uganda for the same purpose.

In June 1995, AIRD staff gave AFR/SD/SA staff a draft Topic Selection Plan. The management committee met October 9, 1995 and agreed that the technical committee would make topic and research-design decisions. They also agreed that the revised Topic Selection Plan would remain a draft subject to revision. The draft plan specified the following criteria; the topics should be

• Pertinent to the most important trade issues facing or likely to face African policymakers;
• Useful to interest groups that would benefit from policy changes and are likely to exert pressure for reform;
• Likely that research undertaken on the topic will be used by policymakers;
• Technically feasible research given availability of data, the knowledge and experience of African researchers, and other requirements;
• Consistent with the broad objectives of USAID’s mandate;
• Of particular interest to one or more USAID Missions; and
• Able to contribute substantially to sustained and equitable growth.

During the July–August trip, the COP and SA told their hosts that AIRD would arrange an autumn workshop during which prospective researchers, given preliminary approval by the technical committee, would present their proposals for topics and research design. The trade COP appears to have proposed the workshop based on his experience with RPI—which, in turn, had modeled its workshops on those of AERC. During the early 1990s, AERC had developed its workshop arrangements to serve several purposes:

• Provide the critical mass needed for peer review (rarely available in any individual country),
• Economize on the costs and time of external experts,
• Develop the presentation skills of African scholars,
• Underscore the openness and transparency of the project selection process, and
• Obtain cross-fertilization of ideas across national boundaries.

With those same objectives, the first trade workshop was held December 7–9, 1995, in Bamako. Prospective researchers presented fourproposals. After hearing the comments and discussion during the workshop, the technical committee approved all four for final design.

Initially, AFR/SD/SA had asked AIRD and HIID to hold a workshop at Howard University in July 1996 to publicize EAGER and to present the results of its first year. When the TC met at Bamako, they commissioned seven surveys of trade issues to be presented at Howard.

Pleased with the Bamako workshop, the TMC decided to hold similar workshops every 6 months to vet research proposals, cross-fertilize the many and diverse African and expatriate researchers, and, eventually, present drafts of final reports. They scheduled the next workshop for Kampala in June 1996, a month before the Howard University meeting. Finally, the TMC decided to try to keep all approved studies to budgets below US$100,000. The technical committee began sending recommended final designs to AFR/SD/SA in January 1996. The first was approved in February, the second in March, three more were scattered through 1996, six in early 1997, and four later that year. The 17th and final design was approved in February 1998.

PSGE ANSWERS

The members of the HIID consortium answered the two implementation questions through a different procedure. On July 21, 1995, the PSGE COP sent the consortium coordinators a first draft of the Topic Selection Criteria and invited competition among consortium members to identify topics for funding. He asked for two-page topic papers by August 25—quickly, because AFR/SD/SA staff required a preliminary topic list before telling Missions that EAGER-PSGE was under way. Incorporating the topic submissions, AFR/SD/SA staff sent the cable announcing the launch of EAGER-PSGE on September 7. After receiving Missions responses and talking with other USAID and World Bank staff, the PSGE COP and SA sent the consortium coordinators a list of 179 possible research topics.

On October 25, anticipating three or four rounds of topic selection, the PSGE COP e-mailed the consortium coordinators a calendar for a first round of topic selection, as follows:

• Pre-proposals due by mid-December,
• Proposals due in mid-January,
• The PCT to meet in late January to recommend choices for funding among the short-listed proposals, and
• Final proposals due at the end of April 1996.

This scheme brought all topic proposals to the PCT through the consortium coordinators or PSGE’s COP or SA. This scheme also made PCT members responsible for overseeing the identification and selection of researchers and policymakers for each of the proposed research topics they would present to the PCT as a whole.

The COP and SA visited eight African nations in October and November 1995. Their purpose, like that of the AIRD leaders’ visits, was to identify topics and the researchers and policymakers who might take part in the studies.

The COP received 26 proposals before December 15 and distributed copies to all the PCT members with requests for evaluations. The COP also sent copies of each proposal to the relevant Missions economist or economists to evaluate. The AFR/SD/SA officer read all 26 proposals and persuaded at least two Washington-based USAID economists, selected according to their areas of expertise, to read each of the 26.

On January 30, 1996, the COP sent the consortium coordinators (1) an invitation to a February PCT meeting, (2) instructions on the "Role and Procedure for the PCT Meeting of 21 February," and (3) a project evaluation form with these criteria for scoring:

• Essential Criteria

• Preferential Criteria

• Three Further Considerations

At its February 1996 meeting, the PCT members agreed that in three cases, similar proposals had come from different consortium members. They decided that those six proposals would be strengthened by being paired into three single undertakings. The members then considered the collated scores, discussed them, and recommended eight proposals (that had come in as 11) to proceed to final design. USAID’s final design budgets included funds for background desk studies for seven of the eight. In abbreviated form, all of the HIID and AIRD survey papers presented at the 1996 Howard University workshop were submitted in early 1998 for publication in a special issue of The Journal of African Economic and Monetary Affairs (no publication date has yet been set).

On August 30, 1996, the COP sent consortium coordinators the rules for the review process for all final designs. The rules required the COP to appoint a peer reviewer to take the lead on each proposed final design and required circulation of the draft to all consortium coordinators, relevant Missions, and AFR/SD/SA staff—with invitations to all of these to comment.

AFR/SD/SA staff gave their first approval to a PSGE study recommendation of "Tax Transparency" in October 1996. They approved two more recommendations in November.

On November 7, 1996, the COP circulated Research Prospectus #2, inviting a second round of research proposals and repeating almost word-for-word the evaluation procedures of round one. On January 16, 1997, the COP circulated 21 proposals and assigned each consortium coordinator 6 proposals for peer review and scoring as quickly as possible. Again, a Mission economist and three Washington-based economists read and scored each of the 21. The written peer reviews and the multiple scores were circulated to PCT members in February. In a mail ballot, they recommended that USAID approve funding for the final design of four.

The COP circulated Research Prospectus #3 in November 1997 and the 26 third-round proposals (bringing to 73 the total reviewed within PSGE) in early January 1998. In March, after the same elaborate reading, scoring, discussion process as in the previous two rounds, the PCT recommended USAID approval of funding for the final design of 5 of the 26. AFR/SD/SA staff approved three final designs in the first half of 1997, five in the second half, and four in the first half of 1998. The 17th and final design was approved in October 1998.

AFR/SD/SA OVERSIGHT

The AFR/SD/SA EAGER project officers, usually one for the PSGE and one for the trade component, have maintained continuous oversight of cooperative agent performance insofar as performance can be reported through the consortium members and Missions officers. As just described, the project officers have reviewed and scored every proposal and have reviewed every final design. A project officer, or someone else from AFR/SD/SA, attended every PCT, management committee, and CoordCo meeting.

The consortium staff members appear to have consistently tried to be fully responsive to the project officers' wishes. For the most part, however, following topic selection, initiatives have come from within the consortia, and the project officers have played the role of responder.
 
 

4. Policy Research Outcomes to Date

Appendix J lists the 17 PSGE and the 16 trade research topics (studies), names each of the lead institutions and the leading investigators in Africa and abroad, and reports the status of each study as of December 31, 1998.

Some of the trade and most of the PSGE topics are multicountry; and in nearly every multicountry case, different Africans—and often different expatriates—performed the research in each country. We found some significant differences among these country-specific components within single research topics. Therefore, in evaluating the studies, we have distinguished 54 country-specific components within the 33 research subjects (We have not distinguished country components within the Perceptions of Governance study because its eight country components appear to be alike.) Table 4-1 lists the 54 components and indicates where they lie within research topics that involved more than one country study.

To carry out this evaluation, we read through much of the almost 200 documents produced by EAGER researchers and EAGER management. However, we did not read every word. The researchers’ documents are listed in Appendix C. We interviewed most of the researchers and project managers from the United States and the AFR/SD/SA staff who have been involved in EAGER. We spent 4 weeks traveling in Senegal, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa to interview nearly 100 USAID staff, EAGER researchers and policymakers, and other individuals knowledgeable about some aspect of EAGER. One of the evaluators spent much of an additional half week interviewing in Mali.

POLICY REFORMS RESULTING FROM EAGER

As stated above, EAGER’s ultimate objective was to produce research results actually used in decision making and to do so through research methods that would ensure a strong sense of ownership on the part of participating African researchers and policymakers. We have identified a number of policy reforms that have already resulted in whole or in part from EAGER research. Most of these policy changes have followed from researchers’ policy recommendations, but some have been made because EAGER research activities have induced policymakers to change policies well before the results were disseminated.

The following are some important policy changes attributable in some degree to EAGER researchers. Appendix H provides other examples of EAGER research affecting policy.

• Shortly after the EAGER study, Prospects for Developing Malian Livestock Exports, began, the Malian government imposed a tax on exports of raw hides and skins in order to lower their prices to local tanneries. The EAGER study estimated the costs to the hides and skins industry and to the national economy that would result from the tax measure and, in a

• As the Tanzania Minerals Marketing study proceeded, its researchers demonstrated the enormous, but previously unknown, size (12 percent of GDP) of the small-scale mining sector and the fact that most of the sector’s gold and gems were being smuggled out of Tanzania to avoid high taxes. As a result, and before the study was completed, the Minister of Energy and Minerals abandoned a plan to launch a police attack on smuggling and instead announced the elimination of nearly all taxes on these miners.
• In a dramatic move following a workshop presenting the results of the Tax Transparency study, the Government of Madagascar published a list of individuals receiving tax exemptions and a list of individuals delinquent on tax obligations. Following the derivative newspaper articles and public controversy, the government began implementing Tax Transparency study recommendations that should reduce corruption and tax evasion.
• Following a recommendation from the study, The Political Economy of Trade Liberalization: The Case of Vanilla, the Government of Madagascar eliminated the export tax on vanilla, the principal income source for thousands of families.
• The Modeling Electricity Trade in Southern Africa study began with a model originating to guide Indiana electric utilities in decisions about construction, transmission, and price and modified the model to fit the circumstances of the Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP). The members of SAPP have accepted the redesigned model and have Purdue University and African researchers preparing a power-pooling plan predicted to save users hundreds of millions of dollars on power production and distribution costs.
• In South Africa, policymakers used the results of the Financial Intermediation for the Poor study to reform the nation’s Agricultural Bank and turn it into a sustainable institution taking deposits and making small loans to the agricultural poor.

We were unable to determine the policy effects of components other than the 12 cited here and in Appendix H; some because we were unable to interview the principals, but most because the research was still under way or because the policy recommendations had not yet been presented to policymakers and other principals involved.

In addition to looking for policy effects, we also examined the extent to which EAGER’s institutional arrangements had in fact delivered joint African-U.S. research with African policymakers led to feel ownership of the outcomes.

We assert that EAGER’s objective of beneficial policy changes can be achieved only if the research is relevant, rigorous, credible, and timely. However, we have not scored performance directly on these particular criteria because EAGER’s inspiration rests on two premises: (1) many African researchers are capable of highly rigorous, credible, and timely research; and (2) many African policymakers are eager to obtain research results relevant to their decision-making responsibilities. EAGER’s designers hoped that paired researchers chosen by the prime cooperative agents with policymakers’ involvement would satisfy the exacting research criteria. Here we score EAGER’s implementation means on criteria of African involvement and actual and probable policy consequences.

As noted earlier, the contract obligated the consortia to begin work on a topic only under two conditions. First, when one or more resident African scholars had been found who agreed to participate in an equal partnership with a North American in design and implementation of the research. Second, when influential resident policymakers had been found who affirmed that the topic had enough relevance to their policy concerns that they would commit time to overseeing the research.

We have used four measures to indicate our opinion of the extent to which the cooperative agents have, so far, satisfied EAGER’s specifications about means when implementing each of the 54 research components presented in Table 4-1. We looked at outcomes and the involvement of Africans in selecting the topic and participating in the research; and we looked at the involvement of African policymakers through the PACs. Our selection of scoring criteria was guided by the following considerations:

• The extent to which the research activity involved a partnership along the lines originally stipulated by USAID;
• An underlying hypothesis that outcomes, that is, effects on policy, were closely associated with ownership following from the involvement of African researchers and policymakers.

The cooperative agents were, of course, also enjoined not to undertake any research until they had obtained the agreement of the relevant Mission that the subject was consistent with the Mission’s policy goals. As far as we could determine, all the components satisfied this criterion.

SCORING EAGER’S SUCCESS IN ACHIEVING AFRICAN PARTICIPATION OBJECTIVES

We offer an important conclusion before describing the scoring results. We found that in general, the cooperative agents have been doing excellent work and are producing excellent research and research results. Nevertheless, we have identified a number of shortcomings in EAGER implementation. We believe that these were nearly unavoidable given the constraints of the project: working through very large U.S.-based consortia, reaching agreement democratically within each consortium, clearing each major decision with a USAID office sometimes distracted by other obligations, pioneering means to involve African researchers on an equal footing, and finding influential African policymakers who could contribute some time to oversight .

As further evidence of the high quality of most of the cooperative agents’ researchers, many African researchers expressed appreciation for the technical assistance they received from their expatriate colleagues, often saying such things as "working with X was a very valuable experience for me," Or, "she was terrific to work with in the field." These expressions were most common from Africans who felt they had shared ownership in the research process.

We were unable to score four of the components (all with PSGE) because they have just begun. We were unable to score eight either because the principal African researchers were away when we were in their country (one trade component in Ghana, two PSGE components in Senegal) or because we could not visit their country or city (two PSGEs in Malawi, two in Zambia, and one in Durban).

We limited our scoring to the components where we were able to interview one or more of the participating senior African scholars. Those interviews—along with all our other interviews and, of course, our readings of the researchers’ reports—were essential to our scoring decisions. We scored each of 41 components on a five-point scale (with five the highest score) respecting four objectives:

• African Participation in Originating Research: How much did African policymakers and/or scholars participate in choice of study topic?
• African Participation in the Research: How much did African scholars participate in research design and implementation, with emphasis on the extent to which they were equal partners and not mere assistants?
• Involvement of African Policymakers: How much were African policymakers and other influential Africans involved in the process of topic choice, research process, outcome dissemination, and research use? This function was to be carried out largely though not entirely through PACs.
• Utilization of Research Results by Policymakers: How much of the research results have been used, are being used, or are likely to be used by policymakers?

Table 4-1 presents the scores for the 41 components for which we knew enough to make judgments. The scores vary widely within each of the columns and along many of the component lines. Many components received fives—the highest score, but others fell short. Some of these will be improved over the next year; and, of course, that year will bring all the components to completion. In the meantime, as work goes forward, we can only report "too early to tell" of many component outcomes.

From the complex and diverse state of the EAGER package, we drew our conclusions about what has worked and what has worked less well or not at all. One of EAGER’s participants told us he thinks this has been "the right project at the right time." While recognizing EAGER’s shortcomings, we agree with that assessment. In Chapter 5, we draw on its lessons to propose guidelines for an EAGER II, to make it the right program at the right time for the next 5 years.

LESSONS REGARDING SELECTION OF TOPICS FOR RESEARCH

Despite the best intentions of the contract managers, a dozen or more of the African researchers found their relationship with the expatriate researchers to be distinctly unequal. In these cases, research quality is jeopardized because the African researchers cannot embrace the work as their own.

In more than a half dozen cases, the leaders of some of the premier research institutions told us that some, a distinct minority, of the EAGER expatriate researchers had come to them with fully designed projects for which they needed some local help. In all of these cases, the research institutions declined to help. In all of these cases, the expatriates then went to the local universities to find research partners. These partners explained that their involvement was due to their eagerness to obtain research funding, despite misgivings about their subordinate roles.

We believe that a number of such cases were inevitable with decisions about topic choice being made in the United States and without African administrative centers designated to take responsibility for coordinating the schedules and work preferences of the African and expatriate researchers. In retrospect, we are surprised that misunderstandings and inequalities were not more frequent.

As described in the preceding chapter, the consortia, especially the large PSGE consortium took a long time to choose research topics. Even after they did, USAID approvals took as long as 2 months (in the case of all the recommendations in the second round) of PSGE selections.

Since USAID contracts are always time limited, more time for selection leaves less time for research—and raises transaction costs. The delays with PSGE were clearly the result of the commendable efforts of its leaders to vet proposals fairly with a wide variety of experts and to end with unanimity about choices.

Africa is short of highly skilled and experienced social science researchers, but they are masters of their time schedules; and for the most part, they choose to work only on research they view as incorporating their own ideas. The sense of ownership is, of course, a matter of degree and not all or nothing. The lesson is that the greater the degree of ownership, the greater the commitment and concentration on the part of the researcher.

The use of the PAC has proved an outstanding success. PAC membership has brought policymakers into the research process early enough to permit them to give some advice on implementation and, where they have been kept informed of research progress, to make them informed advocates for the researchers’ recommendations. However, researchers must often spend a considerable amount of time recruiting busy people for PACs; and to maintain PAC members’ involvement, researchers must devote additional time to arranging PAC meetings and keeping the members informed about research progress and setbacks. We find that in nearly a quarter of EAGER’s components, the researchers have been unable to make their PACs effective during the early stages of their study work. The prime cooperative agents did provide for "sitting fees" for members attending PAC meetings; yet we received complaints in a half dozen cases that members were being asked to serve without pay. Two Mission economists complained that PAC members had been asked to serve without pay. This misunderstanding we attribute to the complexity of communicating all the rules and decisions from the United States to the hundreds of EAGER participants.

This denial sometimes casts an oppressive shadow over working relationships. Many of the Africans felt themselves (we heard this complaint in at least four countries) to be designated second class when U.S. cooperative agents refused to disclose the total budgets for their particular topics. A sense of equality became more difficult to achieve in such instances. Since every research process involves financing and administration as well as actual research, the African participants assert that exclusion from any part of the process raises barriers between them and their expatriate "partners." Senior African economists recognize that geography creates separate labor markets among which salary rates may differ greatly, and they accept that American rates are higher than African.

Mission staff had approved every research topic and continued to support each research effort strongly. They were grateful for the frequent visits of the COPs and SAs but wished that the researchers would stop by more often to report on their progress. Mission staff were content to work with EAGER at the decision-making level without being involved in direct supervision. Nevertheless, they would welcome a more generous information flow.

The staff of AFR/SD/SA were correct in their premises for EAGER: Africa now has a large number of very competent researchers and a great many policymakers who feel a need for advice from research efforts. Our observations support the researchers’ observation that "EAGER is the right project at the right time." We draw the further conclusion that, as the AFR/SD/SA intended, joint research with policymaker involvement resulted in African ownership and high-quality research.

LESSONS REGARDING PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION

Many of the African researchers complained about delays when they felt they had to wait for the next visit of their expatriate partner to proceed with their work. They also complained that those visits often came after short and inconvenient notice to which they were expected to adapt. On the other hand, the American researchers complained that their African partners were often overcommitted and delayed work on their EAGER responsibilities until just before a scheduled workshop or until expecting the expatriate partners to visit.

Electronic communication cannot substitute for face-to-face discussion of research design, implementation, and dissemination. The prime cooperative agents have had the problem of dealing with a large number of researchers simultaneously. With more than 50 researchers at work on trade topics and more than 100 researchers at work on PSGE topics in early 1998, the prime cooperative agents, as central supervisors, could not possibly assist with every misunderstanding, oversight, and shortfall between researchers.

Researchers, busy with EAGER and other responsibilities, postpone communication with PAC members at their peril. Some PAC members, left uninformed over months, become not only uninterested but also antagonistic and disposed to assume that the results would no longer be relevant to their policymaking needs.

Some did so and had to make changes. These changes were facilitated because the prime cooperative agents had specified in advance how to deal with "non-performance."

After EAGER was under way, the AFR/SD/SA had asked the PSGE researchers to undertake only multi-country research. But all parties seem to have underestimated the costs in time and money that would be required to get researchers in different countries to follow similar research designs and to produce comparisons between their analysis and findings. As of the end of 1998, few African researchers had been able to do much with inter-country comparisons. Perhaps North American research partners will produce inter-country comparisons and analysis; but without inter-country travel funds, few of the African researchers expect to be so involved ("Restarting Growth" may be an exception). They have assumed in almost all cases that their country research is freestanding.

Since 1991, USAID has been funding ACBF support for African research institutions, and USAID Missions have been providing direct support. When EAGER was designed, few, if any African research institutions were ready to manage all the elements in the research process. Today, in large part because of USAID support, research institutions in five or six countries have the potential to play a leading role in managing the African end of joint research. The nonprofit research institutions can still all benefit from technical advice on financial management and other matters; and USAID, through SISERA or other institutions, may be able to provide that advice. Some of Africa’s private consultants have also become able to provide research management.

When we interviewed African researchers and asked about their need for assistance from outside experts, nearly every one said that he or she knew well the advantages of working with outsiders who shared their interests and who would bring different kinds of expertise and experience to research problems. Of interest, we found that the more senior and experienced the researcher, the stronger her or his interest in joint research of the kind EAGER intended.

LESSONS REGARDING MAKING AN IMPACT

We found only three cases where an African partner was treated lightly by senior researchers in their countries. Since we couldn’t get every senior researchers’ opinion, our sample may have been inadequate, but we mention this variable as one to be considered (even when an unfavorable reputation is undeserved?) when choosing research partners who are to help persuade policymakers to act on their recommendations.

In most of the participating countries, many policymakers feel an urgent need to get relevant research completed and delivered so they can use it. The economic environment is changing so fast in many African countries that research that proceeds slowly can finish after some or all of the relevant policy choices have been made. Corrections may be possible later but may be more difficult than getting it right the first time.

Rapid change is not occurring in every country or in every topic area. As a general rule, however, research should be designed to be finished expeditiously. When delays become unavoidable, researchers and PAC members need to consult about the advisability of revising the research or even abandoning it.

Policy Briefs appear to be a powerful tool for disseminating research results, but researchers have been slow to produce them. One reason for this is that EAGER’s original contract gave BHM, rather than the researchers, responsibility for writing them. That arrangement did not work and has been abandoned. When delays are unavoidable in writing Policy Briefs, cooperative agents should consider producing an Interim Policy Brief for the PAC to consider. This could provide a leg up on policy change and would keep the PAC members involved.

Many of the researchers, sometimes assisted by PAC members, have used local workshops as well as radio, television, and press interviews effectively in getting research results out to the public and to other policymakers.

The biannual workshops that have brought together current and prospective researchers have been highly effective in helping these participants improve their own work and understand the work of their peers with other topics. The researchers, perhaps unanimously, agreed that these workshops have been enormously useful to them. (Some hope for a bit more discipline on the part of future timekeepers.)

However, some considered the practice of inviting senior government officials to chair sessions about which they knew little in advance to be a public relations distraction. The length of the program and its diversity has made it difficult for policymakers to arrange attendance at the parts of interest to them. The obvious implication is that, if possible, the agenda should schedule all the topics likely to be of interest to local policymakers and reporters on one day.

AFTERWORD

EAGER was intended to be experimental. The shortcomings we have identified underscore an important point, namely that the arrangements for research management are still in a transitional stage. USAID staff have always recognized the importance of building up local institutions and skills. In the past, USAID staff played a major, direct role in doing so. Through EAGER, USAID has delegated the management task to U.S.-based cooperative agents. Our findings indicate that USAID should now move farther along this continuum, providing for even greater decentralization of research management. The reasons are

• African institutes have the capacity to manage research, provided they are well led, suitably structured, and properly supported.
• Africans—researchers and policymakers—want a sense of ownership of the process. Ownership is important for ensuring that research results will influence policy, the principal objective of spending U.S. tax dollars in this way.
• Decentralized management should prove less costly.

Moving along this continuum does not imply removal of a U.S.-based presence but rather a change in the functions and roles of U.S.-based cooperative agents: that is, greater oversight of a process whose direct execution is undertaken within Africa, thereby freeing funds and resources to provide expertise and mentoring in the research itself.
 
 

5. Policy Research: Conclusions That Follow from the Lessons Learned

From our review of EAGER’s evolution and outcomes, detailed in the preceding two chapters, we have drawn conclusions regarding the program’s impact. They are summarized below in terms of policy relevance of the issues; and effectiveness of the current process for managing policy research. These conclusions provided the basis for the recommendations previously set out in Chapter 2 and Appendix I.

POLICY RELEVANCE OF EAGER’S THEMATIC FOCUS

Growth and Equity

The overriding importance of accelerated growth for sub-Saharan Africa has been confirmed by virtually all the decision makers, opinion shapers, and researchers encountered during our field visit. Somewhat surprisingly, this priority is not shared by many other external funders of research. Hence, USAID’s willingness to finance research specifically focusing on accelerating the rate of growth over the medium and longer term is especially valued by African policymakers and researchers. They also recognize the need to address equity, being motivated by

• Skepticism regarding a positive and significant trickle down effect without informed government interventions;
• The need to sustain popular support for harsh macroeconomic measures through tangible, widely perceived gains in individual welfare; and
• The possible emergence of unhealthy concentrations of wealth and power because of imperfect markets, inadequate regulatory frameworks, and weak public administration.

However, this research into poverty is tempered and refocused by a continuing concern with accelerating growth. Thus a major Tanzanian initiative, financed through collaborative research on reducing poverty that is being managed by AERC, is examining how to reduce absolute poverty through accelerated growth. More generally, there is growing interest in analyzing the performance of factor markets, with particular reference to changes in real productivity of capital and labor, along with an abiding concern for increasing employment.

Forest and Trees: Thematic Coverage and Individual Topics

Our inquiry has highlighted the importance of an encompassing conceptual framework for informing more focused research into equity and growth. The need for such a framework is evident by the introduction of the mega project, Restarting Growth, in the latter half of the EAGER project. A well-designed framework that synthesizes the findings of individual research efforts ensures the accumulation of a body of knowledge with a greater likelihood of influencing policymakers on major issues bearing on accelerated growth. It also facilitates useful comparisons, not only within SSA, but with countries in other regions confronting analogous situations. Such inter-country comparisons do not yet appear in the research we examined. This structuring of research also can accommodate an iterative process, whereby generalizations are qualified and challenged by country-specific findings and wherein tightly focused research is enriched by concepts and approaches applicable to other African economies.

Experimentation and Innovation

Some EAGER projects we examined have fostered experimentation with new approaches, giving local researchers and policymakers wide latitude to wrestle with pressing concerns in new ways. For example, one Restarting Growth project features a Ugandan industrial psychologist studying, in a rigorous and numerate fashion, the influence of local values on competitiveness as these values shape individual and organizational behavior. The research has drawn the interest of a senior Ugandan decision maker, himself an accomplished econometrician, who is studying the same question through more conventional analyses of capital accumulation and productivity. Another example is research in Senegal conducted by a Senegalese social anthropologist. He is analyzing changes in economic welfare as perceived by various socioeconomic groups. Such instances are most typically associated with local "ownership" of the research and wise mentoring by senior non-African professionals. In our view, EAGER II should encourage such experimentation and transdisciplinary research that satisfy the criteria of analytical rigor and responsiveness to locally determined priorities for research within a thematic framework set for the overall program.

Shifting Horizon of African Policymakers

Most African governments must continue to pursue structural adjustment policies over the medium term. Their primacy as a necessary condition for longer-term development is being more widely accepted among the countries we visited. Intellectual acceptance, however, remains largely confined to a small group of technocrats and enlightened opinion leaders in the public and private sectors. Nonetheless, attention is shifting from "what"—the choice of broad policy directions—to "how," namely questions of sequence and implementation, and from short- to medium-term considerations. This shift will become a major factor in determining the impact of research designed to shape public policy. In Uganda, for example, the central bank’s director of research stated that more of his department’s effort would be directed to examining the medium-term prospects for growth and competitiveness.

More generally, policymakers are actively searching for specific opportunities where their private sectors can prove competitive internationally. Although trade, tax, and exchange rate regimes remain all important, policymakers will be increasingly drawn to applied research bearing on the performance and competitiveness of sectors, products, and firms. Credibility of the policy advice offered to them will rest increasingly on a demonstrated practical understanding of specific issues, as opposed to broad prescriptions based on a more generalized—and now increasingly accepted—strategic approach to growth. In this regard, a framework for synthesizing and qualifying more focused inquiry becomes useful. Equally important will be the need to engage external, high-level expertise credible to local researchers and decision makers because of their proven practical knowledge of the issues in question.

MANAGEMENT OF POLICY RESEARCH

Impact on Public Policy

From our interviews with a wide range of researchers and policymakers in seven African countries, following on meetings with members of the contracting groups in Washington, D.C., and Cambridge MA, we have concluded that many projects have had limited impact on public policy in relation to their stated intent. Explanations, as varied as the projects themselves, include the following:

• Failure to define the issue for research properly, with the consequence that the research was tangential or irrelevant to the decision-making process;
• A focus on issues perceived to be marginal or of lower priority to policymakers;
• Poor-quality research;
• Low credibility of some researchers, both African and non-African, among central decision makers;
• Failure to engage and, more important, to sustain the interest of central decision makers;
• Tardiness of the research so that the findings were made known and communicated too late for use in making important policy decisions;
• Delays in disseminating research findings in appropriate formats, venues, and media to the principal decision makers; and
• Insufficient knowledge of the policy formulation process so that the findings could be inserted at the appropriate points in a timely and appropriate manner.

These project-specific observations, raised in the preceding chapter, point to more generic issues discussed below.

Ownership of Research

To have a significant bearing on policy, research must be credible, timely, relevant, and rigorous. Such qualities are usually closely and positively associated with local ownership. This ownership, furthermore, entails more than an initial airing of concerns by a limited set of policymakers and professionals, or the participation of local professionals in the collection of information. It must extend to the entire research cycle, from setting priorities among issues, selecting the research team, and selecting the executing agency, through ongoing monitoring, to presenting and disseminating findings. Such ownership need not necessarily detract from intellectual and methodological rigor or substitute for appropriate external contributions and mentoring. The smaller number of projects producing timely results useful for policy have usually been characterized by the strong involvement of local researchers and policymakers in determining priorities, shaping the research, and directing its dissemination. Opposite conditions have usually typified the larger number failing to achieve their anticipated outcome and impact.

Local ownership need not automatically imply a wholesale substitution of local researchers for non-Africans. On more than one occasion we were informed that once the issue of local ownership of the research process had been settled, the better local professionals and engaged decision makers appreciated the active involvement of non-Africans. Expatriates can contribute significantly to improving the rigor and credibility of the work and consequently to its likely application to public policy. In effect, external expertise is more valued and appreciated once the underlying question of local ownership has been resolved.

Transactions Costs

The research cycle associated with the current program imposes considerable transaction costs in the initial identification of issues, selection of researchers and well-placed decision-makers, the monitoring of work, and dissemination and application of findings. These transactions costs have detracted substantially from the overall cost effectiveness of policy research contracted under the EAGER program. They result from the opportunity cost imposed on committed and skilled external professionals, qualified local professionals, and interested decision-makers. For each, time is scarce and must be used wisely and efficiently.

External senior researchers expended considerable effort in identifying research priorities, selecting local researchers and policymakers, conducting research, monitoring and managing local researchers, and more recently attempting to disseminate findings to targeted audiences. We recognize that such efforts were unavoidable at the outset of the program, given the contractual parameters set by the cooperative agreements. Furthermore, dissemination suffered because of an initial—and in our view erroneous—decision by USAID to contract this critical function to an independent third party. Nonetheless, we observe that the skills and expertise of talented, knowledgeable, and committed external professionals were often misapplied. Following initial contacts with African researchers and policymakers, their efforts would have been better directed toward establishing a structured arrangement in country allowing for more decentralized management of the research process itself. Hours of overseas travel expended on supervising locally contracted researchers and attempting to contact key policymakers could have been better devoted to studying the local terrain for decision making, mentoring local researchers, conducting the research in question, and following up on the findings. Another major benefit of a decentralized approach—admittedly not featured in the original Request for Assistance—would have been a stronger sense of local ownership with the attendant benefits noted earlier.

For local researchers, the absence of a decentralized, structured approach to research management has provoked considerable frustration. Our African respondents have cited various difficulties. These have included the lack of transparency in resource allocation, apparent inflexibility in reallocating time and resources in response to unanticipated issues, unforeseen delays in initiating research, failure to secure timely responses to various queries, and problems in scheduling work and accommodating field visits by the external researchers. Poor scheduling and time management have often been reflected in the unduly lengthy period taken to complete research. Consequently, the findings have frequently become available too late to play a determining role in shaping public policy.

Analogous difficulties have been cited by African members of the project advisory committees. Given the demands on their time imposed by their official functions and by less formal obligations to various local agencies and other donors, their willingness to participate in advisory committees clearly indicates an initially strong interest in the research financed through EAGER. In many cases, this initial enthusiasm has waned. Contact with local researchers has often been sporadic. The perceived usefulness of the research has faded along with their interest.

The modalities used for research management would have been more effectively applied within a more structured and decentralized approach. This outcome is most apparent with respect to the biannual EAGER workshop. Its cost should be readily justified by gains in quality and timeliness resulting from peer group review, more economical monitoring of progress, and efficient dissemination of results. Likewise, short technical workshops, sparingly used in the current program, could have been better scheduled, in terms of the research cycle, for researchers working on parallel concerns in different countries. Another modality, short-term institutional attachments, rarely used in the current program, would have allowed researchers, freed from the many potential disruptions at home, to collaborate directly with their overseas partners in writing up the results much more quickly.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

The program’s cost effectiveness can be raised significantly in EAGER II through decentralized management and direction of the research cycle. While not without attendant risks, this approach, specified in our recommendations in Chapter 2 and related appendixes, will greatly improve the cost effectiveness of policy research through a major reduction in transaction costs and significant benefits resulting from greater local ownership. This approach should not be interpreted as emphasizing capacity building at the cost of quality and relevance. To the contrary, we contend that this approach is more likely to result in timely and credible findings, more readily used in making important policy decisions precisely because of the greater commitment of Africans, and a more effective deployment of the skills and expertise of non-African researchers. The challenge of strengthening local capacities to manage a much more decentralized process does remain. This task, though, should be separated from the responsibility of implementing policy research and should comprise a distinct, but closely linked activity in EAGER II.

6. Other EAGER Activities
 
 

INTRODUCTION

Through EAGER, USAID finances activities other than contracted policy research that share a common aim of promoting growth with equity. Each activity is evaluated separately by its supporting donors. Implicitly these activities constitute an opportunity cost insofar as USAID funds expended on them reduce the resources potentially available for research conducted by U.S. cooperative agents and their African associates. A direct comparison, though, between them and contract research, in terms of their cost and their impact on economic policy, would be spurious. First, they differ widely in their more immediate focus, structure, time horizon, and overall financing. Second, USAID recognizes their essentially complementary relationship with contract research, insofar as it has separately set its level of support for them, with EAGER providing an appropriate vehicle for implementation. A more pertinent question therefore is whether the potential synergy between EAGER activities and contract research is being satisfactorily exploited so as to raise the overall return on USAID’s investment.

This chapter responds to this question in three ways. First, we describe each activity and comment on its outcomes. Second, we explore EAGER’s relationship to contract research, with particular reference to possible synergy between them. Finally, we consider whether such synergy might be more effectively tapped through decentralized management of policy research along the lines recommended for EAGER II.

AFRICAN ECONOMIC RESEARCH CONSORTIUM (AERC)

Established in August 1988, AERC supports research, graduate training, institutions, and research dissemination in francophone and anglophone Africa. Inheriting an IDRC-sponsored macroeconomic policy network for eastern and southern Africa, AERC has systematically expanded its research activities geographically, by topic, and in terms of supporting mechanisms or modalities. More than 50 small grants are provided annually to groups of two to five African professionals drawn from government as well as academia, to undertake research within themes determined by an independent advisory committee selected from leading non-African and African academics and senior African policymakers. Over time AERC has structured a project cycle that guides its efforts from the initial espousal of a concept or problem to the production of an externally reviewed monograph and, in a growing number of cases, publication of an article in an accredited journal. Within this cycle, biannual workshops play a key role, providing for peer review and high-level mentoring at the inception, interim, and completion stages of research with a (formal) duration of 12 months. This structure allows AERC to implement other supportive measures, including periodic workshops, to expand technical skills and knowledge in response to the perceived needs of researchers and to assist scholars in preparing work for submission to scholarly publications. Several successive annual grants are often needed for scholars to gain sufficient self-confidence, knowledge, and skills necessary to undertake more creative work meriting publication in good journals. AERC, though, does apply flexible standards in assessing submissions and ongoing work, in order to keep barriers to entry sufficiently low for scholars from weaker research environments.

Alongside these thematic grants, AERC has introduced other modalities serving complementary purposes. Comparative and collaborative grants are respectively intended to permit Africans to undertake cross-country studies, frequently drawing on completed research, and for Africans to work with overseas colleagues on common issues. These activities are larger in scope and scale, longer in duration, and largely self-monitored by the participating scholars. However, results are regularly reported to AERC’s research network at the biannual workshops.

USAID’s grant to AERC for research into poverty is administered as a collaborative research project. In addition to Cornell University, the principal non-African recipient, the project involves non-African scholars based in Britain, France, and Sweden. Likewise, African scholars participate through their respective universities and/or research institutes. Shared intellectual concerns are articulated in jointly prepared thematic papers discussed at the outset of the project. The grant finances stints of 3 to 6 months by Africans at collaborating overseas institutions, to acquire new techniques and knowledge and to conduct research jointly with their non-African partners.

We did not examine the poverty project directly. However, from discussions with participating scholars in Ghana (Economics Department, CEPA), Kenya (AERC Secretariat), Tanzania (REPOA, ESRF), and South Africa (Economics Department, University of Cape Town), we observed a high degree of enthusiasm and ownership. In some instances, scholars believed they were breaking new ground and that their research could have considerable influence over national policy. Not least, they perceived a direct personal benefit through scholarly publications and an enhanced academic reputation. At this juncture though, the work is ongoing, and it is definitely premature to conclude that all these outcomes will be realized. Furthermore, we cannot judge how well the activity has been managed by AERC. Nevertheless, the project does appear to demonstrate some of the benefits that can be achieved through more decentralized management of research within a competent organizational arrangement.

AERC also operates a collaborative master’s program involving 20 departments from 14 anglophone countries, of which 7 currently offer a master’s degree officially sanctioned by the program. Matters pertaining to strategy, curriculum, and quality are determined by an academic board with representation from all the collaborating departments. AERC acts as executing agency, allocating, disbursing, and monitoring grants, and ensuring that the agreed-upon procedures and standards are being observed. It also operates a joint facility for the shared teaching of elective subjects from July through September each year. AERC is directly accountable to supporting donors for the program’s management and progress.

Possibly by accident rather than design, AERC’s networking activities are well adapted to operate in a volatile environment. Corresponding to the motives giving rise to the Internet, its own dispersal of activity among many "nodes"—that is, departments, institutes, and teams of researchers—has fostered a resilience and flexibility better able to withstand unanticipated shocks. One reason for eschewing centers of excellence for master’s-level training is the heightened vulnerability of the program to political and economic disruption. The one potential weakness of this set-up is the AERC Secretariat. Should it suffer from poor leadership and bad management, the adverse consequences will be felt by all the consortium’s activities.

At first glance, AERC would seem to be an alternative instrument for supporting USAID’s policy research. It possesses the necessary credibility, local presence, managerial structure, and operational modalities. However, any attempt by USAID to have AERC execute its policy research agenda will be strongly opposed by the consortium’s other members, the advisory committee and, not least, its participating African scholars and institutions. AERC deliberately rejects any role in policy advocacy. Indeed, its Advisory Committee has specifically been given responsibility for determining priorities for research in order to insulate research (and subsequently training) from the demands of any single supporting donor member. AERC prefers an indirect approach to policy reform. By raising the stature and credibility of the profession generally, the consortium is working toward greater professionalism in the design and execution of public policy. Nonetheless, its supporting members can draw on the same pool of scholars and knowledge to work on issues of direct interest to themselves. This synergy is apparent in the case of EAGER wherein the U.S.-based cooperative agents have relied extensively on African scholars, whose skills and indeed continuing professional presence owe much to the various research and educational activities offered through AERC. In effect, USAID support for contract research complements the assistance provided to AERC under EAGER.

Possibly falling outside the immediate purview of our own inquiry is the question of sustaining over the longer term AERC’s activities and indeed other types of research that bear on policy reform. In essence, all of them are living off the investment in doctoral training undertaken largely between the late 1960s and early 1980s. Subsequently, with minor exceptions, including a few AERC doctoral fellowships, a SIDA program at the University of Dar Es Salaam, and the recent USAID program (SEGA/MESP) in South Africa, virtually no further doctoral education has been financed from external sources.

AERC-financed studies, in which one of us played a leading role, concluded that the consortium’s research activities, as well as those of other donors, depended on a diminishing capital stock of Ph.D.s. The effects of a brain drain have been exaggerated. A tracer study of Rockefeller Foundation fellows in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda revealed that more than a decade after the last of them had received his degree, more than 60 percent were still professionally active within the region. This figure is startling in view of normal professional mobility, especially for high flyers in the profession; a depressing work environment frequently punctuated by civil strife, war, and political repression; and, more generally, declining personal remuneration and material support. Another AERC survey established that as few as 20 Africans annually were receiving doctorates in economics from universities within and outside sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This investment is clearly not sufficient to meet projected requirements for university instructors, research, and policy analysis. International agencies have placed an additional demand on this meager supply. Recently, for example, three African scholars who had been carefully nurtured by AERC’s research process, handpicked from graduates of the collaborative master’s program, and sent overseas on AERC doctoral fellowships, were recruited upon graduation by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

AERC’s studies have proposed a collaborative doctoral program of international stature within SSA. Its quality and reputation would be guaranteed by an independent board of leading scholars, by joint teaching (in some cases electronically), by leading international and overseas scholars, and by shared supervision of thesis research. Initial estimates suggest that the cost per graduate, once the program is fully operational with an annual output of 12 to 15 graduates, would be somewhat less than programs comparable in quality outside Africa. A financing strategy provides for longer-term support through reinvested funds and local sources after 10 years. Not least among the program’s espoused merits would be its close links to ongoing research and training activities in the region as well as a strong sense of ownership by African universities.

Virtually no progress has been made toward implementing the program since the AERC studies were completed about 2 years ago. Among potential donors, there remains skepticism concerning the value of doctoral training and an understandable reluctance to commit resources to a long-term and seemingly open-ended undertaking. The AERC board is also hesitant. The consortium is going through a major change in its senior management, and its supporting members fear that introduction of a doctoral program will lead to a cutback in support for other activities.

This impasse can be resolved. Recently the World Bank’s vice president for research underscored the importance of doctoral training in economics for Africans. Although his own concept encountered strong negative reaction within and outside the bank, he has succeeded in assigning a deservedly higher priority to Ph.D. training. The risks perceived by AERC’s board can be mitigated by assigning the consortium responsibility as the executing agency for a program that can be initiated and financed separately from its own core activities. The AERC board would then be free to negotiate with the program’s financiers the terms and conditions of its own responsibilities as the executing agency.

The possible introduction of an international program for doctoral training does hold implications for the financing of EAGER II. Funds should be initially assigned toward its start-up costs, likely to be incurred, if at all, in the second half of EAGER II. With regard to the more general question of future USAID support for AERC under EAGER II, we recommend the following guidelines:

• Maintain USAID’s share of overall AERC financing at its current level. EAGER II should therefore allow for an increase in the annual USAID grant, in line with the projected increase in the consortium’s budget of 15 percent over the next 5 years;
• Provide for a sequel to the current collaborative project on poverty; and
• Possibly finance, with other interested donors, a new collaborative project on African competitiveness, slated to commence in 2000 or 2001.

RESEAU DE RECHERCHE SUR LA POLITIQUE INDUSTRIELLE (RPI)

RPI, a network managed by IDRC and financed by IDRC and other donors (including, at various times, USAID, CIDA, and France), was started at roughly the same time as AERC. Sometimes misinterpreted as the francophone counterpart to AERC, its aims and activities have been quite different. Its initial objective was to strengthen skills in francophone African countries, where the capacity for research was deemed weaker than in anglophone Africa. Among the reasons cited were greater isolation from international trends because of language, an outdated undergraduate curriculum, and unfamiliarity of many senior scholars with research based principally on an empirical, inductive approach. In its initial 3-year phase, RPI was tightly structured around a common methodology for estimating the structure of protection and its impact, in turn, on productivity, income, and trade.

An external evaluation of RPI (September through November 1996), co-directed by one of the EAGER evaluators, observed that RPI suffered from serious flaws in its governance and management, with a resultant negative effect on its overall cost effectiveness. More important, the evaluation concluded that RPI, focusing principally on providing small grants and linked technical support to francophone researchers, was not sustainable in its existing form. The better researchers wished to graduate to AERC, which offered greater access to more topics and international scholarship. The consequent failure to expand the network, in terms of building up a core of senior researchers, would doom it to remaining a "finishing school" for young and inexperienced graduates. The evaluators recommended that RPI use its remaining resources for overseas institutional attachments, as part of IDRC’s own stated priority of strengthening African policy institutes.

These recommendations were not accepted. In practice, though, the renamed Reseau de Recherche sur la Politique Economique is winding down. Its last director is now an assistant research coordinator with AERC in Nairobi, responsible for collaborative projects and for encouraging greater francophone involvement in AERC activities. Funds provided under EAGER for RPI are being reallocated, with USAID’s approval, to the SISERA initiative (see below).

PROGRAMME DE TROISIEME CYCLE (PTCI)

Unlike RPI, PTCI is a francophone counterpart to an AERC program, in this instance masters-level training (doctorat de troisième cycle). Indeed the rationale for PTCI emerged from the same series of studies undertaken by AERC in 1989 and 1990. Subsequently the two initiatives evolved very differently in terms of scope, governance, and management. Because PTCI poses a demand on EAGER, and potentially EAGER II resources, we discussed it in the course of our evaluation with francophone scholars and staff of IDRC overseeing the program on behalf of supporting donors. Also noteworthy was a meeting in Nairobi with Professor Fulbert Amoussouga of the Université de Benin, currently président of the conseil d’administration, PTCI’s governing board, who had just finished observing a meeting of the academic board of the anglophone program.

From its inception, PTCI had flaws in its governance, creating serious problems in management and accountability. The program belongs to the Conférence des Instituts d’Enseignement et de la Recherche Economique et de Gestion en Afrique (CIEREA), based in Ougadougou. CIEREA comprises an association of institutes and faculties engaged in teaching and research in economics and management. Ostensibly for this reason, PTCI includes several CIEREA representatives on its conseil d’administration, alongside those of supporting donors. However, these same individuals are also recipients of PTCI grants in their capacities as faculty or institute heads. PTCI’s director, whose appointment and contractual terms are determined by the conseil is thus responsible to a board that also contains some grant recipients.

Initially, this conflict of interest was not addressed by IDRC, responsible among the supporting donors for monitoring the project. Subsequent efforts to rectify the problem only complicated an already flawed governing structure and made the lines of authority and accountability even more obscure. Decisions concerning grants were transferred to yet another body, a Commission de Bourses, accountable to neither the board nor the program’s director. An immediate consequence was a further weakening of the program director’s authority. While many, including Professor Amoussouga, recognize this continuing weakness, we strongly recommend an immediate reform of the program’s governance as a condition for further USAID support. The changes should remove any remaining conflicts of interest and provide for transparent, straightforward lines of responsibility and accountability. Grant recipients should be removed from the conseil, which should comprise only representatives of the supporting donors. The program’s director should be directly responsible for determining grants and reporting to the conseil on their use and outcomes.

A more serious flaw is the failure of PTCI to formally provide for the preparation and successful defense of a thesis, necessary for obtaining the doctorat de troisième cycle, roughly akin to a masters degree. The doctorat is absolutely essential in order to commence any formal career in teaching and research. PTCI’s support ceases with the Diplôme des Etudes Approfondies (DEA), marking the successful completion of course work. This shortfall is especially perturbing for students outside the five countries whose national universities offer a doctorat: Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Gabon, the Ivory Coast, and Senegal. Students in these countries can in some instances eventually obtain the doctorat as part-time lecturers. Indicative of the problem is the current situation is Mali. Ten students, we were informed, had actually completed the DEA, and another six were in the pipeline. An addition of 16 Malians with doctorats to the country’s tiny pool of professional economists could have an immediate, substantial effect on policy analysis and university teaching. Without the doctorat, they are consigned to temporary and part-time work, with no prospect of moving up the academic ladder. Already some have become discouraged and moved off into other fields.

We strongly recommend that USAID not support PTCI until it formally provides the financial, intellectual, and organizational structures that will allow all entrants to complete a doctorat. Furthermore, PTCI should first address the needs of those that have already completed the DEA and are seeking to complete their doctorat. If necessary, intake into the program should be cut back in order to achieve these two priorities as quickly as possible.

INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH (ICEG)

ICEG’s international program, based in San Francisco, promotes economic growth in Latin America, Asia, and Africa through commissioned publications and articles, periodic conferences, visiting scholars, and guest lecturers. Its Africa program supplements these activities with small institutional and research grants aimed at strengthening teaching and policy research. These undertakings have been financed by USAID through EAGER. In 1996, ICEG co-hosted with IDRC a conference of African research institutes that was financed in part by the ACBF. Subsequently, the initiative for following up on the conference’s recommendations was taken up by IDRC, for which purpose IDRC established its SISERA program (see below).

Because evaluation of ICEG’s Africa program is beyond the purview of our evaluation, we have focused on potential synergy between it and the decentralized management of contract research proposed for EAGER II. In our view, ICEG’s African staff can offer valuable guidance to USAID and potential U.S. cooperative agents for EAGER II in identifying suitable African partners. They can also advise on selective aspects of its implementation (e.g. existing African networks and other relevant research). However, more extensive ICEG involvement should be predicated on specific proposals that its board may want to present to USAID on the basis of actions recommended by the staff of its Africa program.

SECRETARIAT FOR STRENGTHENING INSTITUTIONS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH IN AFRICA (SISERA)

In establishing SISERA, IDRC signified its intention to sustain a long-standing tradition of support for research and training in economics in sub-Saharan Africa. Its Macroeconomic Policy Network for Eastern and Southern Africa, following on earlier projects in the subregion, led to the eventual establishment of AERC. Maintaining its involvement as a founding consortium member, IDRC has focused more directly on francophone Africa through RPI and PTCI. More recently, it has established the Trade and Industrial Policy Secretariat (TIPS), networking research within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Also motivating the IDRC’s SISERA program is a lengthy involvement in research management and institutional development in the natural as well as physical sciences. In addition to its own funds, IDRC has been able to enlist USAID support through a reallocation of funds originally destined for RPI.

The response from other donors has thus far proved to be disappointing. Some fear a lengthy, open-ended commitment. The program does not provide for a formal closure, in terms of concrete outcomes. Donors’ hesitation is not unfounded since, as we observe in Appendix F (Traveler’s Guide to African Institutions), longer-term donor commitment, although declining, may be necessary before the institutions have acquired the stature and credibility necessary to marshal significant support from national sources. Other donors find the financing of core functions unattractive. Expenditures on programs with tangible outputs perceived as more directly in line with their stated corporate priorities can be more easily justified. Finally, some donors consider economic research well served by bilateral donors and the World Bank. They prefer to allot their scarce research funds to equally important but relatively neglected fields.

The decentralized management of policy research recommended for EAGER II should prove equally attractive to the USAID and IDRC. For USAID, it should result in a considerable reduction in administrative costs and a higher throughput of completed work, with more impact, in turn, on public policy. For IDRC, closer association of SISERA with the management of contracted research should prompt a tighter strategic focus. SISERA will need to concentrate much of its initial efforts on those African institutions managing policy research. To this group, it may want to add one or two other institutes in each country of coverage. These can collaborate in conducting the research and can also serve as backups in the event the institution originally selected to manage the EAGER II program proves unsatisfactory. As these institutions grow in stature and credibility, they will be able to offer their services, as locally based managers of research, to other donors. As these benefits become more apparent, these donors may be more easily induced to support the SISERA program.

Top

BACKGROUND

EAGER’s (Equity and Growth through Economic Analysis) socioeconomic policy analysis and research activities consist of four closely integrated and complementary components: research, technical assistance, capacity building, and dissemination. The nature of such policy analysis is such that, in many cases, financial commitments under one EAGER component result in activities that cut across two or more of these components. For example, to implement a major share of the research component, two cooperative agreements (CAs) have been established for conducting the actual research of the project. The CAs are held by two consortia, one led by the Associates for International Resources and Development (AIRD) and the other led by the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), which may be referred to as Cooperative Agreement Recipients, or CARs. But these CARs not only provide research, through their collaboration with host country researchers and policy institutes, they also constitute important means for technical assistance, capacity building and dissemination of information about policy analysis and reform. EAGER’s communications and logistics contract (CLC, held by BHM International) provides technical support - - a newsletter, document development and reproduction, workshop implementation, and Internet services - to the CARs for their dissemination and, thus, also in their capacity building.

Another important example of how expenditures addressed to one of EAGER’s objectives yields impacts under another objective would be EAGER’s financial commitments to important African institution-based policy analysis programs. Specifically, funds provided to the African Economic Research Consortium, the International Development Research Center, and the International Center for Economic Growth’s African regional program are intended primarily to provide capacity building, strengthening the ability of Sub-Saharan Institutions to conduct their own economic policy analysis through learning by doing. But, of course, important results of those capacity-building allocations are the research products, their dissemination, and the related improvements in the policy dialogue and any reforms that may accompany the capacity building.

A final example of the cross-component impacts of EAGER’s allocations are the impacts of funding for EAGER’s technical assistance component. The technical assistance component provides field advisers and experts detailed from other federal agencies, to be provided to USAID field offices and USAID/Washington’s Bureau for Africa. These advisers provide research syntheses, dissemination, monitoring, quality control, field inputs, and feedback to EAGER project management. Thus, this expertise will also provide impacts across all four of EAGER’s components.

1.2 TITLE

Activity Title:

Title: EAGER-MID - TERM EVALUATION WITH FOLLOW-ON ACTIVITY IMPLICATIONS

1.3 OBJECTIVE

This statement of work has two basic related purposes. The first is to conduct a sound evaluation of the extent to which EAGER’s activities are achieving the purpose specified in the project paper, namely, "to increase the use of economic and social research and analysis by decision makers in public and private sector institutions. The second basic intent of this statement is to develop lessons learned from EAGER that may serve as guides for developing follow-on activities that will enable the Bureau for Africa, after the termination of the EAGER project at the end of September 1999, to continue to strengthen the quality of African economic and social analysis and related policy decision-making.

The first purpose is required by EAGER’s project paper, which specifies that during the third year of implementation an interim evaluation will be conducted to examine the extent to which EAGER achieves the project’s purposes. More specifically, the mid-term evaluation will assess … the management of project processes and the quality of research and dissemination strategies, and … whether the project strategy is working … and whether project objectives are likely to be achieved [66].

Accordingly, the following evaluation portion of this scope of work is based on "[k]ey ... illustrative questions" for evaluation suggested in the project paper [66+]. The follow-on recommendations portion of the scope, to assist the designing of the follow-on program, in turn, should be based on key findings in the evaluation and the African and policy experience and expertise of the evaluators.

1.4 STATEMENT OF WORK

The evaluation will basically be conducted by a two-person team with substantial technical experience (preferably, significantly African-oriented) in the implementation or evaluation of economic policy analysis for developing countries. The basic two-person team will be provided by the cooperative agent and will be supplemented by the cooperative agent in the form of administrative and technical support. The team and its technical support will implement the evaluation through the following activities:

1. A review of EAGER’s implementing documentation, including the project paper, the cooperative agreements, contracts, and other documents, such as RSSAs and delivery orders for the CLC, intended to implement the project.

2. Interviews of key personnel at AIRD, BHM, HIID and USAID who have participated in or are knowledgeable about the EAGER project.

3. Interviews of key host country, other donor, private sector (e.g., business, labor or agricultural association), and NGO/PVO researchers or close observers of and participants in the policy dialogue, who may be aware of EAGER and know of its possible contribution to progress in the reform process. If a generally well informed party is not aware of a substantial EAGER in-country effort, that too may be significant.

4. Travel to up to seven countries, in order to interview host country participants and observers of EAGER, where EAGER has made major commitments of research resources. Subject to final negotiation with the cooperative agent, five of these countries would be the following:

-- Mali: an important country for USAID, the first country in which EAGER activities were approved, and the farthest advanced in terms of dissemination; -- Ghana: an important country for USAID in which 7 EAGER analyses are being carried out; -- South Africa: very important country with 7 EAGER studies; -- Tanzania: the subject of 6 activities, including the Gemstone and Gold Marketing for Small-Scale Mining project; and -- Uganda: an important country for USAID, in which 4 EAGER studies are being conducted, though they are somewhat further behind the analyses in most other countries.

Madagascar, with 5 EAGER activities, and possibly one other country may also be included, as will be determined in subsequent discussions with the CARs and the evaluation cooperative agent. Another criterion for selecting countries beyond the initial five might be to pick a country which would enable further data collection relating to EAGER’s impact through its grants for research and capacity building directly through African-based institutions.

5. A relatively concise electronic survey of other key observers of EAGER to get feedback from Missions, host country, private sector and other stakeholder personnel who may have had the opportunity to observe EAGER’s performance and impacts. "Relatively concise" is intended to limit the questionnaire to one which is short, with multiple choice responses possible on all questions, but with the option to elaborate on any question. "Stakeholder personnel" may include any formal or informal sector representatives (e.g., from associations of workers, large or small scale agricultural or non-agricultural enterprises, or NGOs/PVOs), who may have had contact with EAGER, for example, through its semi-annual meetings or country-based research advisory committees. The survey would be carried out electronically (by email, fax, and, if necessary to collect crucial information not otherwise available, by telephone) to the extent feasible, in all countries where EAGER has had significant activities.

6. An assessment of the following topics concerning EAGER’s performance, and their implications for follow-on activities, in qualitative and quantitative terms, and to the fullest extent possible under the evaluator’s resource constraints:

a) Resources/inputs: This assessment should examine the extent to which the financial resources anticipated in the project paper have been available for implementing EAGER, and allocated accordingly in the expected proportions to the CARs, CLC, RSSAs, ICEG, AERC, IDRC, CIEREA, MSI’s IPC project, and REDSO and other field staff [29-41]. If there have been resource modifications, the assessment should specify them and estimate the impact those adjustments may have had upon EAGER’s achievements.

b) Impacts: The team should evaluate:

first, the extent to which EAGER’s actual resources effected the outputs anticipated in the project paper, that is, the expected quality and quantity of economic and social research, technical assistance/capacity building, and dissemination [17-29], and second, whether the project is likely to achieve its overall objectives.

The impacts should be differentiated by their source, in particular, the impacts of the CAR’s activities should be differentiated from those resulting from grants directly to African-based institutions, such as AERC, IDRC or ICEG. In other words, the evaluation should yield information about whether the grants to the CARs have been as cost-effective in yielding impacts as grants directly to African institutions. Modifications in the project approach that might yield improved impacts should be identified.

(i) Research: The quantity and quality of the economic and social research performed should be assessed, to the extent possible, using quantifiable indicators (e.g., published articles in respected journals; books published by respectable publishers; references to EAGER research or analyses in the literature; or the use of EAGER research by government or other agencies to improve economic performance). Determinants of high/low quality should be identified as should the extent to which the analyses have been appreciated and understood by host country stakeholders, analysts, and decision-makers. The extent to which the information, products and services generated been meaningfully understood, used, and/or referenced by Africans, other participants, including USAID and other donors, in their policy dialogues should be considered, along with means for improving their impact. The report also should examine the extent to which EAGER researchers facilitated technology transfer, capacity building, and the utilization of project generated knowledge.

Of particular importance here will be an assessment of the relative cost-effectiveness of grants to African institutions for research, looking not just at the quality of the research, but the cost-effectiveness of that research’s impacts on the policy dialogue, reforms, and implementation. Evaluators must consider whether (a) the lower cost of African researchers enabling more research topics to be undertaken, and (b) the African researchers’ contacts and familiarities with their own country’s policy analysis, advocacy, reform and implementation processes, yield more reforms per million dollars of research than such an investment through U.S. funded institutions.

Similarly, the evaluation should consider the ultimate acceptable quality impacts (e.g., articles published in journals of an acceptable minimal quality) of a specified allocation for research, say, $100,000, comparing, for example, publications from the work of CARs with the articles and books (of some minimal acceptable standard) forthcoming from the grants to the African-based institutions.

(ii) Policy Reform and Dialogue: The report should assess the extent to which project services or products contributed to:

(a) improved policies, programs, or strategies,

(b) raising the quality of the policy dialogue, or

(c) increasing the use of economic and social research by decision-makers in public and private sector institutions.

Known means for improving the impact should be discussed. Comparable to the research section above, the evaluators should differentiate the impacts (on reform and dialogue) and the relative approximate cost-effectiveness of resources provided to CARs as opposed to African-institutions.

(iii) Capacity building/technical assistance: The best means for assessing capacity building should be specified. The quality and cost-effectiveness of capacity building through CARs should be compared with that through African-institutions, including impacts on staff up-grading, training, technology adoption (e.g., Internet connections, improved data processing, etc.), and institutional management. Considering the level of resources provided, the evaluators should also assess the adequacy of the quality and quantity of the capacity building and technical support provided by the CARs, RSSAs, MSI’s IPC project, REDSO, international field staff, and African-based, -managed and -staffed institutions, such as ICEG, AERC, and IDRC. Any impact of EAGER’s capacity building and technical assistance on priority research and policy reform issues should be discussed, as should any way that EAGER’s follow-up activities could improve capacity building impacts. Any apparent lessons for future capacity building that may be gleaned from EAGER and other experience to date should be made clear.

(iv) Participation: The assessment should examine (a) EAGER’s impacts upon the level and quality of involvement of African policy institutes and stakeholders in the policy dialogue and reform process, and (b) whether that participation improved impacts upon EAGER’s objectives. The extent to which EAGER’s investment in African researchers and institutes yielded reform or dialogue dividends in proportion to EAGER resources invested in them should be considered. The impact of EAGER’s engagement of HBCUs and the 8(A) minority cooperative agent for the CLC upon project efficiency, accomplishments, reforms, dialogue and capacity building, in host countries and the U.S. should also be discussed.

(v) Dissemination: The team should determine and spell out the extent to which EAGER’s dissemination plan has been well conceived, adequately and cost-effectively implemented, and resulted in timely dissemination to other researchers, academics, an adequate mix of stakeholders (e.g., associations representing large and small scale business and agriculture, NGOs, and labor), donors, and host country decision-makers. Any apparent problems, shortfalls, or options for improvement should be elaborated, as should dissemination differences between the U.S.-based CAR/CLC component and that run through African-based institutions. The appropriateness of the dissemination mix (working papers; final reports; policy briefs; newsletters; Internet, email and website services; informal discussions; seminars; luncheons; workshops and conferences) should also be discussed, along with priorities for any potential improvements in the mix.

c) Management: The evaluation team should assess and describe the management efficiency and effectiveness of the anticipated principals in the project team, AIRD, HIID, BHM, AERC, ICEG, IDRC, CIEREA, and USAID. This should include comments on the following:

-- the principals’ basic project planning, oversight, implementation (as opposed to the impacts), timeliness, relevance, and quality. -- the cost-effectiveness of the use of RSSA (Washington- based personnel from other USG agencies) and field support personnel, such as in the REDSOs. -- the project monitoring plan, its development, conception and implementation, so that it provides project managers and evaluators the kind of information they need to guide the project and prepare subsequent follow-on activities. -- management of multiple CAs and contracts, including the lessons for follow-on activities from EAGER’s experience with the involvement and management of HBCUs and minority enterprises.

d) Lessons from the Evaluation and Guidelines for Post-EAGER Support for Policy Reform and Implementation: Based on the evaluation team’s findings, and its prior experience with policy research, evaluation and reform, the team should elaborate lessons from the evaluation and provide (a) recommendations and guidelines to facilitate USAID/AFR/SD’s planning for post-EAGER activities, (b) their respective emphases in subsequent policy research, dialogue, dissemination, training, and/or capacity building, (c) and means for retaining necessary flexibility in the implementation of such a program. The team’s report should include discussion and guidance relating to the following topics:

-- emphases among alternative policy topics. -- the extent to which capacity building should be a priority, along with guidelines for developing such a strategy. -- if another, non-capacity building, strategy for post- EAGER policy analysis, dialogue and reform support is appropriate, that alternative should be elaborated. -- whether there is any particular virtue or probable comparative cost-effectiveness in emphasizing policy centers funded and managed through universities rather than those of a more administrative and financially independent status. -- emphases for and timing or phasing in of host country institutional grants. -- the structure of policy training (B.A., M.A., Ph.D. or short-term/in-service programs). -- the mix of implementing institutions (U.S. or host country; HBCUs; centers of excellence in the U.S. or Sub-Saharan Africa) and their respective roles in the program: for example, the roles for U.S. institutions in research design and/or program guidance, and where control of foreign contracts lie, with the U.S. or SSA- based institutions. -- priorities for technology (computers, Internet connections, fax, copiers...).

Note: In preparing guidance for the development of EAGER follow-on activity, the evaluators should consider that the follow-on activities must be guided by AFR/SD’s "Strategic Objective 2 (SO2): Adoption of Improved Strategies, Programs, and Activities for Accelerated, Sustainable and Equitable Economic Growth." Most fundamentally, the broad goal of AFR/SD is to "increase African capacity to sustainably manage development." AFR/SD’s SO2 focuses on the critical economic dimensions of development management. One SO2 component addresses more or less direct improvements in the development of "strategies, programs and activities to accelerate sustainable and equitable growth," through direct U.S. involvement in activities such as policy analysis, research dissemination, and advocacy. The other SO2 component emphasizes the longer term development of Africa’s own capacity to "design, manage, implement and evaluate" such growth, through building the capacity of African institutions to effectively manage their own economic growth-focused analyses, reforms and program designs.

1.6 REPORTS

1. The final report should be approximately 30-50 single-spaced, double-sided pages in length, with annexes attached as appropriate. The report should contain: (a) an executive summary; (b) a paginated table of contents; (c) text discussing the findings concerning the topics above in paragraph C.6; (d) brief appendices on the methodology and any further details of the findings on which the main text and recommendations are based, such as country information that may be useful to provide future guidance to EAGER or its follow-on program. The appendix with the methodology discussion should include, by country, the names of people, their relationship to EAGER (researcher, stakeholder, host country design/adviser, host country decision- maker/adviser, etc.), their organizations contacted, and the means of those contacts (personal interview; telecon; survey;…).

2. The draft final report (10 stapled, and one unbound copy) and USAID/W roundtable seminar will be due in AFR/SD/SA within four months of the cooperative agents agreement to undertake this scope of work, although this time might be compressed, to some extent at higher cost, as discussed in the budget attachment.

3. The final, fully edited report will be due (10 bound, one unbound, and electronic copies, in WP 5.2, on a floppy diskette, or preferably by email attachment to RJGreene, YLee, DDod, BSevern, RAggarwal, and RCYoung) in AFR/SD/SA no later than two weeks after the, USAID/W workshop.

Dr. Alan Batchelder

Dr. Batchelder received his B.A. in economics in 1953 from Wesleyan University, Ohio. He received his Ph.D. in economics in 1961 from Harvard University. Subsequently, from 1957 to 1983, he taught economics, the last 19 years of which were at Kenyon College. In addition, from 1966 through 1968, Dr. Batchelder acted as economic adviser in Liberia's Department of Planning for the Harvard Development Advisory Service; and from 1973 to 1974 he taught in the University of Ife Graduate School of Public Administration for the Ford Foundation. In the summer of 1979, Dr. Batchelder was the adviser for HIID to the Malaysian Finance Ministry. After resigning from his teaching position, Dr. Batchelder worked as an economist with USAID from 1994 to 1997. Among other assignments was his position as chief economist in the Costa Rican Mission from 1992 to 1994. Dr. Batchelder has published several books on the economics of poverty and on international economics.

Mr. Jeffrey C. Fine

An economist by training, Mr. Fine has worked on development issues for more than three decades. As a senior program officer for the International Development Research Centre of Canada, he helped design and manage economic research programs in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. These included several large regional networks on trade, protection, and international competitiveness; macroeconomic policy; and development of the financial sector. From 1984 to 1988, based in Nairobi Kenya, he also ran IDRC’s Macroeconomic Research Network for Eastern and Southern Africa. Mr. Fine played a leading role in designing the African Economic Research Consortium and served as its first executive director from 1988 to 1994. Subsequently, as an independent consultant based in Ottawa, Canada, he completed a wide range of assignments bearing on the economic development of sub-Saharan Africa. Among those projects most pertinent to the EAGER evaluation have been (1) an external evaluation of IDRC’s Reseau de Recherche sur la Politique Industrielle (with Professor Mustafa Nabli); (2) an evaluation of the Africa program of the World Bank’s Economic Development Institute; (3) several studies of doctoral education in economics for AERC (with Professor Mohamed Mukras); (4) an external evaluation of the Lund University/University of Dar Es Salaam’s collaborative doctoral program for SIDA (with Mr. Dag Ehrenpreis,Mr. Per Ahren, and Professor Joshua Doriye); (5) design of the Trade and Industrial Policy Secretariat for IDRC (with Mr. Steven Yeo); and (6) a major study of networks for research and higher education in Africa for the Rockefeller Foundation.

EAGER/PSGE Documents:

1. Gray, Clive. Growth of Sub-saharan African Economies in Response to Structural Adjustment. 16 October 1995. Desk study.

1. Stryker, Dirck, et al. Research Proposal No. 1: Increasing Labor Demand and Productivity in Ghana and South Africa. February 1996.
2. Stryker, Dirck et al. Increasing Labor Demand and Productivity in Ghana and South Africa. Survey paper presented at Howard workshop. 17 July 1996.
3. Stryker, Dirck et al. Increasing Labor Demand and Productivity in Ghana and South Africa. 21 January 1997. Final design.
4. Stryker, Dirck. Increasing Employment and Labour Productivity in South Africa: Progress Report presented at Johannesburg workshop. 5 February 1998.

1. Stryker, Dirck, et al. Research Proposal No. 2: The Cost of Doing Business: The LRJ Environment in Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar and Tanzania. February 1996.
2. Stryker, Dirck, et al. The Cost of Doing Business: The LRJ Environment in Ghana, Madagascar, and Tanzania. Survey paper presented at Howard workshop. 17 July 1996.
3. Stryker, Dirck et al. The Cost of Doing Business: The LRJ Environment in Ghana, Madagascar, and Tanzania. 21 February 1997. Final design.
4. Kahkonen, Satu and Patrick Meagher. Contracting in Tanzania. January 1998.
5. Wangwe, Sam et al. Study on Business Contracting Practices in Tanzania (short version). 3 February 1998. Presented at Johannesburg workshop.
6. Kahkonen, Satu and Patrick Meagher. Contract Enforcement and Economic Performance. EAGER Discussion Paper Number 1. July 1998.
7. Boadu, Fred et al. Alternative Institutions for Promoting Accountability, Transparency, and Opennes in Government Behavior. Abstract for research report to be presented at Dakar workshop. September 1998.

1. Nelson, Eric. Research Proposal No. 3: Financial Intermediation for the Poor. February 1996.
2. Nelson, Eric. Financial Intermediation for the Poor: Survey of the State of the Art. Survey paper presented at Howard workshop. 17 July 1996.
3. Nelson, Eric. Financial Intermediation for the Poor. 30 December 1996. Final design.
4. Ndour, Hamet and Aziz Wane. Financial Intermediation and Poverty in Senegal. Translated summary presented at Johannesburg workshop. February 1998.
5. Ndour, Hamet and Aziz Wane. Intermediation Financiere & Pauvrete Au Senegal. Research report. Document in two parts. January 1998.
6. Vink, Nick, et al. Financial Intermediation for the Poor: South African Case Study. Research report. September 1997. Second draft.

1. Gray, Clive et al. Research Proposal No. 4: Case Studies of Tax Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa. February 1996.
2. Wadhawan, Satish and Clive Gray. Enhancing Transparency of Tax Administration. Survey paper presented at Howard workshop. 17 July 1996.
3. Gray, Clive and Satish Wadhawan. Enhancing Transparency in Tax Administration. September 1996. Final design.
4. Wadhawan, Satish C. and Clive Gray. Enhancing Transparency in Tax Administration: A Survey. October 1996. Survey paper revised for JAFED submission.
5. Osoro, et al. Enhancing Transparency in Tax Administration in Tanzania. Progress Report. December 1997.
6. Andrianomanana, Pepe, et al. Improving Transparency in Tax Administration: Case Study: Madagascar. Major findings of the study. January 1998.
7. Gray, Clive. United States Practice in Estimating and Publicizing Tax Evasion. 28 January 1998. Desk study.
8. Semboja, Joseph. Minutes of the Research Supervision Committee for Tax Transparency/Tanzania. 25 February 1998.
9. Andrianomanana, Pepe et al. Enhancing Transparency in Tax Administration: The Case of Madagascar (text in French). Prepared for study workshop in Antananarivo. 16 April 1998.
10. Andrianomanana, Pepe, et al. Amelioration de la Transparence dans L'Administration Fiscale: Rapport Final. May 1998. Research Report.
11. Transparency of Tax Administration in Madagascar: Dissemination of Results. Collection of dissemination materials. September 1998.

1. Gray, Clive et al. Research Proposal No. 5: Monetary Programming Models. February 1996.
2. Gray, Clive. Improving the Framework for Monetary Programming. 7 October 1996. Final design.
3. The Study to Improve the Framework for Monetary Programming in Tanzania: Progress Meeting. 16 January 1998. Minutes.
4. Correspondence Concerning Malawi Participation in Monetary Programming Study. February 1998.
5. The Study to Improve the Framework for Monetary Programming in Tanzania: Progress Report. Minutes. 11 February 1998.
6. The Study to Improve the Framework for Monetary Programming in Tanzania: Progress Report. Minutes. 13 March 1998.
7. Kilindo, Ali and Ben Tarimo. Improving the Framework for Monetary Programming in Tanzania: First Quarter Progress Report. April 1998.
8. Taye, Haile K. Preliminary Guide to Constructing a Financial Programming Framework for Malawi. April 1998. Research report.

1. Ugwuonye, Ephraim and Katharina Pistor. Research Proposal No. 8: Legal Support for Credit and Finance in Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries. February 1996.
2. Ugwuonye, Ephraim. Legal Support for Credit and Finance: The Existing Legal Framework for Credit and Finance in Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia--Identifying Research Topics, Problem Areas and Reform Needs. Survey paper presented at Howard workshop. 17 July 1996.

1. Ziorklui, Sam. Research Proposal No. 15: The Impact of Financial Sector Reform on Bank Efficiency and Financial Deepening for Savings Mobilization. February 1996.
2. Ziorklui, Sam. The Impact of Financial Sector Reform on Bank Efficiency and Financial Deepening for Savings Mobilization. Survey paper presented at Howard workshop. 17 July 1996.
3. Ziorklui, Sam. The Impact of Financial Sector Reform on Bank Efficiency and Financial Deepening for Savings Mobilization. 25 November 1996. Final design.
4. Ziorklui, Sam. The Impact of Financial Sector Reform on Bank Efficiency and Financial Deepening for Savings Mobilization. Revised survey paper presented at Accra workshop. February 1997.
5. Ziorklui, Sam and Fritz Gockel. The Impact of Financial Sector Reform on Bank Efficiency and Financial Deepening for Savings Mobilization in Ghana. Draft research report presented at Johannesburg workshop. February 1998.

1. Bolnick, Bruce and Jonathan Haughton. Research Proposal No. 24: Excise Taxation in Sub-Saharan Africa. February 1996.
2. Haughton, Jonathan. Tax Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Re-examining the Role of Excise Taxation. 17 September 1996. Final design.
3. Bolnick, Bruce and Jonathan Haughton. Tax Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Re-Examining the Role of Excise Taxation. Revised survey paper submitted to JAFED and discussion paper series. 2 June 1998.
4. Bolnick, Bruce and Jonathan Haughton. Tax Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Examining the Role of Excise Taxation. EAGER Discussion Paper Number 2. July 1998.
5. Haughton, Jonathan. Estimating Tax Buoyancy, Elasticity and Stability. EAGER Discussion Paper Number 11. July 1998.
6. Haughton, Jonathan. Estimating Demand Curves for Goods Subject to Excise Taxes. EAGER Discussion Paper Number 12. July 1998.
7. Andrianomanana, Pepe. La Politique Fiscale en Afrique Subsaharienne: Les Droits d'Accises a Madagascar. August 1998.Research report.
8. Shekidele, Christine M.S. Report of a Study on Measuring the Compliance Costs of Taxation: Excise Duties 1995-96. 2 October 1998. Research report.

1. Mead, Donald. Research Proposal No. 26: The Contribution of Business Linkages to the Growth of Productive Employment among Micro and Small Enterprises in South Africa. January 1997.
2. Mead, Donald. The Contribution of Business Linkages to the Growth of Productive Employment among Micro and Small Enterprises in South Africa. 27 May 1997. Final design.
3. Anim, Francis et al. The Contribution of Business Linkages to the Growth of Productive Employment among SMMEs in South Africa: Approaches and Principal Findings to Date. Progress report presented at Johannesburg workshop. February 1998.
4. Mead, Donald C. Small Enterprise Growth through Business Linkages in South Africa. June 1998. Research report.
5. McEwan, T. A Report on Business Linkages in Kwazulu-Natal Involving SMMEs and Umgeni Water, and also Hulett Aluminum. June 1998. Research report.
6. Skae, F.O. Linkage Promotion in South Africa: Insights from Research Conducted in Durban and Richards Bay--An Exploratory Study. June 1998. Research report.
7. Bbenkele, E.C. Enhancing Economic Development by Fostering Business Linkages Between the Pharmaceutical Companies and the Traditional Medicines Sector. June 1998. Research report.
8. Strydom, Barry. The Role of Business Linkages in Re-structuring the Footwear Industry. June 1998. Research report.
9. Anim, F.D.K. and C.L. Machethe. Promoting the Growth of Micro and Small Enterprises through Business Linkages in the Northern Province. June 1998. Research report.

1. McPherson, Malcolm et al. Research Proposal No. 31: Restarting and Sustaining Growth and Development in Africa. January 1997.
2. McPherson, Malcolm et al. Restarting and Sustaining Growth and Development in Africa. 26 June 1997. Final design.
3. McPherson, Malcolm. Exchange Rates and Economic Growth in Kenya. 15 October 1997. Desk study.
4. McPherson, Malcolm. Research Proposal No. 50: Restarting and Sustaining Growth and Development in Africa. January 1998. Requests supplemental funding.
5. McPherson, Malcolm and Tzvetana Rakovski. Exchange Rates and Economic Growth in Kenya: An Econometric Analysis. April 1998. Desk study.
6. McPherson, Malcolm. A Framework for Sustained Increases in Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. 15 June 1998.Draft desk study.
7. Hill, Catherine and Malcolm McPherson. Economic Growth and Development in Zambia: The Way Forward. 25 June 1998. Desk study related to Restarting Growth study prepared under separate funding.
8. Goldsmith, Arthur. Institutions and Economic Growth in Africa..EAGER Discussion Paper Number 7. July 1998.
9. McPherson, Malcolm and Arthur Goldsmith. Africa: On the Move? Summer-Fall 1998. Desk study published in SAIS Review.
10. McPherson, Malcolm and Rachel McCulloch. Sustaining Trade and Exchange Reform in Africa: Lessons for Macroeconomic Management. 22 August 1998. Draft desk study for EAGER/Trade component.
11. McCulloch, Rachel and Malcolm McPherson. Promoting and Sustaining Trade and Exchange Reform in Africa: An Analytical Framework. 8 September 1998. Draft desk study for EAGER/Trade component.
12. Goldsmith, Arthur. Africa's Overgrown State Reconsidered: Bureaucracy and Economic Growth. 15 September 1998. Draft desk study.
13. Duesenberry, James S. and Malcolm McPherson. Restarting and Sustaining Growth and Development in Africa: The Macroeconomic Management Dimension. 28 September 1998. Draft desk study.
14. Rosen, Sydney and Jeffrey Vincent. Household Water Resources and Rural Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of the Evidence. 1 October 1998. Literature review.
15. Kenya (Mwaniki Associates, Ltd.). Political and Institutional Analysis. Scope of Work submitted June 1998.
16. Kenya: Glenday, G. Economic Growth, Trade Liberalization and Import Revenues in Kenya. Draft submitted August 1998.
17. Kenya: Nganda, B. Production, Productivity and Competitiveness. Draft submitted October 1998.
18. Kenya: Ndung'u, N. Restarting and Sustaining Growth and Development in Africa. Draft submitted October 1998.
19. Senegal (Centre de Recherches Economiques Appliquees (CREA), Universite Chiekh Anta Diop). Relance et Durabilite de la Croissance Economique au Senegal. Intermediate report presented at Dakar conference, November, 1998.
20. Tanzania (Research on Poverty Alleviation (REPOA): Chaligha, A. Restarting and Sustaining Growth and Development in Tanzania: Reform Measures for Good Governance. November 1998.
21. Tanzania: Likwelile, S. Economic Performance in Tanzania During the Reform Period. Submitted November 1998.
22. Uganda (Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), Makerere University). Enhancing and Sustaining Growth in Uganda. Scope of Work submitted May 1998.

1. Korsun, Georges et al. Research Proposal No. 39: Competition Policies for Growth: Legal and Regulatory Framework for SSA Countries. January 1997.
2. Clement, Cynthia et al. Competition Policies for Growth: Legal and Regulatory Framework for SSA Countries. 11 September 1998. Final design.

1. Ziorklui, Sam and Lemma Senbet. Research Proposal No. 42: The Development of Capital Markets and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. January 1997.
2. Ziorklui, Sam and Lemma Senbet. The Development of Capital Markets and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. 20 January 1998. Final design.
3. Ziorklui, Sam et al. The Development of Capital Markets and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Abstract of Interim Report from Researchers from Tanzania to be presented at Dakar workshop. September 1998.

1. Boadu, Fred. Research Proposal No. 47: Reputation, Regulation and Institutional Barriers to Investment Supply in Ghana. January 1998.
2. Boadu, Fred. Reputation, Regulation and Institutional Barriers to Investment Supply in Ghana. 4 June 1998. Final design.

1. Goldsmith, Arthur and Sara Sievers. Research Proposal No. 51: Perceptions of Governance in Africa: A Survey of Business and Government Leaders. January 1998.
2. Goldsmith, Arthur and Sara Sievers. Perceptions of Governance in Africa: A Survey of Business and Government Leaders. August 1998. Final design.

1. Rai, Ashok S. and Jay K. Rosengard. Research Proposal No. 52: Financial Development for Micro-enterprises in Kenya: the Transformation of K-rep from NGO to Commercial Bank. January 1998.
2. Rai, Ashok S. and Jay K. Rosengard. Microfinance Development in Kenya: K-Rep's Transition from NGO to Diversified Holding Company. 9 November 1998. Final Design.

1. Kelly, Roy et al. Research Proposal No. 53: International Lessons on Property Taxation and Implications for Structuring Property Taxes in South Africa. January 1998.
2. Kelly, Roy. International Lessons on Property Taxation: Implications for Structuring Property Taxes in South Africa. 19 July 1998. Draft final design.

1. Stryker, Dirck et al. Research Proposal No. 60: Barriers to Business Expansion in a New Policy Environment. January 1998.
2. Stryker, Dirck et al. Barriers to Business Expansion in a New Policy Environment. 31 July 1998. Final design.

EAGER/TRADE Documents:

Interim Reports (IR), Preliminary Reports (PR), Final Reports (FR)
 

1. Cockburn, John, Eckhard Siggel, Massa Coulibaly , Sylvain Vezina. Manufacturing Competitiveness and the Structure of Incentives in Mali. CREFA, February 1998. FR
2. Barry, Abdoul, D. Diarra , S. Diarra. Promotion of Mali’s Rice Exports towards the West African Regional Markets. AIRD, October 1998. FR (draft)
3. Metzel, Jeffrey, Abou Doumbia, Lamissa Diakite, N’Thio Alpha Diarra. Prospects for Developing Malian Livestock Exports. AIRD, July 1997. FR (draft)

1. Sezinga, Roger, Lucie Colvin Phillips, Haji Semboja, Godius Kayaharara. Gemstone and Gold Marketing for Small Scale Mining in Tanzania. Economic and Social Research Foundation, Tandiscovery, IBI, April 1998. FR for Phase I

1. Morris, Gayle, and John Dadson. Ghana: Cross-Border Trade Issues. IBI, May 1998. IR (draft)

1. Raparson, Emilienne, and Eric T. Mandrara. La Filiere Vanille a Madagascar a Une Phase de Liberalization. CEDRES, November 1998 .
2. IR for Metzel, Jeffrey, Emilienne Raparson, Eric T. Mandrara. The Political Economy of Trade Liberalization: the Case of Vanilla in Madagascar.

1. Musinguzi, Polycarp, and Marios Obwona. Monetary and Exchange Rate Policy in Uganda. Bank of Uganda and Economic Policy Research Centre, May 1998. IR
2. Phillips, Lucie Colvin, Marios Obwona, Aloys Ayako. Case study of Mauritius. IBI, Economic Policy Research Centre, and University of Kenya, January 1998.
3. IR for Foreign Direct Investment in Kenya and Uganda. IBI, EPRC, University of Kenya
4. Obwona, Marios. Case study of Uganda. Economic Policy Research Centre, January 1998.
5. IR for Foreign Direct Investment in Kenya and Uganda. IBI, EPRC, University of Kenya

1. Salinger, B. Lynn, Haroon Bhorat, Diane P. Flaherty, Malcolm Keswell. Promoting the Competitiveness of Textiles and Clothing Manufacture in South Africa. AIRD, January 1998.
2. PR
3. Keswell, Malcolm. Rags to Riches? Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Durban-Westville, South Africa, December 1997.
4. FR for Salinger, B. Lynn, Haroon Bhorat, Diane P. Flaherty, Malcolm Keswell. Promoting the Competitiveness of Textiles and Clothing Manufacture in South Africa. AIRD
5. Flaherty, Diane P. and B. Lynn Salinger. Learning to Compete: Innovation and Gender in the South African Clothing Industry. AIRD, December 1997.
6. FR for Salinger, B. Lynn, Haroon Bhorat, Diane P. Flaherty, Malcolm Keswell. Promoting the Competitiveness of Textiles and Clothing Manufacture in South Africa. AIRD
7. Davies, Rob. The Resource Allocative Effects of Free Trade Areas in Southern Africa. University of Zimbabwe, February 1998, paper presented at the Eager Workshop in South Africa (4-6 Feb 1998).
8. IR for Global Trade Analysis for Southern Africa. Purdue
9. Mwanawina, Inyambo. The Impact of Capital Flows into South Africa. University of Zambia, February 1998 , paper presented at the Eager Workshop in South Africa (4-6 Feb 1998).
10. IR (draft) for Global Trade Analysis for Southern Africa. Purdue
11. Sparrow , F.T., William A. Masters, Zuwei Yu, Brian H. Bowen, Peter Robinson. Modeling Electricity Trade in Southern Africa. Purdue University and Zimconsult, March 1998.
12. IR

1. Barry, Abdoul , B. Lynn Salinger, Selina Pandolfi. Sahelian West Africa: The Impact of Structural Adjustment Programs on Agricultural Competitiveness and Regional Trade. AIRD, January 1998. FR (draft)

1. Radelet, Steve. Regional Integration and Cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Are Formal Trade Agreements the Right Strategy? HIID, November 1996. FR
2. Salinger, B. Lynn, Anatolie Amvouna, Deirdre Savarese. New Trade Opportunities for Africa: a Survey of Literature and Experiences. AIRD, October 1996. FR
3. Amvouna, Anatolie. Determinants of Trade and Growth Performance in Africa: a Cross-Country Analysis of Fixed versus Floating Exchange Rate Regimes. AIRD, July 1998. FR
4. Stryker, Dirck. Trade and Development in Africa. AIRD, published in Praxis, Spring 1997.FR
5. Engel, Karen. Lessons from East Asia for Promoting Trade in Africa. AIRD, April 1996. FR
6. Metzel, Jeff with Lucie Colvin Phillips. Bringing Down barriers to Trade: The Experience of Trade Policy Reform. AIRD with IBI, October 1996. FR
7. Phillips, Lucie Colvin. The Political Economy of Trade Policy Reform. IBI, September 1996. FR
8. Gugerty, Mary Kay, and Joseph Stern. Structural Barriers to Trade in Africa. HIID, November 1996. FR
9. Wilhelms, Saskia. Foreign Direct Investment and its Determinants in Emerging Economies. AIRD, February 1998. FR
10. Block, Steven A. Does Africa Grows Differently? AIRD, June 1998. FR
11. Salinger, B. Lynn, Abdoul Barry, Selina Pandolfi. Pursuing the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act: Countering the Threat of Textile and Apparel Transshipment through Africa. AIRD, October 1997. FR
12. Barry, Abdoul, and Ndaya Beltchika. Trends in African Trade. AIRD, May 1996. FR
13. Isimbabi, Michael. The WTO Agreement and Financial Services in African Countries: A Review of Policy and Research Issues. IBI, November 1997.FR

The issue of synergy between contracted policy research and the capacity building activities supported under EAGER was raised at the outset of the evaluation. A related consideration was the significant support being provided to African institutes outside EAGER through the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), partially financed by the USAID, and by individual Missions. In response to requests by the USAID, a preliminary concept providing for more decentralization research management was first formulated during the Dakar workshop (November 3 to 7), toward the beginning of the field study. Subsequently the evaluators "field tested" and refined this concept in discussions with senior African researchers and research managers, and U.S.based researchers.

In this appendix, we present our principal findings and conclusions. The first part synthesizes our observations into a brief "Traveler’s Guide". It attempts to recreate the kaleidoscope of conditions, personalities and issues likely to confront a putative U.S.based cooperative agent seeking suitable African partners under the organizational framework we have recommended for EAGER II. The second part sets out our main conclusions. Relatively brief, they highlight two principal findings. The first is the importance of less tangible and more qualitative considerations in assessing a potential partner. The second is the need for donors to adjust their current support for African institutes, with respect to its duration, form, and aims, in order to ensure that these institutes are firmly grounded within Africa’s policy landscape.

The Traveler’s Guide

Senegal

The Centre de Recherche en Economie Appliquée (CREA) is based within the Economics Faculty of the Université Anta Diop (Dakar, Senegal). Almost 20 years old, its growing reputation is largely attributable to the leadership and professional skills of its current director, Professor Abdoulaye Diagne. A noteworthy event, which occurred about 4 years ago, was the analysis of the "internal efficiency" of higher education at the University. Its findings have helped advance major reforms in the content, structure and financing of University education and raise the profile of CREA.

CREA operates in confined premises with a modicum of equipment and support staff. Its small core staff is supplemented by subcontracted academics and graduate students. Among the reasons cited by Professor Diagne for participating in the Restarting Growth project were the wide latitude extended to Africans in prioritizing issues and selecting approaches; the expanded possibilities of networking with other Africans; and the opportunity of raising CREA’s own profile, especially within Senegal.

Professor Diagne’s immediate aim is to raise CREA’s status from an "institut de la faculté" to an institut de l’université. This higher status would permit a wholesale restructuring of his Board, especially in terms of increasing representation by the private sector. It would offer him much greater flexibility in contracting (and firing) staff; revising budgets; and providing more attractive terms to permanent and contracted professionals. Overall, it would help ensure greater insulation for CREA from university politics.

To achieve this status, Professor Diagne must first demonstrate to university authorities a higher degree of financial independence, by securing funds that will allow him to rent and equip larger premises, purchase badly needed computing equipment, and improve electronic connectivity. In effect, he confronts a problem of sequencing. A more elevated legal status is probably necessary to qualify as a local cooperative agent with USAID. To obtain this status, he must first obtain access to core funds. Support from SISERA or another source, would help him overcome this bottleneck.

Ghana

The Centre for Economic Policy Analysis (CEPA) boasts a group of full time, highly talented and well educated professional economists. It is also well housed and equipped, well connected electronically, and efficiently administered. In very large measure, its current situation can be attributed to its director, Dr. Joe Abbey. A highly trained statistician, with a distinguished career in government and diplomacy, including strategic guidance to policymakers at critical moments of Ghana’s economic reform program, he is committed to developing CEPA into an independent policy institute of international stature. He is fully cognizant of the obstacles that must be overcome to achieve this goal.

Informed, independent, trenchant and yet non-partisan criticism of public policy is a phenomenon not fully understood by Ghana’s political, economic, and bureaucratic elite. Thus, CEPA’s systematic critique of the government’s (and by extension, the IMF’s) statistics on growth and prices has sometimes provoked a sensitive bureaucracy to exclude it from sources of information and dialogue with policymakers and external bodies. Likewise, CEPA’s continuing support for economic liberalization has prompted criticism from some of its own Board Members. At times, only Dr. Abbey’s personal stature and wise leadership have prevented CEPA from running afoul of the many pitfalls characterizing Ghanaian public life.

For the past two years, CEPA has been able to draw on a grant from the ACBF to finance a large share of its costs. Less well known, but equally crucial has been the considerable support provided by the USAID Mission. Overall, the USAID has played an instrumental role in seeing CEPA through its start-up phase.

Among the concerns raised by Dr. Abbey and his staff, and subsequently echoed by others met later in our field trip, were the following:

• CEPA must constantly worry about financing overhead costs. Virtually all donors preferred to support specific programs. Provisions for overhead, including procedures for estimating costs, vary considerably among them. In general, outlays for overhead, typically calculated as a percentage of direct program expenditure, are often fixed arbitrarily in advance and – in our view – excludes some important indirect costs, e.g. depreciation. The one exception is the USAID, which does apply a systematic procedure for determining overhead without discriminating between African and U.S.based cooperative agents. In common with other African institutes, CEPA lacks precise knowledge concerning USAID procedures and would need to refine its own financial reporting system in order to apply it properly.
• Because of Dr. Abbey’s own experience as a senior administrator, CEPA has invested heavily, in terms of staff time and money, in the seemingly mundane tasks necessary to place the Centre on a sound financial and organizational footing. Thus Dr. Abbey has expended significant effort to recruit a senior Ghanaian economist in the USA, who has also amassed considerable experience in college administration. Operational experience to date has underscored the importance of continually updating financial, personnel, and administrative procedures in line with the growing complexity of the Centre’s undertakings. Unfortunately, few contracts (for particular programs) make any provision for such expenditures.
• Another requirement which, in retrospect, could not have been fully anticipated beforehand, has been the importance of investing, through staffing, training, technology, and connectivity, in communications and public relations. Otherwise well-trained researchers must learn how best to articulate their views through different media. Misconceptions concerning the Centre’s purpose and activities can be allayed through good public relations. However, such activities are normally not high priorities for potential funders.
• CEPA is discovering that the local market for policy research is small, dominated by donors, and not especially remunerative, especially after accounting for the time required to negotiate and often reschedule individual contracts. Donor support is important, since few governments, including Ghana’s, are willing to finance its critics from public funds. The time spent by senior staff, and especially the Director, in negotiating contracts or cultivating good will through free services – including considerable assistance to the evaluators during their stay in Accra – comprises a major drain on the Centre’s resources.

Partly to compensate for this valuable assistance, the evaluators assisted CEPA’s management in examining possible strategies for achieving "financial sustainability". For all of us, it quickly became apparent that the ACBF’s and- by extension – other donors’ expectation that the Centre would become largely self-financing through the recovery of various costs, was naïve and not based on any real understanding of the local market for policy research. For example, sale of "hard copies" of CEPA documents can at best cover the outlays on printing and distribution. In the electronic age, a more appropriate approach is to emulate software developers by attempting to achieve prominence, viz. "market share" on the Internet through the free downloading of publications rather than trying to recover sunk costs. Our other findings are discussed as part of our more general observations on the issue of "financial sustainability".

Kenya

To the unversed eye, the situation in Kenya is complex, not least because it is in flux. Possibly as a condition for government approval, the ACBF agreed to support two policy institutes. The Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) most closely resembles CEPA. Legally constituted as a not for profit entity, its slow beginning can be largely attributed to poor selection of an executive director, a distinguished scholar but with a chequered background as manager of the University of Nairobi’s Institute of Development Studies. IPAR is trying to rectify this mistake through wide flung canvassing for a successor. Unfortunately, the negative repercussions of this initially bad choice are reflected in spotty staff morale and, in the absence of strong leadership, by continuing disagreement among members of the Board over the Institute’s operating procedures and strategic direction. Undoubtedly the situation can be rectified over time with the appointment of a strong director. Whilst IPAR’s difficulties were not fully apparent to the EAGER cooperative agent, they did influence the decision to have the Restarting Growth project managed by a local consulting firm. The latter did attempt to reach a formal agreement with IPAR in order to combine its own expertise in project management with the "domain knowledge" of senior IPAR research staff. Unfortunately its offer was turned down by IPAR’s Board. Nevertheless, the principle of merging skills in research with those in research management should be reflected in guidelines suggested to U.S.based cooperative agents seeking suitable African partners.

The ACBF has also allocated funds to the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA). This fledgling effort is currently based and housed within the Ministry of Planning. However, the legislation providing for its status as an autonomous parastatal, serving government through macroeconomic policy analysis and independent studies, is scheduled for presentation to Parliament in 1999. The intention of ensuring a high degree of autonomy is reflected in KIPPRA’s governing Board, which will have a large proportion of directors from outside government. Whether this well intentioned effort occurs in practice will depend on political developments and the willingness of public officials to tolerate criticism. Historically KIPPRA is part of a thirty-year effort, beginning with a Scheme of Service for Economists, introduced shortly after independence, to strengthen economic analysis within the public service through more attractive terms and career prospects. Ultimately IPAR and KIPPRA should complement each other. IPAR can raise issues not likely to be identified within the public service. KIPPRA can ensure an informed audience for policy analysis undertaken through IPAR.

KIPPRA has been able to secure part of its core funding from the European Union. Its relative ease in obtaining it underscores an anomaly with respect to donors’ policies and practices. The EU’s funds are handled by a National Accounting Officer, typically the Permanent Secretary of Finance of the country in question. Government backed institutes such as KIPPRA have a distinct advantage in this respect over their non-government counterparts.

Uganda

The Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), located on the campus of Makerere University, was established with a grant from the ACBF. USAID backing, through the ACBF, has been supplemented by direct support from the Mission. Like IPAR, the EPRC is in the process of changing its executive director. In contrast, its Board appears to be acting with greater cohesion under the leadership of Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and longstanding mentor to an emerging generation of policy analysts and professional economists within and outside government. The EPRC appears to have secured the services of a top flight expatriate Ugandan, Professor Patrick Asea, who has taken a multi-year leave of absence from UCLA to assume the position of director. Asea’s appointment has prompted a very favorable response from some senior economists at the University who have thus far been reluctant to work with EPRC.

Possibly because this transition was in progress, the "Restarting Growth" project was contracted to MISER, the Makerere Institute of Social Research. It is directed by Professor John Munene, an accomplished psychometrician. The other project directors are Professor W. Balunywa, Head of the Business School, a principal force behind the recent restructuring of the University’s administration; Dr Lewis Kasekende, an excellent econometrician and Director of the Research Department of the Bank of Uganda; and the Honorable Dr. Kisamba-Mugerwa, a Member of Parliament with a doctorate in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin. Not surprisingly, this group has exploited the latitude provided by the project to initiate novel, yet rigorously conceived research into competitiveness and growth. A tantalizing but unanswerable question is whether this unconventional approach would have been risked by the EPRC at a delicate stage when it is seeking to establish its credibility.

Tanzania

The Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) is perhaps the most advanced among the institutes visited, in terms of its widespread credibility among senior policymakers. Undoubtedly, its current status owes much to the stature, experience and wise guidance of its current director, Professor Samuel Wangwe. Also important is the tradition of policy research and public debate that can be traced back to the establishment of the Economic Research Bureau at the University of Dar Es Salaam in the early sixties. Throughout Tanzania’s socialist period, open public discussion, highlighted by an annual "economics day" at the University, was sanctioned and encouraged by public authorities. The role of a policy institute, independent of government and offering a focal point for informed debate, is consequently more widely understood and accepted than elsewhere in the region.

Genuine miscommunication between the ESRF’s management and the proponent of the Restarting Growth project led to its implementation through the Research on Poverty Alleviation (REPOA) institute, recently established on the grounds of the University of Dar Es Salaam. Its relations with the ESRF remain collegial, not least because of strong personal and collegial ties among the current generation of senior scholars and policy advisers within government. In practice, the ESRF, REPOA and the University’s own Economic Research Bureau draw on the same pool of senior and junior scholars for various types of research.

South Africa

The absence of a high profile economic policy institute in South Africa at first appears surprising, especially in light of its government’s continuing demand for applied research, the various public fora for debating major issues, and its high developed – in comparison to the rest of Africa – system of tertiary education. Historically, this void can be partly attributed to the previous fragmentation of higher education along racial and linguistic lines and to the unwillingness of apartheid governments to discuss key policy concerns openly. More recently, linkage of the National Institute for Economic Policy (NIEP), which started as the Macroeconomic Research Group (MERG), with partisan interests within the ANC, repelled many leading figures within the academic community. At present, most senior university economists are involved, to an extraordinary degree, in policy research, possibly to the detriment of their teaching and other academic pursuits. Typically such work is commissioned directly by Ministries and other public bodies at the national, provincial and municipal levels. Policy institutes do exist but are more specialized in terms of topic and disciplinary approach than in other African countries. The Trade and Industrial Policy Secretariat (TIPS), established by the IDRC, networks research in the fields indicated by its title, within the SADC region including South Africa. The Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU), at the University of Cape Town, analyses strategies for industrialization, trade and competitiveness from the vantage point of science and technology policy. Another Cape Town institute, started through a grant from the ACBF, has achieved some prominence among donors but has yet to establish roots within the South African policy and academic communities. Aside from these institutes, most universities have one or more units dealing with economic issues, ranging from highly academic and theoretical to more applied approaches.

Some Observations

To a prospective U.S.cooperative agent, this brief "Traveler’s Guide" presents a wide range of conditions, possibilities and risk. The terrain becomes even more bewildering were we to include other institutes conducting economic research in each of the above mentioned countries. In Ghana, for example, the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), a long established, autonomous body of the University of Ghana, also undertakes economic research in many fields. It has counterparts in Kenya (IDS), Uganda (MISER) and Tanzania (ERB). To this category we can add private research institutes and bureaux d’études, ranging in staff from one to ten or more professionals. They are springing up rapidly, especially in francophone countries where formal incorporation of a not for profit entity can prove at times a consuming and expensive process.

From our tour, we can extract some general considerations germane to U.S.cooperative agents and the USAID working within a more decentralized system for managing policy research.

Leadership

Wise, strong and experienced leadership is absolutely essential to a successful partnership.

Governance

The governance of institutions matters greatly. A widely representative, committed and informed Board will select – eventually – a good leader and redress mistakes. It will help steer the institute’s management through the many political minefields associated with policy research.

Organizational Culture

Africa’s competitiveness, according to Professor Munene, the Director of MISER, has suffered from a value system that esteems social conservatism; deference to authority; and autocratic tendencies. Whether true or not, his observation underscores the importance of an organizational culture that eschews formal hierarchy, values creativity, and rewards initiative. A successful institute will display these traits.

Management

With some notable exceptions, the mundane but essential tasks of personnel management, accounting, and financial control tend to be downplayed by institutes. An explanation may be lack of experience of their senior management and donor backers in actually running an autonomous organization. As a minimal requirement, well run institutes should be able to furnish an accurate balance sheet, an up to date statement of income and expenditures, a good estimate of direct and indirect operating costs, and a reasonably sound projection of revenues.

To these less obvious and tangible features, the prospective partner can add more conventional information, for example on "output" and ongoing activities, in order to obtain a more accurate picture of the institute’s strengths and shortcomings.

"Financial Sustainability"

To get a longer term perspective, we raise the issue of "financial sustainability". We begin by noting that few policy institutes in the developed world are fully self-sustaining insofar as they are able to cover indirect and operating costs with the revenues derived from ongoing activities. In Africa, policy institutes face three additional impediments. First, as we noted earlier, the market for policy research is small and dominated by donors. In practice, institutes will have few alternative sources of revenue. Significant income from commercial consulting is not a realistic option. Institutes lack the necessary skills and credibility. Should they, in the exceptional case, prove successful, their success will inevitably create confusion concerning their public role and provoke strong criticism from private for profit (and tax paying) rivals. Secondly, most cooperative agents of policy research are unwilling to provide margins that accommodate overhead as well as direct costs. Typically, most donor contracts determine such costs as a percentage of direct expenditures. This percentage is usually determined arbitrarily, insofar as it does not take full account of local conditions. For example, the costs of equipment maintenance, utilities and accommodation can be as high as in developed economies. This situation is not ameliorated by most institutes’ inability to provide – if only for themselves – an accurate breakdown of their direct and indirect costs. The one major exception among donors is the USAID which sets out clear guidelines and actually assists local institutes to estimate overhead charges so as to qualify as a cooperative agent. Thirdly, the role of a public policy institute is not widely understood and accepted in many African countries. Governments will be even more reluctant than in developed countries to support bodies whose work may expose policymakers to criticism and possible embarrassment. For some time, therefore, many policy institutes will face an undesirable tradeoff between safeguarding their independence and eliciting greater support from the public sector. This dilemma can only be avoided through continued donor support.

These observations imply that policy institutes will require a long period of nurturing by the donor community. They need time to develop the right organizational culture, to introduce the necessary systems for planning and management, to select and groom good staff, and to establish their credibility among donors and national policymakers. Over time, they can carve out a niche for generating income beyond that obtained from contracted policy research – hopefully with properly determined overheads. First, the institute can reduce risks confronting sponsors of potential projects by providing accurate, vetted information on local professionals and ongoing activities. Secondly, it can manage local components of research projects. Such activities will help legitimize the institute’s role more generally and strengthen its credibility within the local policy community.

This longer term approach is consistent with the strategy for research management recommended for EAGER II. Increased expenditure on reinforcing the core capacities of institutes can be offset by lower transaction and administrative costs. Heightened local ownership should be reflected in faster project execution, higher quality work, and a more accurate application of findings within the decision making process. Such outcomes will attract the attention of donors other than the USAID and help create conditions for the long term support necessary to firmly establish policy institutes within the region.
 

Calendar of Events in the Evolution of EAGER/Trade
 

Calendar of Events in the Evolution of EAGER/Trade