Getting your hands dirty with PSIAs: Going
beyond neat analytical work to the messy
business of influencing policy reform
Sonya Sultan
Senior Social Development Specialist
SDV
Main IEG PSIA Evaluation Findings
• Stated operational objectives:
–
Informing country policies (71%)
–
Informing Bank operations (12%)
–
Building country capacity for policy analysis (14%)
• TTL survey reported higher incidence of second and third objectives
(relevant to half of PSIAs), and all three being relevant to one-third
of the PSIAs
• Key findings:
–
Moderate effect on Bank operations
–
Modest effect on country policy formulation
–
Negligible impact in building country capacity for PSIA
If you want to influence government policy reform,
which most DPOs do ….
• Process is just as important as the final product
• The process of influencing policies is political and
we need to be aware of the politics
• Using a range of research methods is important –
both quantitative and qualitative tools – to come
up with good quality, relevant findings
• Use PSIA as a flexible tool/approach, and don’t
think of it as simply one type of product
How have these issues played out in 2 on-going
PSIAs in Ghana and Vietnam?
• Can we always address these issues when
working with tight deadlines, low capacity
governments and limited budget?
• What are the trade offs and consequences
when not paying attention to some of the
issues mentioned above?
The case of Ghana: a PSIA for the Natural Resource
and Environmental Governance DPO
There has been a series of 3 DPOs, with other donors, on the
governance issues related to natural resource management
since 2008/9. Now next phase (NREG 2) is being designed
for another 3 years.
Key issues of concern:
• Inefficiency and corruption in the management of natural
resources and lack of transparency with regards to revenues
(EITI issues ….)
• Poor people not benefitting from forestry or mining
activities as much as expected
• Conflict in mining sector
PSIA of the mining sector
• Stakeholder analysis (first phase of a PSIA) done in
2008/2009.
• No follow up till the end of this series of DPO – in
2011
• Now next series of DPO being prepared, and a
PSIA on artisanal and small scale mining being
organised to review both impact of previous
legislation, and ex-ante assessment of new draft
Mining Policy
The importance of a good process
• No follow up after the first stakeholder analysis because it had limited ownership
among govt and other local stakeholders (seen as donor requirement)
• Certain groups rejected some of the findings as not being valid because not
involved early enough in study design and not happy with methodology
• Critical issues raised, but then dropped e.g. conflict in mining sector. No quick fixes
when difficult issues raised through PSIA – need to follow through. Otherwise
reduces credibility of future Bank studies and dialogue attempts.
• This time around – more focused PSIA. Important to build interest and ownership
among stakeholders. But even now, some tension between what WB team
considers important, and what govt would like to study.
• The new PSIA TORs includes as much emphasis on “policy dialogue” processes as it
does on collecting new data and evidence to inform new policies.
It’s a political world out there …
• Research is not always seen as objective – many subjective decisions are
made about who does it, what methods are used, what questions are
asked, who is consulted e.g. perception among CSOs in Ghana that govt
and WB are both biased towards private sector. So WB will have to make
extra effort from the outset to work with CSOs.
• However – key constrain is that staff often do not have time to build the
relationships with various stakeholder groups for full ownership of the
PSIA, and to understand all the political dynamics – specially when they are
based in DC and only fly in for short missions. Don’t leave it to consultants
to “do the PSIA”. Engage with the process throughout.
• Elements of political economy analysis and institutional analysis has been
included in the PSIA analysis because certain issues in the NREG sector can
only be explained through such analysis e.g. role of Traditional Authorities
in Ghana in managing revenues from mining, or explaining some of the
causes and dynamics of conflict in the sector.
Using a range of methods
• Weakness of 1st stakeholder analysis was that it was seen as
too anecdotal (focus group discussions with a range of
stakeholders).
• Next PSIA is a planning to use a range of tools:
– Stakeholder analysis
– Institutional analysis and mapping ( building on polt econ
analysis that has already been done).
– Quantitative data collection on poverty levels for ASM and
range of incomes in the value chain
– Qualitative analysis of causes of conflict, and patron-client
relationships in the informal mining sector
Keeping the approach flexible to make it relevant
and useful …
• Ghana PSIA using both ex-post analysis and exante analysis since it is in-between 2 DPO series
• Using the PSIA to develop and test new
consultation mechanisms in the sector – since
that has been identified as a key problem
• Being responsive to demands: PSIA is being linked
to other country processes e.g. Cost Benefit
analysis of mining sector planed by GoG, Strategic
Environmental Assessment, etc…
PSIA in Vietnam to support Climate change DPO
• Part of a new wave of PSIAs – supporting Climate
Change DPOs
• The first phase of the PSIA done while the DPO is being
developed – so trying to inform DPO design
• PSIA focused on changes in water user fees (for
irrigation and for personal use); introduction of
Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) systems;
displacement of people due to DRM strategies; and
assessed use of participatory approaches for
development and implementation of DRM and CC
plans
The process is just as important as the product
• Effort made to do the PSIA quickly to inform the DPO series
– however trade off is that GoV ownership of the process is
now being built after the research has been started
• This is being done through a series of workshops for a range
of stakeholders to explain what a PSIA is, how it is done, and
why it is useful …. Also provision of more detailed training
for some GoV officials so that they can be in charge of
further PSIAs ….
• Important to demystify the PSIA process – it is simply
poverty and social analysis, and most govts and countries
know how to do this – or get experts to do this – it is often
more an issue of lack of political will.
The politics of the PSIA
• Team was initially reluctant to use an explicit political economy
approach since worried that GoV might not react well to it. That is
OK – can include PE even if not labeled as such.
• Initial PSIA report has highlighted many of the institutional
complexities in implementing policy reforms in the water and DRM
sectors – overlapping mandates, difference in capacity, and different
incentives created for central and local governments because of the
flow of funds for Disaster Risk Management
• Also need to consider political support and incentives for different
proposed reforms e.g. political incentive to keep irrigation fee
waver, but it does not create the right incentives for water
conservation. This helps DPO team identify what policy reforms can
be pushed through DPO, and which are likely to have limited buy-in
Using a range of research methods
• For the first phase – focused on using existing data and
information on CC, and qualitative analysis to help identify
the issues that needed further analysis. For e.g., clear that
PIM has considerable support and is seen as good for
everyone.
• Next phase will involve more quantitative analysis to
understand how the new rates for water use will affect
different groups
• Institutional analysis was needed, specially when looking at
policies that require cross-sectoral co-ordination. Includes
an assessment of who has capacity and incentives to
implement pro-poor CC policies
Using a flexible approach and thinking of it as a
process
• In this case, did not make sense to just look at distributional impact
of policy – also needed to understand distributional impact of CC,
and there was space for that analysis
• WB not trying to do all the analysis itself, but wants to create a
group of donors, Civil society members and GoV counterparts who
will follow up on different part of the PSIA analysis as the DPO
moves forward
• Started with overview analysis of a number of sectors – next phase
will go deeper into particular sectors and specific policy reforms
• Some analysis done prior to start of DPO, and some will happen as
the DPO is implemented, to keep monitoring whether expected
impacts are seen
PSIAs and equity
• PSIA is not just about measuring whether we are
helping deliver equitable outcomes, though that is a
key objective
• Just as importantly, it can be a tool to make policy
formulation and policy dialogue an equitable and
inclusive process i.e. more fundamentally democratic,
where a wide range of stakeholders, including the poor
and vulnerable, are informed about the expected
consequences of policy choices, can discuss them and
make their concerns known, and hopefully have some
influence over the decisions of governments.