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West Africa Contract Monitoring Program
Action Planning Meeting
November 30th -- December 3rd, 2010
Monrovia, Liberia
Acknowledgements
This success of this event was in part due to a collective effort on behalf of the following individuals from the World Bank Institute and the World Bank Africa Region teams: Robert Hunja, Sahr Kpundeh, Michael Jarvis, Kathrin Frauscher, Cindy Kroon, Regina Wilson, and Lauren Kunis. The World Bank Country Office in Liberia was also critical in making this meeting a success: namely Liberia Country Manager Ohene Nyanin and his team: Esther Bryant, Serena Cavicchi, Dixon Wlehbo, and Roosevelt Tule.
The superb facilitation team of Joe McCarron, John Griffin and Taaka Awori provided structure, guidance, and energy throughout the week. Florence Dennis and Beauty Emefa Narteh from the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) also provided invaluable facilitation and guidance throughout the course of the planning process and during the workshop itself.
This report was compiled by and for participants – led by Liberian Alphonso Toweh, who served as rapporteur, assisted by S. Kpanbayeazee Duworko, II and Beauty Emfenah Narteh.
Last but certainly not least, thanks are due to all of the participants, as it is undoubtedly their energy, intellect, and commitments that made the week – and that will make the ensuing work – an ultimate success.
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Executive summary:
The West African Contract Monitoring Program was held in Monrovia, Liberia from November 30th-December 3rd, 2010. Sponsored by the World Bank Institute, this four-day action planning meeting on contract monitoring brought together government, civil society, and private sector participants from four West African countries-Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
This event was action-oriented and non-traditional in its format, with participants driving the agenda and leading all discussion. Its overall objective was the co-creation of country-level and regional action plans to be implemented by the country teams over the next three years.
After four days of discussions and analysis, the four countries arrived at robust action plans that were reviewed and complemented by their peers from the region. Several collaborative regional action plans, involving actors from two or more countries in the region, were also developed through the same process.
While the plans were diverse, responding to unique country contexts and challenges, several commonalities emerged and further underscored the value in a regional network going forward. Country and regional action plans focused on topics such as capacity building, creating more inclusive processes, forging public-private partnerships, and by and large had a thematic focus on contract monitoring in the extractive industries.
In Liberia, the group recognized that significant headway has already been made in terms of institutional strengthening. However, their action plans took into account the need to complement this focus on public institutions with awareness-raising and capacity building for non-state actors. They presented and received feedback on three action plans: the creation of a multi-stakeholder community contract forum, a Liberia Integrated Procurement Training Initiative (LIPTI), and a plan to more effectively communicate the benefits of good public procurement.
The multi-stakeholder group attending the workshop from Sierra Leone anchored their action plans on existing work in public procurement monitoring, civil society advocacy work on extractive industries, and emerging work surrounding the passage and implementation of access to information legislation. The three plans they presented to the rest of the regional network were as follows: the creation of an independent national public contract monitoring mechanism to be housed in a government ministry, an initiative focusing on analysis and implementation of access to information on procurement and contracts, and a multi-stakeholder “Partnership for Economic Governance,” or “PEG-Salone.” The focus of the first and third initiatives is on monitoring extractive industries contracts and project implementation.
In Ghana, the group presented two interrelated initiatives for building both partnerships and capacity: the first focusing on increasing CSO awareness on contract monitoring, and a second, broader initiative entitled “Access to Contracts and Contract Monitoring in West Africa and Ghana.” As with all of the other countries, one of the main thematic focus areas of the Ghana country team’s work is on extractive industries.
The group from Nigeria concentrated on the public procurement process as an entry point for improving transparency, accountability, and overall governance. Its action plans incorporated advocacy, capacity building, and awareness-raising elements for an overall focus on “Multi-stakeholder engagement for effective public procurement processes.”
Last but not least, two region-wide initiatives emerged, in recognition of the benefits of regional cooperation, coordination, and similarities between country action plans. The first was for a regional summit on contract transparency, and the second was for the creation of a regional network linking the four country working groups for ongoing knowledge exchange, peer learning, and project implementation support.
Report Structure
This report roughly follows the progression of the workshop’s proceedings. It begins by setting the stage for the work – providing an introduction to “contract monitoring” as defined in this program, and next covers the challenges identified by participants in making this work a reality. Finally, country-specific and regional action plans are outlined with next steps and follow-up actions specified.
Introduction
In West Africa to date, monitoring of public procurement processes and contracts (especially in the extractive industries) has been sporadic or limited in scope and impact, reflecting constraints in opportunity and capacity. However, there is growing recognition that supporting such monitoring can serve an effective oversight function in controlling fraud and corruption in public contracting. Especially when linked with formal public accountability institutions, establishing effective and robust contract monitoring coalitions will contribute to controlling corruption and ultimately improving public sector efficiency and the delivery of public services.
In recognition of this, and as part of broader efforts to strengthen good governance to improve service delivery in West Africa, the World Bank Institute and the World Bank Africa Region hosted a- four- day meeting as part of a larger Contract Monitoring Program that aims to improve the transparency and accountability of public procurement and extractive industries contracting in Liberia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria. It also hopes to support a regional network among these four countries in order to support peer learning and implementation support.
The World Bank Institute has supported similar work in governance, the extractive industries, and procurement monitoring over the past two years in Africa; and has recognized the synergy and strategic value of combining efforts for added impact.
“If governments are publishing what they earn, why aren’t companies publishing what they earn?”
Held in Monrovia, Liberia from November 30th to December 3rd 2010, the action planning event was also supported by a range of partners including: the Liberia Public Procurement and Concessions Commission (PPCC); the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI), and ANSA Africa. The meeting brought together over ninety participants from various organizations in Liberia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria; representing government, civil society organizations (CSOs), the private sector, and media organizations.
“If governments have a monitoring
unit to monitor the mining companies,
CSOs should also be monitoring both the government as well as the mining companies.”
Generally, the action planning event was to strengthen and support multi-stakeholder coalitions that will monitor the awarding and implementation of contracts in priority sectors. These concerted actions will include coalitions specializing in monitoring of oil, gas and mining deals that are so critical to the economies of all four countries; and creating an informal regional network among the four country coalitions for ongoing implementation support. Specifically, the objectives of the meeting were to:
· To build a common understanding of the current reality of contract monitoring in the West Africa region;
· To consolidate a network of stakeholders that are committed to contract monitoring in their respective industries and countries; and,
· To jointly develop and agree upon action plans for each country coalition, including those that specialize in extractive industries, with prioritized goals and next steps for the next 12-24 months.
· To create a shared sense of the strategy for the program that improves the award of implementation of contracts monitoring forward
What do we mean by “Contract Monitoring??”
For the purposes of this workshop, “contract monitoring” was defined as the active oversight of the award and implementation of contracts. Such oversight would be collaborative in nature, involving multi-stakeholder coalitions with government, private sector, and civil society members.
Workshop Methodology
The event used an atypical, participatory, and results-oriented approach to bring out the issues. With the exception of the opening and closing sessions, the entire affair was participant-led – with participants leading the conversation and setting the agenda themselves.
“I think the participatory approach of this workshop is good and I really appreciate that. This workshop is different. It is not the usual workshop that people just write and give notes. I will encourage everyone to stick around and contribute.
Guided by the facilitators, the participants first brainstormed on the challenges they face in the monitoring of award and implementation of contracts and came out with country specific and regional programs to be implement
Action Planning Meeting
Opening Discussions: Key Challenges
Because workshop participants came from varied backgrounds and occupations, the opening session focused on framing the issues at hand and arriving at a common understanding of the issues to be tacked in the days ahead. It quickly became clear to participants that, despite their differences and differing perspectives, they faced many common challenges and issues in working towards effective contract monitoring. For instance, all agreed that they were challenged by issues of accountability, transparency and in some instances; the process leading to contract awarding was done in secrecy. Many also pointed to the poor public procurement process in the award of contract as problematic for contract monitoring purposes. It was agreed that this process was one of the initial contributing factors to a lack of transparency in the extractive industries. They argued that this eventually paves the way for ineffective monitoring of the implementation of contract.
“We are interested in the award of contracts because if the award is flawed, the contract won’t benefit the people; therefore, we should be concerned with sourcing and monitoring contracts.”
Recognizing the difficulty in changing the status quo, the participants agreed that if headway is to be made, then they should be creative in framing new patterns, structures and perceptions about dealing with the award and implementation of contracts.
Summary: Main Challenges Associated With Contract Award and Implementation
In their small groups, the participants highlighted the critical challenges in the process of award of contract and implementation as:
1. Political influence – This refers to interference of vested interests in who gets contracts and how
2. Corruption/poor awarding process – Participants agreed that in many instances, this takes place because of percentage of contract sum to be paid in advance; awarding contracts without funds; using sole sourcing; due diligence contract lacking; low level of competitiveness in bidding processes; and weak laws on concessions and contracts.
3. Limited access to information – Availability and accessibility of information remains a major challenge for contract monitoring groups across the region. Participants felt that this is due to a lack of enabling legislation (freedom of information laws) as well as a potential reluctance on the part of the private sector reluctance to disclose the terms of contracts.
4. Difficulty in gaining access to contracts. Potential causes of this challenge include a lack of information flow and education, as well as difficulty in accessing procurement records and information by CSOs.
5. Low public participation – This results from lack of public awareness and participation; and poor or low participation by CSOs, and professional bodies in bid opening and evaluation.
6. Inconsistent legal framework – Meaning that contracts are laws in their own rights and they may be inconsistent with other legislation
7. Weak monitoring mechanism – This results from issues such as contract duration; weak structures to monitor implementation (by government, CSOs and media); poor monitoring and evaluation; and absence of monitoring mechanism systems.
8. Weak contract implementation – This comes from lack of timely approval of budgets and release of project funds; and a disconnect between policy and implementation.
9. Lack of capacity – Lack of capacity involves a wide range of actors – from government, CSOs and the media, to private sector contractors. Government negotiators often do not know how to identify ‘a good deal’; and CSOs and the media who are interested in monitoring contracts often lack the necessary technical skills to do so effectively..
Mapping Existing Initiatives
Following these initial discussions, participants broke into country groups to complete a mapping exercise to more fully understand ongoing contract monitoring initiatives and identify available opportunities. These initiatives, which include ongoing, completed, and envisioned projects in each country, are included in this report in Annex 3.
Creating Future Action Plans
Finally, taking into account the challenges associated with contract monitoring and existing work in this field, participants spent the bulk of the meeting collectively envisioning and outlining projects at both the country and regional levels that they could work on in the next three years.
“Even if the contract is done properly, the money goes to the government and yet there is no development in the society”
Key Leverage Points
Before delving into concrete action planning, participants identified the following leverage points that could be used in making their future work more effective:
1. Create an environment of answerability – Mechanisms must be established so that public officials involved in contract award and implementation are answerable to citizens. This would include passing legislation that can be readily enforced, with clear grievance mechanisms for citizens and effective sanctions for misconduct. Other aspects of this include a transparent justice system and offering entry points for beneficiaries to have a say in the use of resources.