Working Effectively in Conflict-affected and Fragile Situations: Briefing Paper F: Practical Coordination Mechanisms

This 20-page briefing paper from the United Kingdom (UK) Department for International Development (DFID) explores donor coordination in situations of conflict and fragility. It is based on the recognition that gaps in international assistance can cost lives, and that uncoordinated activities may be harmful to early recovery, peacebuilding, and state-building.

The paper takes as its starting point the Development Assistance Committee (DAC)'s principle #8, which holds that:

• Coordination can happen even in the absence of strong government leadership.
• It is important to work together on analysis, joint assessment, shared strategies, and coordination of political engagement between donors and multilateral actors.
• Where possible, work jointly with national reformers in government and civil society to develop a shared analysis of challenges and priorities.
• In countries in transition from conflict or international disengagement, integrated planning tools, such as the transitional results matrix, can help set and monitor realistic priorities.
  

There is a menu of tools or options that can be used to improve coordination, as detailed below. In most cases, however, DFID notes, the choice is not a purely technical one, but a matter of negotiation among various political and strategic interests. Under the Paris Declaration, DFID's preferred choice is coordination led by the partner government, with structures and processes designed to support country ownership and leadership and to help strengthen capacity over time. However, in fragile contexts DFID is challenged to also support reform of the multilaterals so that they are better able to coordinate international efforts in situations where government leadership is not yet in place.

The various coordination instruments and approaches include:

• Joint needs assessment and analysis - Up-front investment in joint analysis is a precondition for effective coordination. Post-Conflict Needs Assessments (PCNAs) should be validated with a wide cross-section of national and international stakeholders to build ownership. PCNAs should help to generate a coherent "storyline" for international engagement, identifying causes of conflict and fragility and how they will be addressed, assessing the capacity and legitimacy of national counterparts to guide partner selection, and beginning to identify the priorities of different national stakeholders.
• Common strategic frameworks - Transitional Results Frameworks (TRFs) are used to set out a programme of activities, typically over a two-year period. TRFs contain agreed outcomes, with a common monitoring and reporting system. To be successful, TRFs must be simple and accessible, selective and prioritised, integrated across the various spheres and nationally owned (even if not government-led). They must also generate sufficient donor buy-in: joint analysis underpinning the TRF is critical to achieving this.
• Multi-Donor Trust Funds (MDTF) - For donors, MDTFs reduce the costs of information sharing, administration and coordination, and can encourage joint approaches to complex state-building processes. For partner countries, they improve the predictability of resource flows and give them an opportunity to deal with donors through a common steering committee. The inclusion of national stakeholders, including civil society, in the governance structures of some MDTFs has helped to build their political profile and legitimacy.
• National, sectoral, and thematic coordination structures - Several examples are provided here to illustrate this approach. For instance, in Cambodia, in recognition of the often harmful effect of fragmented, supply-driven project aid, the Cambodia Reconstruction and Development Board was set up as a single focal point for aid coordination. There is a Government-Donor Coordination Committee, which acts as a quarterly forum for dialogue on aid effectiveness, and a structure of 19 Technical Working Groups in particular sectors and thematic areas. The structure is credited with a major improvement in the development partnership over the past 5 years.
• Agreements on donor division of labour - In high-risk environments, donors have a tendency to spread their risk by engaging across multiple sectors. The potential efficiency gains of a more selective approach, with donors and international agencies delivering better in a smaller number of sectors, are therefore high. However, given the complex play of interests involved, complementarity and a rational division of labour can be very difficult to achieve. This is illustrated in the text by the example of Uganda, which is one of the most advanced countries for donor division of labour but challenges remain.
• Joint implementation arrangements - In countries where DFID has only a limited presence, sharing staff or co-locating with other donors can be a practical means of improving capacity and gaining more influence in policy dialogue. In Burundi, for example, DFID shares a Governance Adviser with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). However, differences in objectives or procedures among donors can be time-consuming to resolve, and the transaction costs are often higher than intended.

The final section of the paper outlines the current reforms of the international architecture that may impact on coordination structures and partnerships at the country level. In order to improve multilateral-led coordination, DFID is pursuing an agenda that seeks to accelerate the international response to conflict and fragility. This involves: pressing the United Nations (UN), World Bank, and European Union (EU) to agree on clear roles and responsibilities in fragile and conflict-affected countries; strengthening the UN's work on post-conflict recovery, including through increased funding to the UN Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) contingent on its performance; pressing the EU for a stronger, more coherent effort in fragile and post-conflict countries; strengthening international peacekeeping efforts; and promoting a shared understanding of the "Responsibility to Protect". The remainder of this section sets out the key reforms that DFID is supporting in the multilateral institutions. All of them are give specific attention to adapting their systems to fragile and conflict-affected contexts.

Key lessons learned are outlined. Amongst them: Leadership of aid coordination by the partner government should be DFID's starting point, and DFID should continue to play a key role in building the capacity of the government to lead on coordination. Handling volatile and deteriorating governance situations requires diplomatic-development cooperation as much as donor coordination, and appropriate mechanisms should be set up to handle this.