The nature of participation in a small landlocked economy: The experience of Lesotho

1
The nature of participation in a small landlocked
economy The experience of Lesotho

• Annie L.M. Hlasoa
• Director of Sectoral Programming,
• Ministry of Development Planning,
• Government of Lesotho
• Third Meeting of the African Learning Group on
  the PRSPs, Addis Ababa, 3-5 December 2003

2
Outline of Presentation

• Discussion of the PRSP process
• Impact of participation successes and
  shortcomings
  
• The challenge ahead

3
PRSP Adoption and the I-PRSP Process

• PRSP process initiated in Dec 1999 GOL announced
  adoption of PRSP as enhanced framework for
  poverty reduction.
  
• Institutional Framework
• MDP responsibility for administration and
  coordination and PRSP Secretariat was
  established.
  
• Technical Working Group (TWG), consisting of
  government, CSOs, private sector, NUL and donors,
  est. Feb 2000 mandate to prepare I-PRSP and
  PRSP.
• I-PRSP submitted to BWIs in mid-Dec 2000 and
  subsequently formed the basis of a PRGF programme
  with the IMF (June 2001).

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Towards the Full PRSP

• TWG agreed on key stakeholders to participate in
  the process at both national and local level.
  
• Consultative workplan was developed to indicate
  time and purpose of consultations.
  
• Sensitisation at central and local levels (late
  2001)
  
• Community-based consultations (Apr-May 2002)
• 300 facilitators and supervisors formed a series
  of teams that oversaw this exercise.
  
• Composition of consultation teams partnership
  between the TWG, GOL, local government structures
  and CSOs.
  
• On average, teams spent three days per community,
  soliciting views on poverty.

5
Towards the Full PRSP

• Estimates place the number of people consulted at
  between 10,000 and 20,000 which, in a population
  of 2.14 million (2000 estimate), translates into
  a ratio of between 1100 and 1200.
• This unequivocally makes Lesotho one of the most
  consultative PRSP processes in Africa to date.

6
Towards the Full PRSP

• Despite topographical difficulties, impressive
  commitment on of field teams to the extent that
  horses and even helicopters were relied on in
  instances. Attempt to ensure geographic
  representation
• Additional effort to secure the views of
  important social groups in Lesotho women, men,
  youth, herdboys, disabled, elderly, widows and
  orphans, retrenched mineworkers, CBOs and NGOs,
  local authorities, traders and PLWAs.
• Analytical report on the community consultations,
  Voices of the People, subsequently produced
  represents a landmark document that for the first
  time captures the experiences, values and
  priorities of the Basotho.
• Sector Working Groups (SWGs) and Macroeconomic
  Working Group est. May 2002 to inform policy
  formulation and identify programmatic
  interventions based on priorities emanating from
  the consultations.
• Thematic Groups (TGs) est. to address
  cross-cutting issues of national priority, with a
  strong coordinating role being played by the
  LCN.

7
Towards the Full PRSP

• Sector Working Groups (SWGs) and Macroeconomic
  Working Group est. May 2002 to inform policy
  formulation and identify programmatic
  interventions based on priorities emanating from
  the consultations.
• Thematic Groups (TGs) est. to address
  cross-cutting issues of national priority, with a
  strong coordinating role being played by the
  LCN.
• Establishment of Biznet-Lesotho to better
  represent private sector views in the PRSP
  submission of a position paper based on
  consultations.

8
Towards the Full PRSP

• Communities perceptions of the defining
  characteristics and causes of poverty formed the
  main basis for determining the PRSP priorities.
  
• Consequently, close collaboration between PRSP
  priorities and the dimensions of poverty
  identified through the community consultations.
  
• SWGs and TGs developed objectives, strategies and
  activities within each of the priorities.
  
• Documented in sector position papers and
  implementation matrices.
  
• Strategies were ranked and sequenced, based on
  agreed criteria that takes account of both the
  impact on poverty reduction and sustainability.
  

9
Towards the Full PRSP

• Nine priority areas
• Employment creation and income generation
• Food security
• Deepening democracy, governance, safety and
  security
  
• Infrastructure development roads, water,
  electricity and communication
  
• Improving quality of and access to essential
  health care and social welfare services
  
• Increasing human resource capacity
• Scaling up the fight against HIV/AIDS
• Managing and conserving the environment
• Improving public service delivery

10
Impact of Participation Successes

• Participation in the PRSP process is broadly
  acknowledged as having been legitimate, extensive
  and of high quality.
  
• PRSP and National Vision formulation processes
  represents one of the first occasions in Lesotho
  that all stakeholders have come together as a
  unified team.
• New and more open dialogue has been facilitated
  both within the Government of Lesotho, and
  between government and parts of civil society,
  donors and the private sector.
• Promoting recognition of the different
  participating actors as key stakeholders in
  Lesothos development and an appreciation of the
  wide-ranging skills that each has brought to the
  process.
• Imparted technical skills and increased awareness
  that policy making does not have to be conducted
  in a top-down manner.
  
• The PRSP community consultations represent the
  first salient endeavour by national government in
  Maseru to consult directly with a geographically
  spread sample of communities about critical
  developmental challenges.

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Impact of Participation Shortcomings

• Community consultations Despite the impressive
  nature of the consultation process, the quality
  and scope of the material has been negatively
  affected by
• Rather superficial knowledge of participatory
  techniques among some facilitators
  
• Insufficient attention to reporting protocols and
  analytical strategies
  
• Underrepresentation of urban areas.
• Lack of available skills to produce sound
  analysis and aggregation of community feedback
  resulted in reliance on an external consultant.
  

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Impact of Participation Shortcomings

• Participation in the PRSP process in Lesotho has
  also been constrained by
  
• Poor representation of the private sector during
  the early stages of the process
  
• Slower than anticipated PRSP finalisation
  process, with almost three years having elapsed
  since the submission of the I-PRSP
  
• Increasing signs of participation fatigue
  especially for representatives of CSOs and the
  private sector.

13
The Challenge Ahead

• Major challenge now facing the country as it
  heads towards implementation is to move away from
  ad hoc forms of consultation to more
  institutionalized forms of collaboration and
  dialogue with national stakeholders.
• Questions remain as to the extent to which this
  participatory turn is going to promote a more
  general normative shift in the traditionally
  top-down mode in which decision-making and policy
  planning has occurred at the national level.

14
The Challenge Ahead

• Need to build on the multi-stakeholder
  institutional structures developed for PRSP
  process, e.g. TWG, SWGs, Macroeconomic WG, CSPRF,
  Biznet.
• There is an emerging commitment to ensuring that
  these structures assume new roles and functions
  related to facilitating the PRSP implementation
  and monitoring and evaluation.
• Stakeholder Capacitation