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Green Awassa Policy and Governance Issues

• Christopher Koliba, Ph.D.
• University of Vermont
• June 20, 2006

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Some assumptions

• That we will enter into a strategic alliance to
  address a commonly defined problem
• We will need to identify certain policy tools
  to focus on
• We will need to work within existing networks or
  perhaps create a new network
• We will need to build on existing knowledge and
  experience

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Importance of Multi-Sector Alignment and
Collaboration
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Vertical Horizontal Relations Across Sectors
and Levels
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• What organizations are represented here?
• Who is not here, that needs to be?

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Network Development

• Factions Coalitions
• Networking vs. networks
• Network characteristics
• Creating a community of practice

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Each actors relationship to a program may be
characterized along three dimensions

• What is the direction of his preference on the
  matter at issue?
• Is he for or against?
• What is the intensity of preference?
• Does he care a lot about it, or is he
  relatively indifferent?
• What resources can he bring to bear to affect the
  outcome?
• Is he weak or strong?
• Pressman and Wildavsky p.116-117

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Each actors relationship to a program may be
characterized along three dimensions

• What is the direction of his preference on the
  matter at issue?
• Is he for or against?
• What is the intensity of preference?
• Does he care a lot about it, or is he
  relatively indifferent?
• What resources can he bring to bear to affect the
  outcome?
• Is he weak or strong?
• Pressman and Wildavsky p.116-117

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Network structures working differently and
changing expectations

• Networking is a common term that refers to
  people making connections with each other by
  going to meetings and conferences, as well as
  through the use of communication technology such
  as email and Web discussion groups (Alter and
  Hage 1993 Considine 2001). P.364
• Networks occur when links among a number of
  organizations or individuals become formalized
  p.364
• A network structure forms when these people
  realize they (and the organization they
  represent) are only one small piece of the total
  picture. P.364

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Characteristic of the most effective networks

• They are integrated (preferably centralized)
• They enjoy direct rather than fragmented fiscal
  control
• They are most likely in an environment where
  resources are plentiful
• They are most likely under conditions of
  stability. P.7-8

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Snyder, Wenger and Briggs Communities of
practice in government

• Many of our most urgent social problems call
  for flexible arrangements, constant adaptation,
  and the savvy blending of expertise and
  credibility that requires crossing the boundaries
  of organizations, sectors, and governance
  levels p.1

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Setting an Agenda

• Three streams
• Problem
• Lack of cooking fuel
• Deforestation
• Contaminated lakes
• Policy (solutions)
• Land use regulation
• Efficient stoves
• Reforestation
• Politics

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Actors play different roles

• Problems stream
• Define the problem, its severity, raise its
  visibility
• Policies stream
• Advocate for certain policy solutions
• Implement policy solutions
• Politics stream
• Look to manipulate systems to align problems with
  policies

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Partial Couplings

• Solutions to problems, but without a receptive
  political climate
• Politics to proposals, but without a sense that
  a compelling problem is being solved
• Politics and problems both calling for action,
  but without an available alternative to
  advocate. (Kingdon P.110)

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Rational Approach to Policy Making

• Step one Verify, Define, and Detail the
  Problem
• Step two Establish Evaluation Criteria
• Step three Identify Alternative Policies
• Step four Evaluate Alternative Policies
• Step five Display and Select among
  Alternative Policies
• Step six Monitor Policy Outcomes
• Patton and Sawicki, 1986, p. 26

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Policy Windows opportunities to align the streams

• Events news items
• Government initiatives
• Media focus
• Funding opportunities
• This Atelier?

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Definitions of Policy Tools and/or Instruments

• Policy tool A method through which government
  seeks a policy objective. Birkland P.163
• Policy tools by one means or another, overtly
  or subtly designed to cause people to do things,
  refrain from doing things or continue doing
  things that they would otherwise not do.
  Birkland P.163

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Examples of policy tools

• Laws and regulations
• Direct provision of services or goods
• Contracting out
• Transfer payments
• Vouchers
• Intergovernmental grants
• General expenditures
• Government spending (for government operations)
• Market and proprietary operations

• Tax system (Tax credits)
• Loans and loan guarantees subsidies
• Insurance
• Public Information
• Inducements and sanctions
• Capacity-building efforts
• Learning tools
• Informal procedures

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Tools structure action.

• Programs can embody entire suites of tools.
  Salamon P. 19-20
• Tools of public action rarely appear in pure
  form. Rather, they come bundled in particular
  programs, many of which combine more than one
  tool, and all of which bring different approaches
  to the design issues that each program must
  address. Salamon P.21

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Tools can mobilize and support networks
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Vertical Collaboration Activities

• Information seeking
• General funding of programs and projects
• New funding of programs and projects
• Interpretation of standards and rules
• General program guidance
• Technical assistance
• Adjustment seeking
• Regulatory relief, flexibility or waiver
• Statutory relief or flexibility
• Change in policy
• Funding innovation for program
• Model program involvement
• Performance-based discretion (Agronoff and
  McGuire 2003)

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Horizontal Collaborative Activities

• Policymaking and strategy making
• Gain policymaking assistance
• Engage in formal partnerships
• Engage in joint policymaking
• Consolidate policy effort
• Resource exchange
• Seek financial resources
• Employ joint financial incentives
• Contracted planning and implementation
• Project-based work
• Partnership for a particular project
• Seek technical resources
• Agronoff and McGuire, 2003 p.70-71

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Social Capital Theory

• Social Networks
• Open
• Closed
• Trust
• Collective Norms

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Begs some questions regarding governance

• Principal Agent problems
• Compliance
• Legitimacy
• Implementation failure

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Principle-agent problem

• The more dispersed the authority, therefore, and
  the less the coincidence of interests and
  perspectives between principals and agents, the
  greater the risk of goal displacement and
  principal-agent differences Where principals
  and agents lack a shared set of values or
  worldviews, the task of ensuring that the
  principals objectives are being served grow more
  complex and more problematic. Salamon, P.32

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Strategies employed to gain compliance

• Coercive (People are forced by the threat of
  penalties.)
• Remunerative(People are attracted by the promise
  of rewards such as money, career advancement,
  good grades, better working conditions, political
  advantage, enhanced social standing, and having
  psychological needs met.)
• Normative(People are compelled because they
  believe what they are doing is right and good
  and/or because they find involvement
  intrinsically satisfying.)
• (Sergiovanni 1995 50 paraphrasing Etzioni
  1961)

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Rules Legitimacy

• Legitimacy binds rule-follower to rule-maker
  Legitimacy is in some sense the political
  scientists equivalent of the economists
  invisible hand we know it exists as a force that
  holds societies together, but we cannot give very
  satisfactory explanations of how to create it or
  why it is sometimes very strong and sometimes
  seems to disappear. Stone P.285

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Implementation Failure

• Chain of implementation Number of points to
  clearance
• Citizen and community dependencies resistance

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The Relevance of the Chain of Causality

• The longer the chain of causality, the more
  numerous the reciprocal relationships among the
  links and the more complex implementation
  becomes. Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973, p.xxiv

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Pressman and Wildavsky, p. 107
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Relation between Professions and Community /
Clients and Citizens (p. 106)
Professions Clients
Communities Citizens
Time
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Some core concepts

• The professional co-optation of community p. 12
• The capacity of people and their communities to
  solve their own problems p. 16
• Iatrogenic effects p. 20

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Strategic alliances in action

• Strategic alliances are groups of
  organizationsnonprofits, for-profit and
  publicvoluntarily working together to solve
  problems that are too large for any one
  organizations to solve on its own. P.1
• Strategic alliances as voluntary. P.1
• Review of lit.
• Alliances move through several phases as they
  develop and evolve
• Alliances are initiated to meet a variety of
  needs
• The operation of alliances requires certain
  organizational structures and processes and
• A variety of factors influence the progress of
  alliances. P.1

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Phases of Alliance Development

• Initiation phase
• Role of a champion. P.2
• ComplementarityOrganizations often decide to
  partner not because they have the same needs, but
  because they have complementary needs and
  assets. P.2
• Compatible goals. P.6

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• Operations phase
• An alliance between two or more organizations,
  in essence, becomes an organization itself during
  the operations phase. P.2
• Importance of an accountability plan. P.3
• Leaders in alliances assume several role
  architects, information brokers, boundary
  spanners. P.3

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Governance structuresformal vs. informal

• We observed that more complex alliances-- those
  with several players, tasks and objectivestended
  to rely on more formalized structures, whereas
  simpler alliances were often more comfortable
  with informal processes p.7
• Importance of communication mechanismsp.8
• Leaders the broker monitored information flow
  within the partnership, created ways to enhance
  information distribution, and ensured that
  relevant information found its way to appropriate
  individuals and work teams. P.8
• Relationship between evaluation and
  accountability. P.9

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Types of Citizenship (Adapted from Barber, 1984)
Power