Stabilisation - Part 3 - Bridging the implementation gap

A previous post spoke about the need to ensure that we didn’t get too focused on coordinating between departments and to spend more time consulting with local people. Another, similar challenge is to bridge the gap between the stabilisation policies and strategies we develop, and the way in which they are implemented on the ground.

This is not about strategies and policies being unrealistic or naïve. In fact, there is a general consensus that in the last few years that we have all learnt a lot about how to do stabilisation activities properly, and that policy-making has improved as a result.

The challenge is different, and it’s about management, it’s about translating commitments and ambitions into action on the ground. There are several challenges, but I’d like to focus on two.

The first is the capacity of UK government officials to manage delivery. Over recent years, HMG’s interest in security-building activities (particularly SSR, Rule of Law and defence transformation) has risen significantly, with a concomitant increase in the number, size and complexity of programme interventions. The project management function often falls to staff in-country, in our experience often to staff performing an essentially advisory role (conflict or governance advisers for instance). In most cases, these staff members are dedicated, committed, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But there is a big difference between the skills required to be a good advisor and those needed to be a good project manager. Furthermore, staff allocations have not kept pace with the size and complexity of programming, so staff are ever more thinly spread and juggling more – and more complicated – programmes. If UK engagement in this area is to keep growing, more consideration is needed of how to ensure that management capacity keeps pace with ambition.

The second is how the implementation of policy objectives is outsourced to external contractors. External contractors – primarily in the private sector, but also third sector organisations (international and local NGOs, academic institutions) and multilateral organisations (such as the UN) – already implement many stabilisation activities, and there is every sign that their role will increase. This is normally seen to be a good thing, primarily for reasons of cost effectiveness but sotto voce also because private contractors are often less visible than UK troops or civilian officials. Yet it is an open question whether outsourcing responsibility for implementation in this way always leads to greater results.

In particular, the challenge is this: do the UK and other donor governments have the right set-up to translate their policies into appropriate action of external contractors on the ground? Do they have the experience and capacity to design and manage appropriate contracts? Can poverty reduction and/or institutional change objectives (such as improving the behaviour and performance of security and justice institutions) be captured adequately in a commercial contract primarily concerned with ‘deliverables’? Do they have the systems and authority to identify and deal with poor delivery by some contractors? Are the lines of responsibility and dialogue clear between London, in-country, the contractor and local counterparts? Are they monitoring and evaluating these programmes effectively and making the most of opportunities to learn lessons for future programming?

These are big and challenging questions, and Saferworld does not claim to have all the answers, but they definitely need further discussion. There is no doubt that in many cases, external contractors do implement programmes effectively, often in ways that the UK government simply could not deliver on its own. Yet contracting also adds an extra layer of complexity to an already complex picture. Without further thought about how to ensure that we have the right framework to turn plans into practice, ambitious goals to stabilise very insecure environments might never be achieved.

Duncan Hiscock

Team leader - Conflict and Security