Fostering Local Ownership

Scoping and survey - The development of a template specific to the mission was vital in order to maintain a coherent framework for the analysis. The template questions were also shared widely so we were better able to manage expectations. The work carried out earlier on in the mandate allowed ISSAT to get to a point towards the end of the mandate where the team had a fairly comprehensive overview of key findings that could be tested out with key interlocutors (e.g. the EU High Level Advisor in the ministry). It also gave the team the confidence to be able to support the idea that detailed design of the subsequent programme could be initiated based on the draft report in order to save time.

Access to information/transparency– The degree of openness at the MIA is remarkable. If anything, there is too much information : over 100 strategies/concept papers across the MIA, all available to be shared. The progress made in transparency is quite extraordinary if we take in consideration that in 2012 the MIA was still perceived as “a closed system that lacked transparency, with Soviet-totalitarian governing practices” (MIA Functional Analysis).

Team composition- The team composition was important. ISSAT experts on team could count on the extensive knowledge of David Clarke, drawing on his understanding of the political undercurrents. This was a great example of ISSAT being able to bring together different resources.

Local support– Excellent support was provided by the advisor to the Minister.

Local knowledge– The mandate gained from the insight gathered by ISSAT during the NORLAM Moldova mission that had started slightly earlier.

Relevance of the report– As mentioned above, dozens of concept papers exist across the MIA, adding to the three functional assessments previously carried out by various donors (including EU). The risk for ISSAT baseline to be redundant was avoided by rooting the findings in very comprehensive information collected from a range of sources and using different tools (including an electronic survey, interviews, document analysis, etc.). From the MIA, the report is perceived as adding depth and scope to the existing analysis.

Credibility– The findings are not disputed in the MIA and the report was ‘generally accepted’, including by those who don’t accept that a review can be performed by a foreign organisation and experts from abroad. Such actors tend, if anything, to question the legitimacy of the approach – not the credibility and validity of the actual findings.

Concepts and processes– Uneven understanding among different stakeholders, within the IGSP and across the MSP of the role, importance and mechanisms entailed by internal control in a functioning democracy.

Political engagement– As noticed in the AAR, even the most immediate quick-win activities recommended in the report need that IGSP has a legal framework in place, but political commitment from Burundian Government to move forward on this has been vague, in fact compromising IGSP critical role.

Programme support– The audit sets clear directions and suggests an action plan to address fundamental gaps in internal control, but any progress on this depends on a robust and immediate support from SSD to democratic oversight and accountability.

Programme overstretch– SSD is a complex, far-reaching SSR programme spanning for eight years and supporting the main security institutions in Burundi (Police and Defence Forces), but there is the risk that whatever is not included or prioritised and funded under SSD is not purposely sustained by the Burundian counterparts.

Uneven and unused capacity– IGSP badly lacks capacity across the board when it comes to main and secondary/procedural functions of an internal control body, from legal expertise to strategic management, while some of the actual existing capacity among staff is lost by the way IGSP functions.

Lessons identified:

• Civil society organisations are usually keen to engage in discussions about internal control mechanisms of police services. Such occasions offer entry-points to bring-in external stakeholders, otherwise kept fairly outside relevant processes and activities, as it happened this time, in spite of clear demands from ISSAT for such opening from the Burundian authorities.
• Training in internal control and democratic oversight, linking up internal audit bodies with the role of external stakeholders (Parliament, Ombudsman, etc.), are the natural and crucial follow-up of this mandate. These activities can be a contribution from ISSAT to pursue support in areas identified as major capacity gaps, and keeping the momentum for a reinforcement of the SSD Governance pillar. It’s worth reminding that “Internal Control” goes on being  one of the focus areas under the action plan for ‘Police’ pillar of SDD Phase III.
• Dedicate the first day of the team in the field to set up interviews and organise agenda, since gaps in pre-arranging interviews are recurrent and almost unavoidable in such contexts.

• A good preparation of the mandate, starting with a one-day meeting in Geneva aligning approaches and planning work among Polfed and ISSAT experts on team, starting from scratch and designing the mission.
• Scoping visit from the team leader to Burundi.
• Wealth of local/contextual knowledge in the team.
• Mixed team composition bringing complementary skills and approaches to democratic control mechanisms: technical/Polfed and SSR/ISSAT.
• Trust build over time between ISSAT and SSD in Burundi.
• Good local interaction between SSD, CTB (Belgian development agency) and GIZ (German aid agency).
• ISSAT methodology.
• Facilitation from IGSP staff.

Lessons identified for improving the chances of success:

• • Recommendations can be discussed with local stakeholders in a way that allows for some knowledge transfer on programme design, in the case restricted to the elaboration of an action plan for ‘quick-wins’. Such an exercise can bridge recommendations with whichever projects that SSD decides to carry forward following the review.
  • SSD needs to act on the audit in terms of pushing to have some of the recommendations followed on; this implies that the Programme has to keep representing to the Burundian authorities that crucial decisions have to be taken and operationalised soon to have IGSP fulfilling its important role.

This mandate fully delivered the expected outputs, including an audit report with recommendations in accordance to the mandator’s needs. The recommendations were taken already in consideration and two subsequent missions from Polfed to Burundi worked on how to implement some of them. The reaction to the recommendations was immediate and positive also from the IGSP, which already took suggested points of action in consideration and welcomes the clarification of roles and responsibilities between the Inspectorate and SSD. During the mandate, the position of Inspector-general was vacant but the new head of IGSP took office in the same day of the end of the field mission. A working group was set up just after the restitution session to discuss a set of activities aimed at obtaining quick-wins on the recommendations and that ISSAT proposed to be carried out until Q4 2014.

To this date, the IGSP still didn’t act on most of these actions and further steps depend on the completion of the new legal framework for the IGSP. The Organic Law and the Internal Statute of the IGSP have been drafted and provide finally a legal framework for organising  the work of the Inspectorate, although a decree on the function of internal audit is still to be drafted. Until the legal framework is approved and fully in effect, the scope of activities of IGSP  is nonetheless very limited, specially when it comes to investigations and filing of cases.

The extent to which recommendations are fully implemented will need to be checked in one or two years, since a previous audit to IGSP was basically left in the drawer in terms of acting on suggested points. The review report delivered by the team provides a strong base for the design of SSD projects in support of the IGSP but it also implies and needs that the mandator follows up on the results by pushing for tangible actions (see below).

Throughout the report, attention is given to technical and procedural notions that help unpack the concept of internal control and that lay out a comprehensive set of principles, mechanisms and tools. This corpus can be easily taken as part of training materials for IGSP staff and the PNB overall, as acknowledged by the SSD/MSP coach visiting ISSAT in October to discuss further areas of collaboration related to training in police integrity.

As part of the second/main field mission, in March 2014, a one-day workshop was organised by the team in Bujumbura to conduct a SWOT analysis of the IGSP with a group of fifteen staff of the Inspectorate. The SWOT exercise was considered to provide simple yet powerful analytical tools, with gains in terms of ownership of the review itself.

The evaluation team was assisted in Burundi by two members from IGSP that facilitated contacts and participated in several meetings. Future will tell what will result  from this exposure of IGSP staff to ISSAT’s evaluation methodology and to intense discussions that articulated the principles of internal control with the realities on the ground and the political and social context in Burundi.

For ISSAT, the fact that the evaluation team included two experts working actually in police internal control in their own country provided an opportunity to gain a more technical view of the questions involved. It is considered a relevant gain of capacity for future reviews and an important enhancement of existing in-house knowledge on police reform, integrity and responsibility.

It is the perception of the IGSP that the mandate resulted in opening some doors to potential collaboration of the institution with civil society organisations.

L’équipe a constaté en RDC, mais également en général, un certain malaise de la part du middle management au sein de DFID sur la question de l’engagement politique avec les partenaires locaux. Ce middle management n’a pas réellement l’expérience ni le calibre pour mener à bien ce dialogue politique. Ils se concentrent donc plutôt sur le micro management de programme. Leur rôle entre les partenaires locaux et les contractants mettant en œuvre les programmes n’est pas clair et problématique. Le niveau supérieur du management/diplomatique au sein de DFID et de l’Ambassade mène un réel dialogue politique mais est limité en termes de temps et de capacité. Ce niveau supérieur doit gérer plus d’une dizaine de programmes dans des thématiques diverses et variées.

L’UE mène sont dialogue politique au sein d’une structure très formelle, lié à l’Accord de Cotonou. L’UE rencontre les partenaires locaux au sein de cette structure et semble être très satisfaite de ce mécanisme. L’UE ne semble pas vouloir s’investir de manière plus intense et efficace via d’autres moyens.

L’équipe a rédigé une recommandation sur une stratégie politique conjointe DFID et UE. Elle a également détaillé cette recommandation dans une annexe du rapport afin de proposer des rôles et tâches par rapport aux fonctions du staff au sein de DFID et de la Délégation de l’UE. Il serait intéressant d’explorer ceci lors du prochain AAR avec les mandataires afin de voir si la recommandation sera suivie ou pas.  

 Leçons identifiées (à suivre lors du prochain AAR avec les mandataires):

-         Clarifier le rôle de chaque partie prenante d’un programme pour mener à bien un dialogue politique constructif et efficace(bailleurs de fond, contractants, partenaires locaux).

-          Mener une mission de restitution pour présenter le rapport aux partenaires locaux et tester leur engagement politique. Ou en tout cas, pousser les mandataires à inclure les partenaires locaux dans un processus de restitution du rapport. Cette étape doit être gérée de manière adéquate car elle peut être très sensible au vue du fait que les partenaires n’ont pas été inclus dans le processus depuis le début. Il serait alors intéressant de clarifier le fait que les partenaires locaux puissent modifier le rapport et apporter leurs contributions au processus.

From Internal AAR:

La période des vacances n’a pas du tout été propice à la bonne planification du mandat. Ceci depuis la demande initial des mandataires à ISSAT jusqu’au déploiement de l’équipe sur le terrain. Les personnes de contact du côté des mandataires (DFID et UE) étant en vacances durant la phase de planification. L’équipe a donc observé un manque de communication, de soutien logistique et administratif. Il y a eu également un manque de référence aux documents clés à analyser avant la mission de terrain. De plus, les membres de l’équipe d’ISSAT, issus du roster, n’ont pas reçu toute l’information nécessaire sur les tenants et aboutissants de la négociation du mandat afin de bien se préparer pour leur mission de terrain. ISSAT ayant soutenu de manière continue DFID RDC depuis 2012, il aurait été intéressant de briefer l’équipe d’experts sur les résultats des précédents mandats.

Les TdR ont probablement été copié-collé d’un modèle de l’UE, assez peu détaillés et pas finalisés ni approuvés officiellement avant le déploiement de l’équipe sur le terrain. Les objectifs officiels, détaillés dans les TdR, étaient fort différents des objectifs officieux qui n’ont été communiqués à l’équipe qu’une fois sur le terrain.

Les partenaires locaux n’ont que très peu été impliqué lors de la phase de planification. De manière générale, les partenaires locaux ne reçoivent pas les documents de DFID qui ne sont pas traduits en français. Ceci est le cas par exemple pour les rapports d’évaluation du SSAPR rédigés en 2012 et 2013 conjointement par ISSAT et la SU. Ceci dit en passant, ces rapports étant très (voir trop) long selon certains, il est difficile et fort coûteux de les traduire. Il serait intéressant d’essayer de réduire la longueur des rapports auxquels ISSAT contribue.

Leçons identifiées:

-          Besoin de TdR clairs, détaillés, identifiant les responsabilités de chacun, ainsi qu’une personne de contact pour la logistique du côté du mandataire. Les TdR devraient être approuvés avant le déploiement de l’équipe sur le terrain.

-          Mener une mission préalable(scoping mission) de quelques jours est une des leçons apprises par ISSAT afin de mener à bien la phase de planification, voir de finaliser les TdR et obtenir une approbation officielle. Ceci n’a pas été possible pour ce mandat à cause de raisons diverses et variés (temps, disponibilités des experts, volonté des mandataires).

-         Traduire les documents clés pour les partenaires locaux. Intégrer le coût de la traduction dans le budget du mandat afin de mener à bien ce travail (car ceci n’est jamais fait par DFID). ISSAT et le mandataire doivent convenir ensemble de qui s’occupera de la traduction et partager les contacts de bons traducteurs (qui ne sont pas facile à trouver).

-         Communiquer avec les membres de l’équipe d’ISSAT, issus du roster, sur les tenants et aboutissants des négociations du mandat avant leur déploiement sur le terrain. Dans le cas où le mandat est la suite d’un mandat précédent mené par ISSAT, s’assurer de bien communiquer les résultats de ce dernier à la nouvelle équipe d’expert. Si cela est opportun, faire venir le Team Leader chez ISSAT à Genève pour 1-2 jours afin de discuter avec les membres d’ISSAT ayant suivi les précédents mandats.

• A key (if not always explicit) objective of the mandate was to enhance EU engagement at HQ and country level in JSSR priorities more generally. This is not a comparatively well understood area, and investments are scattered and poorly monitored. Yet the needs in LAC are exceedingly acute. As such, a considerable amount of energy was put into supporting HQ and country teams in understanding JSSR, assessing their portfolio, identifying needs and the like. 

• The missions involved the production of country reports (8-15 pages) that summarized key findings and recommendations. These were shared with EU teams (HQ and at country level) for their inputs. Likewise, the mission team produced 30+ country reports (together with InSight Crime) which also provided a good baseline for all countries (the 12 visited, but also the others which were not). These will be shared later via various organizational websites. There was considerable contact with EU teams. 

• Make it explicit in the contract that there are at least two expected outputs – the report (and annexes/mission reports) and greater ownership in the JSSR agenda on behalf of the client. Likewise, more clear and explicit instructions should be made about the public nature of the mission reports. In 50% of the cases, governments and civil society groups consulted also wanted to see the final report. They were NOT provided them unless authorized by the EU. But this can alienate government counterparts and should be discussed at the outset (not mid-way through as was the case in this assessment). 

• Buy-in from Kenyan police officials was very limited.
• Team didn't have the time to anchor the process before deployment. Team also lacked time to discuss the results of the workshop with relevant stakeholders.(see more under planning and logistics category). 

• Team managed to put together a “programme design committee” before the workshop (see more under planning and logistics category). They contributed to the programme document and did a huge effort in driving the process forward.

• Team should have planned after action meetings with the police leadership. 

• Ownership and partnership is important but people have to be committed.

• Who were you main PoCs for the mandator in the field?
  • ASI
• Where they adequately informed of the mission purpose and objectives?  
  • Unknown
• Where international stakeholders adequately informed of the mission purpose and objectives?
  • Unknown

• Who were you main PoCs for the mandator in the field? 
  • ASI
• Where they adequately informed of the mission purpose and objectives? 
  • Unknown
• Where international stakeholders adequately informed of the mission purpose and objectives?
  • Unknown

• Communicating information to the national stakeholders about the PCR happened through the mission and not before. During interviews, mission team articulated mission objectives.

• National stakeholders were contacted before the mission to be informed of its objectives and outputs by one of the mandators.
• During implementation, interviews and exchanges included state and non-state actors except for media.

• Mission-planning and communication on mission timeline and objectives:
  • PBSO informed the relevant national authorities of the upcoming mission in a “problematic letter”(see comments underteam collaborationon ISSAT Advisor’s role and image)only 5 days before arrival in country.  Whether this information was then relayed to the relevant ministries and line departments remained unclear.
  • As a result of the above point, ISSAT Advisor had to call interlocutors without prior notice at an extremely busy time for them. In some cases, she was not being able to meet with some key government officials.
  • While the same ministers remained in SSR relevant line ministries after the elections, members of the relevant parliamentary committees were all new. They had just been appointed to these commissions and had not had a chance to really familiarise themselves with their role vis-à-vis the sector, or with the support that PBF may have lent to SSR.

• Mission-planning and communication on mission timeline and objectives:
  • Timely planning and involvement of relevant counterparts in the planning process (PBSO PBF/PBC focal points, UNMIL SSR and Peacebuilding Advisors, PBO) would have enabled much greater ownership of the initiative by field-based interlocutors and more importantly national counterparts.

• HQ-driven missions:
  • Imposing a mission from HQ at a time when all concerned indicate that the time is not right is counter-productive and hinders rather than fosters local ownership. ISSAT should try as much as possible (especially in the case of the EU and the UN) to facilitate HQ-field dialogue and harmonisation of needs and objectives before embarking on missions driven unilaterally by HQ.

• Issues specific to Somalia’s context:
  • While not going to Somalia could be justified, the actual expectations of developing the projects for the team were seriously hampered by not being able to hold any conversations with the national counterparts.
  • The programme team being present in Nairobi and not in Mogadishu meant that they were less in touch with the reality of their field.
  • The civil society is a very week and fragmented structure that was unable to play a proactive participatory role in their country’s processes managed from Nairobi.
  • The UN office for Somalia has its networks of senior political and military Somali representatives to endorse the objectives they come up with for Somalia, but this is a sporadic process that is inconsistent and not enough for ensuring local ownership. 

• It may be that the proposed approach to the continuation of the project (remote support once first drafts have been discussed with Somali counterparts) will somewhat overcome this challenge. 

• Lack of a MoU between donor and host government creates difficulties in fostering local ownership. This gap reinforces the absence of an overarching vision that the host government and the donor government share and own.
• Lack of process management capacities and skills on the Sudanese part which could help them in their strategic planning and reporting on milestones
• Sudanese counterparts were not aware of the mission.
• The current programme is very much supply-driven whereas the team was trying to design something that took into account the demand side of security sector transformation, i.e. the needs of the people of South Sudan. There was a continuous need to remind ourselves and colleagues of this aspect. 

• Once logistics and availability overcome, local contacts across the security and justice sector very open and helpful (and frank) in their dealings with the team.

• A MoU is a concrete milestone that reflects ownership of all programmes and engagements by both parties.
• Try to get donors to engage in an organised manner where there are likely to be several visits that need to speak to the same range of local contacts to avoid interview fatigue
• South Sudan needs support to reinforce their process management skills
• Better pre-planning (or more time to pre-plan) would allow for a more co-ordinated or sequenced approach to engagement with host nation contacts.

- The report is the result of the work of a local NGO of Security Sector issues and therefore has credibility.

- This assessment report needs follow-up:more in-depth interviews and  more input from the parliament.

- Excellent. This seminar originated as a request by the Assembly Commitee. Local ownership was built in from the start.

-  Include national institutions in assessment process, build local ownership: More could have been done to integrate the police and justice institutions into the process of reviewing and identifying key areas of support. This would have reinforced some of the principles on alignment within the Paris Declaration. 

-  Include national experts on the team: Having someone on the team from the country (civil society) which in an in-depth knowledge of the context and the security sector is invaluable. 

-  Assessment etc should be a partnership with national institutions, agree ToRs upfront: Likewise, having input from, and agreement with, the government on the ToRs beforehand could have facilitated the process, helping with access of information and individuals within the police and justice sectors. 

- While Guinea was certainly in a difficult political situation it was possible to involve Guineans more than they were.  It was frustrating to note that the critical dimension of local ownership was not kept in mind constantly (certainly not initially) in most decisions during the assessment process.

- Toward the end of the mission a better job was done during the validation phase of the mission to make local ownership a deliberate aim of the mission.

- I will help to involve as many stakeholders as possible, at the inception of the mission.

- A big problem for the sustainability and follow-up was the total absence of Members of the Assemby at the course. While they may not be the ones that need technical knowledge, the drive for starting an SSR proces in Armenia should come from them.

- Probably DCAF underestimated the aspects of Armenian political culture where the security sector is still perceived by the legislative as an exclusive domain of the executive level (government, more precisely the President). In order to improve the climate in Armenia for an SSR proces, future activities need to focus on that mentality and give alternative information on why SSR should indeed be an issue for the legislative branch.

- The openness of the project raised expectations of contracts among some potential implementing parties, who became more proactive in their engagement. In future, this could be mitigated by including a short outline of the process to select implementing parties, including no-earlier-than timelines and the selection framework. 

- The idea of an Albanian Project Leader was formalised within the MoU.

- The process was totally transparent from the outset, this widened the Albanian ownership of the design process and initiated momentum and support for the project among stakeholders.

- Teams should take the role of  ‘facilitators’ or ‘translators of needs’, rather than experts or consultants, and steer the process rather than lead it.

- Nominated representatives from national ministries must be selected appropriately. Over and above having the relevant skills (these can be developed during the process), the person(s) must have sufficient time in their schedule to contribute and influence.

- Factor in as many ways as possible to capture and incorporate the views of citizens and recognise that some methods may not be appropriate to all audiences.

- Aim for total transparency throughout the process, but be aware that this will increase the time needed and you may need to manage expectations among potential local implementing parties more proactively and limit undue influence.

• Ownership of programme staff: In theory, the Steering Committees of this programme (Political Committee and high-level Technical Committee) should have led this exercise. However, in reality, the Political Committee met only twice since the beginning of the programme (representation is at level of Ministers who are rarely available) and the Technical Committee (Burundians and programme staff) were not interested enough by this initiative. As a result the Dutch Embassy drove this evaluation. This fact is not however indicative of the national ownership levels for the programme. The Steering Committees and the level of representation were ineffective due to their flawed conception. 
• Ownership of local stakeholders: See comments on Burundian team members’ contribution under methodology. 

• Ownership of programme staff: Involve steering committees.
• Ownership of local stakeholders: See recommendations on Burundian team members’ contribution under methodology

• Currently, the PCP do not fully grasp yet the concept and benefits of a central complaints recording system, and as a consequence work needs to be undertaken with the specific departments and a smaller focus group representing all the policy makers to bring the concept together

• Achieving the workshop’s objectives was broadly and visibly supported by local experts and facilitators, as well as by civil society actors and senior Palestinian National Authority officials.
• Throughout the program the objective of engaging the PCP to strengthen its own accountability framework, to the benefit of the wider community, was communicated repeatedly.

• Any workshop or event with the objective of introducing international good practice should always start off with the assumption that if any adjustments are to be made, they should be made by the nationals themselves.

• The request for this training mission was a product of communication between ISSAT and the Rwanda Peace Academy (RPA);
• RPA took responsibility for some sessions, but there was not enough time to discuss those with them in terms of content and facilitators;

• RPA sessions, especially the ones in week 1 with a Rwandan focus, were an important added value to the training;

• For creating a relationship and getting a concrete idea of the local situation and needs, it is important to visit the stakeholders directly, if and when possible;

• Military mindset on local ownership: The military mindset in terms of local ownership was very rigid. This Ministry is used to an approach whereby, it gets its directives from the diplomatic or political wing and it would arrange for implementation of these directives.  In their military capacity, they work quickly from purpose to plan, limiting the imperatives of a locally-owned SSR processes. 

• How representative the official partners are ?:  The mission team made sure that they met with people representing each relevant Ministry; however, they met with highly educated, extremely knowledgeable officials that were not completely representative of the whole institution, even less the south Sudanese population.

• Commitment of donor country: ISSAT Policy Advisor  had to raise the importance of this several times but it was agreed upon as being essential. Norway managed to give the message that it aims at local ownership to RSS MOD and the international actors.The courtesy call to the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Defence was a strong message that Norway intended to work along the Sudanese priorities since day one. 

• Positive relations between Norway and the Sudanese MoD: the positive constructive history of engagement that Norway had with the GoSS, was very encouraging for both parties to exchange on a level of mutual confidence and respect, necessary for nurturing local ownership. From the Norwegian side, big programmes were already running in the country which served as an expression of serious and positive intentions for involvement.From the South Sudanese side, a team of technical people were very well prepared to present a thorough and coherent vision of the reform that the Ministry of Defence put forward.

• Report writing: It was agreed since the offset that the donor team would write the report for this mission, this an important point to reinforce the fact that ISSAT supports but does not replace team capacity.

• Including a Focal Point for Local Ownership within the team: Tasks within the team were distributed on activity level but also on thematic level. A person within the team was chosen to be the lead on local ownership; this meant that there would be always someone monitoring the work of the team from that perspective.

• Military mindset on local ownership: The military mindset in terms of local ownership was very rigid. This Ministry is used to an approach whereby, it gets its directives from the diplomatic or political wing and it would arrange for implementation of these directives.  In their military capacity, they work quickly from purpose to plan, limiting the imperatives of a locally-owned SSR processes.

• The representativeness of the official partners:  The mission team made sure that they met with people representing each relevant Ministry; however, they met with highly educated, extremely knowledgeable officials that were not completely representative of the whole institution, even less the south Sudanese population.

• Commitment of donor country: ISSAT PA  had to raise the importance of this several times but it was agreed upon as being essential. Norway managed to give the message that it aims at local ownership to RSS MOD and the international actors. The courtesy call to the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Defence was a strong message that Norway intended to work along the Sudanese priorities since day one.

• Positive relations between Norway and the Sudanese MoD: the positive constructive history of engagement that Norway had with the GoSS, was very encouraging for both parties to exchange on a level of mutual confidence and respect, necessary for nurturing local ownership. From the Norwegian side, big programmes were already running in the country which served as an expression of serious and positive intentions for involvement. From the South Sudanese side, a team of technical people were very well prepared to present a thorough and coherent vision of the reform that the Ministry of Defence put forward.

• Report writing: It was agreed since the offset that the donor team would write the report for this mission, this an important point to reinforce the fact that ISSAT supports but does not replace team capacity.

• Including a Focal Point for Local Ownership within the team: Tasks within the team were distributed on activity level but also on thematic level. A person within the team was chosen to be the lead on local ownership; this meant that there would be always someone monitoring the work of the team from that perspective.

Confirmation that participants expectations have been met: 

• Expectations and ‘Parking Lot’ content were not returned to at end of training
• Only 30 minutes were allotted in final session for participant feedback, certificates, and closing remarks. More time needs to be allocated for these subjects

• Mandator’s ownership of training’s objectives: ISSAT did not take responsibility for discussing recommendations produced in the training and how to take this forward. This was undertaken by the AfDB.
• Engagement levels and ownership of outputs: Participants were highly engaged, feeling their inputs were valued and that they owned the outputs of the training.
• Participation numbers and seniority: Training was opened by senior AfDB officials to add levity. Also  the high degree of participation by the Swiss was significant in strngthening ownership.

• Confirm participants’ expectations: Teams should build in time to address the different issues highlighted by trainees and have a ‘strategy’ on how to deal with issues that go beyond the scope of the mission/training. Also teams should avoid the tendency to put something on the parking lot because it is awkward to answer, rather than because it will naturally come up in a later session.
• Necessity of a TNA: Proper TNA would have allowed better training tailoring and thus improved sense of ownership through discussion and correlating training to AfDB objectives.
• Usage of experiences contributed by participants: Make sure to capture examples from audience for future references.

• Local Initiative Creates Political Will: The project was requested and designed by Fundasaun Mahein, establishing a very high commitment to participation.
• Providing sustainability to previous interventions: This initiative builds on previous work and provides continuity to the intervention that resulted in the translation of laws into Tetun.

Local Representation on Team: It would have been good to have a DRC member of the team, preferably a lawyer in this case to input more contextual knowledge.

Organisation Representation: Throughout the mission local authorities from the highest level to the lowest level were consulted. This included among others: the office of the minister, chief military justice, head of prosecution services of military justice, defence lawyers, investigators and civil society organisations.

A final feedback on main mission findings was organised with main representatives of national stakeholders.

Explicit Local Ownership in ToRs: ToR could mention the necessity for the mandator to ideally validate findings and share report with a broad range of stakeholders.

• Getting national buy-in of new approaches/tools : One of the challenges faced by this mission was getting national buy-in by the national partners in regards to the new ideas and approaches that were being proposed, first because, they were unfamiliar to their ways of managing things and second because of their lacking of the specific capacities needed to manage the new approaches.
• Approach: On certain issues, the approach used by the team to present new tools was impacted by time constraints. The tools were designed on the field after full understanding of context and based on previous drafts done by the concerned parties and then presented to the Committee for comments, discussing whether they were suitable to their needs and highlighting entry points for adaptation as they see fit. A better approach would have been to design them with the national partners during joint working sessions with a capacity development and coaching methodology.
• International partners’ agendas: Multilateral and bilateral partners’ agendas and priorities are closely linked with HQ’s policies rather than the field’s needs, which can result in misplaced priorities.

• Local needs as point of departure: Even though departing from Geneva with tools and frameworks ready for use, once on the field the mission largely spent enough time to gather knowledge and sensitivity to the context and used the local needs as point of departure linking international standards and practices only when relevant.
• Continuous dialogue: Continuous discussion by ways of diplomacy on high level and several exchanges and coaching on field level
• SSR Awareness-raising sessions: It was a recommendation from the mission that both national and international actors follow  learning and awareness-raising sessions to harmonize understanding and expectations between the two, as well as, between the international organisations and their HQs.

• Sensitization and training since the start: the SSR process in Guinea would have benefited greatly from training and awareness raising activities on SSR earlier on, well before preparations for the seminar had started in order to create continuity. The fact that this has not been done right after the assessment, the frustration of international partners and the limited capacity of national actors with respect to high expectations from internationals has negatively impacted the process.
• Dedicated capacity for sustainability of mission impact: A dedicated capacity on governance within UNDP is needed to sustain the results of the mission and work on them with Guinean counterparts.
• Programme Process: There should have been more time between the development of action plans and the national seminar
• Historical background: Time should be invested in studying what has happened before intervention. Even if previous history was of bad, insufficient or unsuccessful impact, results should be taken into consideration. Awareness of local partners should be raised as to how the current intervention fits into what has been done and what still remains to be done. Partners need to see the added value of current activities as opposed to mere duplication of efforts.

Integrating Concepts Mid-Workflow: The workshops took place after the action plans for the military and the police had been written. For internationals external to the programme to come in after the fact to recommend new concepts for inclusion can come across as critical of national efforts and undermine local ownership. A very good communication strategy amongst the team, coupled with strong high level political support, is needed to mitigate the negative impacts of coming in late.

Partnering and Transferring Responsibility: The overall structure of the eight-year programme is designed to start with a shared responsibility between the Dutch and the Burundians, and progressively have the Dutch play more of a technical advisory role.

National Coordinator: The Burundian co-coordinator of the programme is very competent and has good relationships with both the Ministers of Interior and Defence. This allowed the programme to have substantive impact.

Locals Matter to Reviews: Without local actors being part of a review, a complete picture of programme impact cannot truly be developed.

Inclusion of Local Partners: The future mission should include in the methodology an explicit focus on local ownership. A Congolese expert should be added to the team, not as a fixer but as a full expert.

• Lack of political will and engagement, leaving the peace process and its affiliated activities in a stalmate
• Separation of the Country into three dinstinct parts (North, South and the Zone of Confidence (ZOC)
• Lack of interest on the part of our partners for a real change
• Politicisation of security forces
• Instability in the country
• Recurrent public disorder and violent manifestations
• Diversified and uncontrolled power groups

• Joint International cooperation to rehabilitate police stations in the north (EU and UNPOL)
• International-national efforts: Joint UN (UNDP - UNPOL) and national actors' (Programme National de Désarmement, de Démobilisation et de Réinsertion PNDDR) efforts to develop a temporary training center for the 600 security auxiliaries

• SSR as a holistic process: Even if UNPOL were responsible to assist the security forces in restructuring,SSR as a whole was not considered. Had there been more actors involved up front, it would have generated larger involvement and activities would have been prioritised. Hence reform in good governance, as well as other areas might have been undertaken first.

• Instability in the country
• Recurrent public disorder and violent manifestations
• Endemic insecurity, organised crime activities and increased violence due to political instability

• Good communication and coordination among international actors lead to improving the relationship and the trust with the local actors who could not play anymore one against the other 

• The MICAH  mission took too long to really strart and its lifespan was too short hence limiting its real impact on reform and restructuring of the Haitian rule of law actors

• It proved impossible to foster comprehensive and inclusive local ownership of the intelligence review. The heads of the intelligence services were largely hostile to the required reforms; the parliamentary oversight committee was conservative, deferential to the executive and thus reluctant to play a critical role; and civil society was not sufficiently interested in intelligence reform. Ownership of the process and the commission's findings resided principally with the intelligence minister who established the commission but his successor was not reform minded and shelved the report. 

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• Putting the security of citizens first: It is too soon to assess the level of local ownership of this project. However small the first findings, it does not appear as the development of local ownership, as it encompasses public and national security needs, will be a challenge moving forward.  The project must manage the political delicacies of a post-conflict state to ensure that the end result is a police force that does not retain or expand its previous oppressive role.

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• Securing local ownership will be a challenge for this program (if and when it gets funded). All the organizations competing for this bid sent missions to meet with parliament as part of their preparation to submit proposals; parliament was saturated with missions and knows they will receive assistance irrespective of who will win the bid. Consequently, the institution may not have as strong an incentive to engage and participate in the forthcoming program.

• The team explicitly sought input from members of parliament and the permanent secretariat on priority areas of assistance. The team did not solicit feedback on what parliament wanted/needed, but rather what parliament was hoping to achieve over the course of the next few years. The team also explored what types of assistance programs had worked in the past in framing programming for the future.

• Competition to win this parliamentary strengthening bid is intense; any advantage could be important. One  advantage for our team was the existing relationships I had with many of the members and staff; having someone on the team who has direct personal relationships (in a context where relationships matter a great deal) helps distinguish this organization from others. Even if I do not work on the proposal myself, I think the team was looked on favorably by having someone many people knew.

• This mission did a poor job of fostering local ownership for the community policing proposal. We had one meeting with the person responsible for community policing, but otherwise only consulted the organization's staff. While the proposal was well developed, they missed a golden opportunity to consult more widely and bring on board the beneficiaries of the program.
• For the regional proposal, some internet research was conducted on what programs already existed in this area. A couple of organizations were contacted, but ultimately little effort was put into this. The potential beneficiaries/participants in the program, however, were not contacted or consulted, leaving local ownership for program implementation.

• For the community policing proposal, a number of meetings were held with expats familiar with community policing, and who could inform us about other international assistance programs underway.

• Although the team had a well developed idea for the proposal, the process would certainly have benefited from additional consultations and feedback from national stakeholders.
• The regional proposal was much more difficult to solicit input from national stakeholders, given that it was a multi-country program across Asia. Staff in country offices could have been more actively engaged to reach out to national stakeholders for input and feedback on the proposal.

• Local scepticism: Emerging from the international isolation of the apartheid era, civil society groups and the new government did not have extensive policy expertise regarding defence matters. The apartheid-era senior officers had a high level of expertise but they were not progressive and they were ambivalent about democratic civil-military relations.

• Active and on-going national dialogue: South Africa's negotiations to end apartheid and design a new democratic dispensation were inclusive, participatory and driven exclusively by South Africans. Consequently, it was not very difficult to ensure broad consultation and local ownership regarding the White Paper on Defence. The Deputy Minister of Defence was the champion of inclusive consultations that encompassed civil society and he convinced the Minister that the final output would be more legitimate as a result.
  The absence of expertise was addressed through research; study visits to other countries; partnerships with foreign organizations and academics; and numerous workshops and conferences with local and foreign participants.

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• Assigning implementation over to a national counterpart (National commission on DDR) was a successful attempt at achieving local ownership.

• Challenges of Local ownership: Sometimes the national implementing agency doesn't exactly behave as the international donors and/or partners would have liked. this is one disadvantage that needs to be dealt with as a price to foster local ownership. A balance between the two should be found.

• Building local ownership: Projects should seek national adoption of the activities. Even though every project has its agenda and objectives to achieve, organizations should be realistic about they operate in and strive towards building local legitimacy. They need to understand fully the context and their project staff should be based full time on the field.

• Political challenges: The political risks of the process - having opposition parties use results for discrediting the Government - was a serious challenge. By keeping the study at a technical level, while informing and preparing the Government at the highest level, focus could be kept on the long term gains of understanding the challenges of preventing and resolving homicides.

• National ownership: Ownership of the process, by political  necessity and for the sake of effectiveness, rested from start to end with the Government of Guatemala. National ownership was, to a large extent, safeguarded through the close collaboration with the three key state institutions relevant for the issue area: the Judicial Organism, the Public Ministry and the Ministry of Governance. In analysing the empirical findings there was a continuous exchange of information with representatives of these institutions and co-analysis of possible conclusions. Thus, the project was a catalyst for a national process.

• Action plan: Even more emphasis could have been placed on policy options, options for action, as for national stakeholders to more clearly see the opportunities aside from the tremendous challenges.

• Capacity level: The capacity level (financial & human resources) of the DGMMA Technical Working Group and the SPLA overall are an ongoing issue for the development of the DGMMA, resulting in heavy reliance on international donors.
• Conflicts in interest: Although local ownership needs to be respected, compromises need to be found to make these expectations manageable. DGMMA wants to make referendum security a priority in quick short course roll out, however a national referendum security strategy has not been developed yet that would guide the role of military. In addition, the DGMMA wants military operational effectiveness to be a priority which cannot be supported by the Swiss.

• Political will: High level of political will to develop the DGMMA helps move the project forward.
• Working relationship: A balance was achieved through establishing a level of trust and mutual respect between the two parties. The experts gave advice and suggested where to go with the curriculum, but did not push the way forward, while the Technical Working Group led on vision and reflected on the inputs of the experts. Although the Technical Working Group wanted substantive guidance on developing the curriculum from international experts, they led the discussion on content and made all final decisions.

• Balance relationship: To improve balance of input by experts and TWG, breaking up the curriculum development would be useful.
• Give time to learn: The Technical Working Group may have felt more comfortable and informed on making their decisions, if more time was accorded to ameliorate their learning curve as a result of the large amount of new information during the workshop.
• Realistic targets: Some of the action plan in developing the DGMMA overall may want to be reviewed so that targets are not too ambitious and outside of the reach of the SPLA.