STRENGTHENING DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT (SDGAP) IN SRI LANKA
QUARTERLY REPORT
JULY 1, 2018- SEPTEMBER 30, 2018
CONTRACT: AID-OAA-1-12-00003
ORDER: AID-383-TO-16-00002
StrengtheningOctober 30, 2018 Democratic
Governance and Accountability P roject (SDGAP) in Sri Lanka This document was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by DAI. USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT
Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability Project (SDGAP) in Sri Lanka QUARTERLY REPORT JULY 1, 2018- SEPTEMBER 30, 2018
Program Title: Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability Project (SDGAP) in Sri Lanka
Sponsoring USAID Office: USAID/Sri Lanka & Maldives
Contract Number: AID-OAA-I-12-00003
Contractor: DAI
Date of Publication: September 30, 2018
Authors: DAI Staff
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACRONYMS ...... 5
PROGRAM OVERVIEW ...... 7
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS ...... 8
PROGRESS IN ACHIEVING CONTRACT DELIVERABLES ...... 10
SUMMARY OF PROGRESS ...... 11
TASK 1: STRENGTHENING PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS ...... 11
SDGAP’S PUBLIC FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT (PFM) REFORM TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE ...... 14
TASK 2: IMPROVING STRATEGIC PLANNING AND COMMUNICATION, POLICY REFORM AND IMPLEMENTATION PROCESSES ...... 17
TASK 3: INCREASING POLITICAL PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN AND UNDER REPRESENTED GROUPS IN DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE...... 22
GRANTS ...... 26
CHALLENGES AND REMEDIAL ACTIONS ...... 29
ACTIVITY MONITORING, EVALUATION and LEARNING PLAN (AMELP) ...... 29
CLA ...... 32
FINANCE AND OPERATIONS ...... 33
PLANS FOR QUARTER 1, YEAR 3 ...... 37
ANNEX 1 – RESULTS SUMMARY ...... 39
SDGAP PERFORMANCE MONITORING INDICATORS, YEAR 2, QUARTER 4, JULY- SEPTEMBER 2018 ...... 39
SDGAP Results Framework Indicators (19) ...... 39
ANNEX 2 – PROJECT ORGANIZATIONAL CHART ...... 51
ANNEX 3 – SUCCESS STORY ...... 52
ACRONYMS
ADB Asian Development Bank AESF Asian Electoral Stakeholders’ Forum AGDSL Auditor General’s Department of Sri Lanka AFRIEL Association of Friendship and Love AWAW Association of War Affected Women CLA Collaborating, Learning, Adapting CIABOC Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption COPA Committee on Public Accounts COPE Committee on Public Enterprises COPF Committee on Public Finance CPA Center for Policy Alternatives DPMM Department of Project Management and Monitoring GOPAC Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption GRB Gender Responsive Budgeting ICT Information and Communications Technology IPDET International Program for Development Evaluation Training IRBMS Integrated Results Based Management Systems IQC Indefinite Quantity Contract JO Joint Opposition JSAC Jaffna Social Action Center MELP Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Plan MMDA Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act MNPEA Ministry of National Planning and Economic Affairs MOIC Ministry of Industry and Commerce MOPA Ministry of Public Administration and Management MOWCA Ministry of Women and Child Affairs MPRMM Ministry of Parliamentary Reform and Mass Media MSDW Ministry of Sustainable Development and Wildlife MWRAF Muslim Women’s Research Action Forum NAO National Audit Office NAP National Action Plan NAPCC National Action Plan for Combatting Corruption NBD National Budget Department NEP National Evaluation Policy NMO New Member Orientation NPC National Police Commission NPC National Procurement Commission OGP Open Government Partnership PAFFREL People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections PBO Parliamentary Budget Office PFC Public Finance Committee PFM Public Finance Management PSC Public Service Commission PPP Public Private Partnerships RTI Right to Information
RTIC Right to Information Commission SCORE Social Cohesion and Reconciliation SDG Sustainable Development Goals SDGAP Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability Project SG Secretary General SLFP Sri Lanka Freedom Party SLIDA Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administrators SLILG Sri Lanka Institute of Local Governance SLPFE Sri Lanka Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation SLPI Sri Lanka Press Institute SO Standing Orders SOC Sectoral Oversight Committee SOCLAM Sectoral Oversight Committee on Legal Affairs and Media SOCWG Sectoral Oversight Committee on Women and Gender TAMIS Technical and Administrative Management Information System TBD To Be Determined TISL Transparency International Sri Lanka TNA Tamil National Alliance UN United Nations
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Good governance is a continuous challenge for post-conflict states such as Sri Lanka and yet a fundamental pillar of strengthening democratic reform. The current coalition government’s already shaky alliance further threatens this state of affairs owing to internal fissures, a loss of public support and halting progress in its overall promises to move the democratic governance agenda forward.
The local government elections held in February demonstrated a lack of confidence in the current ruling coalition. Since the election, the government has struggled to improve its public perception as exemplified in the results of SDGAP’s perception survey. The Provincial Council elections now face an extended delay, owing to the rejection of the delimitation report by Parliament in late August. The reasons cited for its rejection are multi-fold; ranging from objections raised by critics regarding the use of the new electoral systems, its lack of clarity, failure to represent minority communities, to shortcomings in the demarcations of the wards and the delay in the passing of the new constitution which would have given the provincial councils more meaningful power to govern themselves.
A delimitation review committee has since been appointed by the Speaker and chaired by the Prime Minister, under whose responsibility this process now lies. Based on this current timeline, reports indicate that if and when the President gazettes the delimitation report in late October or early November, the Elections Commission could then possibly hold Provincial Council elections in either late January or early February 2019. The Prime Minister has made assurances that steps would be taken to avoid any loop holes that might delay the polls further.
In addition, this fragile governing alliance coupled with a lack of confidence in the current coalition seems to be only increasing due to events such as the suspension of members of Parliament owing to their violation of the code of conduct of Parliamentarians, the reshuffling of Ministers owing to several members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) having defected to the Joint Opposition, and the request for a change of the Opposition leader, among others.
The Speaker however, announced that there will be no change and that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA leader, R. Sampanthan would remain the leader of the opposition on the grounds that doing so would violate Parliament’s standing orders. The joint opposition (JO), however, has raised concerns over the decision and insisted that it be reconsidered as it feels the ruling was unfair and that the current leader cannot function in his capacity, given the lack of his impartiality as he and his party, the TNA support the Prime Minister.
On the other hand progress, while slow, has been made in other areas. One being through the passing of the National Audit Bill, a key pledge of good governance by the coalition government but which was supposed to have been adopted within the first 100 days of having come into power. The National Audit Commission, one of the independent commissions in the 19th amendment will be established under this bill. Sri Lanka, as a nation is also making progress in terms of combatting and preventing corruption.
The Special High Court set up to try cases related to special offences, including corruption was operationalized this quarter. Approximately 100 state attorneys are to be recruited to fast track the
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT process through this special court. More recently, civil society members of what is better known as the March 12th movement including PAFFREL, Right to Life, Federation of University Teachers' Associations, Sarvodaya, and the Sanasa Movement met with the Speaker of Parliament to request that a transparent system be adopted when appointing the three members from civil society to the Constitutional Council. Under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, the Constitutional Council is responsible for appointing members to the independent commissions such as the bribery commission and election commission. PAFFREL and Sarvodaya are SDGAP grantees and their role in interventions such as this are critical elements of strengthening accountability through increased engagement and participation in government oversight.
SDGAP recognizes the progress being made, despite the challenges present and continues its work amid these constant political fluctuations, changing roles and responsibilities, uneasy alliances and the threat of the very real possibility of the previous regime coming into power. Its work is now even more important than ever, given that the Project now completes its second year of operations and moves into its final year of ensuring that it not only achieves its expected outcomes but also creates sustainable mechanisms that will contribute to democratic reform, free of political bias, beyond its lifetime. PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS In Year 2, SDGAP has focused on investing in its partnerships and those partners who are not only critical to achieving its expected results but who also have both the clout and willingness to continue its work. Capacity strengthening and facilitating interventions among key stakeholder groups, from varying levels of government to civil society are also a key part of project design that contribute to not only its activities but also its overall success.
Provided below are some highlights and achievements during the quarter with a focus on the project’s key result areas:
Reinforcing evaluation as a pillar of good governance by bringing global Parliamentarians together through EvalColombo 2018 EvalColombo 2018 is a significant milestone in Sri Lanka’s history as a post-conflict state moving towards a sustained democracy as it was the first time that such an event took place in Colombo. It was the first time that more than 100 parliamentarians from 70 countries came together to promote a culture of evaluation that reaffirms and reinforces the importance of using evidence as part of policymaking, oversight and overall good governance. The President of Sri Lanka, Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament all attended the event on the day of its inauguration. In total, over 200 international delegates including parliamentarians from 70 countries, UN representatives, representatives of the donor community, academics, researchers and practitioners. SDGAP’s role in supporting global events such as this contribute not only to its aligned focus on evaluation but also to facilitating strategic communication among varying levels of the Government of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is the first country in the South Asian region to introduce a National Evaluation Policy (NEP), which was launched as part of the forum, at an event held at the Prime Minister’s residence. SDGAP played a key role in providing technical support towards the development of the National Evaluation Policy by working closely with the Department of Project Management and Monitoring (DPMM).
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT OGP 2nd National Action Plan Commitment towards the development of the 2nd National Action Plan (NAP) was initially lacking and thus delayed its overall progress. There has been progress since the last quarter however, given that responsibility for the OGP now lies with the Presidential Secretariat. SDGAP seized this opportunity and supported the finalization of the 2nd OGP National Action Plan through its work with civil society, through its grantee Transparency International Sri Lanka- one of the key proponents of this initiative and its support to the Executive through the Presidential Secretariat. SDGAP, together with TISL facilitated a series of 9 participatory consultations representative of the 9 provinces; the final 3 of which were held during the quarter. The inputs from these consultations were organized into thematic areas that would be included in the finalized draft which will be submitted to Cabinet for approval in mid-October.
Facilitating a consultative process for the National Action Plan for Combatting Corruption (NAPCC) SDGAP has supported the Commission to investigate allegations of bribery or corruption (CIABOC) while conducting a series of consultations with various stakeholder groups to solicit input into the first ever NAPCC for Sri Lanka. The Project also assisted CIABOC with strategies for prevention and technical support with the inclusion of active disclosure.
Strengthening independent commissions: operationalizing the Right to Information Act The success of the RTI Act is based on both public awareness of its existence and the capacity of the RTIC to process appeals and conclude cases based on the complaints received. Within this last quarter alone, the RTIC received a total of 254 complaints contributing to a total of 1175 complaints received since January 2018. Through the technical support provided to the commission through various consultancies, the processing rate of appeals is now almost 64% owing to a total of 109 cases processed in this quarter alone.
Increased engagement of women and underrepresented groups with government decision makers A series of 6 facilitated policy dialogues on 12 specific issues by SDGAP in partnership with the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus and the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Women and Gender (SOCWG) has led to an increased engagement of women and under-represented groups with government decision makers, including Parliamentarians. One of the many results this quarter in terms of an effective outcomes for example is the circular issued by Director General of Health Services condemning female circumcision due to a request by the SOCWG which has identified the procedure as harmful and initiated processes to abolish its practice in Sri Lanka. SDGAP facilitated a series of consultations to support the committee with managing this process, including through one of its grant mechanisms with the Muslim Women’s Research Action Forum (MWRAF).
Targeted Public Finance Management (PFM) reforms SDGAP, at the request of USAID has integrated a series of PFM activities into its portfolio of activities and extended its range of partners. SDGAP provided targeted trainings and technical assistance with various groups including COPE, COPA, the Auditor General’s Office and the National Procurement Commission, building on successful PFM reforms in Sri Lanka in the areas of procurement, audit, and public private partnerships (PPPs).
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT Spearheading electoral reform The Project formed a civil society review committee with support from two of its civil society grantees- PAFFREL and CPA. The committee addressed four specific areas of reform with regards to the existing electoral act. In addition to support to the convening of such a committee, SDGAP also facilitated four stakeholder consultations which included participants from political parties, academia, civil society, local government authorities and so forth. Committee members then finalized the recommendations report to be handed over to (1) Party Leaders, (2) the Speaker and SG of Parliament and the (3) Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government and the (4) Elections Commission.
The committee also expects to meet the Speaker of Parliament. Suggested electoral reforms include strengthening the quota system at provincial council elections as well and lessons learned from the local government elections held in February this year. The importance of initiatives such as this is also further strengthened through support from members of Parliament. For instance, the Minister of Sports and Provincial councils – Faiszer Musthapha, acknowledged the support provided by the civil society review committee spearheaded by SDGAP. Please refer link http://www.parliament.lk/en/business-of- parliament/webcast/parliament-live-on-demand?view=vod from minute 43.20 onwards.
PROGRESS IN ACHIEVING CONTRACT DELIVERABLES The table below describes the Project Deliverables, due dates and dates of SDGAP submission to USAID: Deliverable Due Date Date of Submission Quarterly Progress and Financial 30 days after the end of each 1/30/2018 Report quarter 4/30/2018 7/30/2018 10/30/2018 Weekly Updates Every Monday 12:00 PM Submitted Weekly Annual Work Plan 30 days after completion year 2 11/4/18 Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning 30 days after completion year 2 11/4/16 Plan Branding and Marking Plan Within 30 days of award Submitted Communications Plan Within 30 days of award Submitted Success Stories 30 days after the end of each Submitted with this quarter report
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT SUMMARY OF PROGRESS
TASK 1: STRENGTHENING PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS
FIGURE 1: AREAS OF STRATEGIC FOCUS- TASK 1.
Strengthening oversight is an equally important function of the Project’s work which contributes to both accountability and good governance. While SDGAP contributes to this in a number of ways through its various result areas, this quarter, there was increased momentum on this effort through its work with select sectoral oversight committees (SOCs) including the SOCWG and the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Legal Affairs and Media (SOCLAM), where the facilitation of several consultations have led to the approval of standing orders which open up these committee meetings to civil society and the public. In addition, SDGAP will continue to focus on key stakeholders such as COPE, COPA and the PFC through its PFM lens where it provides technical support to the various areas of audit and procurement, through a series of trainings by SDGAP’s experts thereby strengthening public financial accountability by building the internal knowledge and capacity of staff across these institutions. The Project also supported the Parliamentary Committee on Communal and Religious Harmony in Sri Lanka to conduct an interactive dialogue on reconciliation. Through its support to this event, SDGAP facilitated a transition of this activity to another USAID funded project – SCORE which has the exclusive mandate on the implementation of activities related to reconciliation.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT
Enhancing civic knowledge is also a fundamental aspect of empowering and encouraging active participation in decision making. In this regard SDGAP works with several training institutions such as SLIDA. SLIDA is the primary training facility of the state. SDGAP therefore, worked in partnership with SLIDA to organize a series of three training programs for more than 100 class 1 officials from the state service to build their capacity of state officials on strategic management and communication to promote greater accountability through a culture of information sharing. This is one of many instances where the Project works closely with Parliament, including the Office of the President in facilitating processes that strengthen the capacity of civil servants.
Highly technical topics such as economic growth; regional economic trends; role of public sector in leveraging global opportunities; foreign direct investment; and effective communication in translating policy papers to cabinet memoranda were also part of the agenda for this series of trainings. More than 100 staff from the civil services have been trained through this series on the importance of upholding the overarching principles of transparency and accountability that contribute to good governance. The final workshop in this series of three programs was held in August with significant attendance from state level officials nationwide, whose active participation could especially be seen during the session on drafting cabinet memoranda. The willingness and engagement of participants in training initiatives such as this is what contributes to the legacy that the Project expects to leave behind as it moves into its final year of operations.
Ensuring the successful operationalization and implementation of the RTI Act is another critical area of work to which SDGAP contributes. This in an area where the RTIC needs assistance, as could especially be seen during the events at RTI week as well. Supporting the Commission with this area enhances the efficiency of RTI services to the public. During this quarter, the Project has heavily focused on the provision of technical support to the RTI Commission in terms of both research and translation, as the success of RTI also heavily depends on the public’s access to information, and availability and access in local languages is therefore paramount. This type and level of technical support means that applications made by citizens will receive timely responses, thereby ensuring less frustration and a more positive perception of the RTIC as the number of appeals are increasing given greater awareness of both RTI and the RTIC. RTI week took place in September and the Project played a significant role through its collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and Mass media (MoFMM). Internationally renowned RTI activist Aruna Roy participated in the event. Supported by SDGAP, her presence added an international aspect to the events and related content. Another aspect of events such as this is the opportunity to facilitate interactions among high-level government members such as the Speaker, Ministers, Departmental heads, with the citizen accountability arm such as civil society and the media.
SDGAP also continues its partnership with CIABOC in its role as the sole technical support agency for the development of the National Action Plan for Combatting Corruption (NAPCC). To-date, the Project has supported CIABOC with regional and special consultations around the country. SDGAP also helped CIABOC convene four Working Committee meetings to review the various chapters of the NAPCC which is expected to be launched in the next quarter. This quarter saw the successful completion of 8 regional consultations island-wide with participation from government officials, media partners, civil society organizations, the private sector and the donor community. In total, SDGAP has supported 23
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT regional consultations and 4 discussions with SOCLAM. In addition, the Project has also provided technical assistance through both the deployment of international and national consultants to develop this policy document. This is a key initiative in ensuring a participatory process in developing the National Action plan and also creating awareness among various groups on the progress made in preventing corruption and bribery, including amendments to bribery and corruption laws. SDGAP has not only facilitated the implementation of these consultations through its partnership with CIABOC but also contributed to their design through its provision of technical support.
SDGAP does not only support CIABOC with consultations and technical expertise. The Project also provides a macro-level view of initiatives and links the important work conducted by these independent commissions to other wider initiatives that also contribute to Sri Lanka’s path to sustained democratic governance. An example of this can be seen through the prosecution guidelines shared with SDGAP. While the Attorney-General’s approval for the issuance of these guidelines is not a legal imperative, SDGAP’s holistic approach in the interest of whole of government engagement and strengthening partnerships, will include following up with this agency. Amendments to proposed anti-corruption laws have been identified as a key priority. A consultant placed by SDGAP to support the law review program has been working on research to bring about amendments to substantive areas of the CIABOC Act, the Bribery Act and the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Law.
The Project’s support in this key result area is not limited to independent commissions alone. SDGAP also works closely with Parliament to ensure the transfer of knowledge and strengthening of capacity across various levels of staff and departments. One piece of this overall initiatives is the organizing of international study tours that enable multi-party representatives to gain insight into processes of governance and best practices from other countries, which reinforces the collaborating, learning and adapting (CLA) framework that underpins SDGAP’s project design. Two study tours took place during this quarter; the first where the Secretary General of Parliament attended a short academic course at the Harvard Kennedy School and the second, where senior officials of Parliament attended a study tour to the Lok Sabha in New Delhi.
Strengthening key accountability institutions such as Parliament and independent commissions such as the Right to Information Commission (RTIC), the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption (CIABOC), the National Police Commission and more recently the National Procurement Commission is a means of ensuring sustainability through the reinforcement of institutional frameworks and capacity that will remain and function despite changing political regimes and other shocks.
SDGAP has also recently focused on developing a close working relationship with the National Procurement Commission as it has now also incorporated Public Finance Management (PFM) activities from the STAIR project and began a series of activities such as a training programs following the rapid assessment conducted in the previous quarter. Although a significant portion of their activities will contribute to results within Task 1, SDGAP’s three international PFM experts will provide PFM interventions across the project’s result areas as can be seen through the support provided to gender responsive budgeting interventions in collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs (MOWCA).
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT SDGAP’S PUBLIC FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT (PFM) REFORM TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
FIGURE 2: STAKEHOLDERS WHO RECEIVED PFM TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE DURING THE QUARTER.
SDGAP integrated PFM into its technical areas of assistance in the previous quarter. While the previous quarter laid the groundwork for the type of activities to be conducted and partners with whom to work, this quarter has focused on implementation. All PFM activities for the quarter focused on audit, procurement and PPP reforms. This approach aligns with the recommendations of the Assessment Report that was submitted to USAID in May 2018. Looking ahead, these recommendations will also be used to inform the work plan for SDGAP’s third year of operations.
During this quarter, the PFM team within SDGAP has primarily worked on providing technical assistance to three main partners, the National Audit Office, the Parliament of Sri Lanka and the National Procurement Commission, among those identified in the figure above.
Technical Assistance to the Parliament of Sri Lanka
SDGAP created a suite of knowledge transfer events to increase awareness of oversight Members of Parliament and related parliament staff. The seminars discussed how state owned enterprises (SOEs) should manage audits, procurement, and budget planning and execution. SDGAP also conducted a workshop that introduced members of parliament to basic public procurement and PPP concepts, in addition to the new National Procurement Guidelines. Assistance for Parliament for the remainder of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 will focus on improving capacity for budget oversight and more advanced procurement and PPP concepts.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT Technical Assistance to the National Audit Office (NAO)
One of the significant achievements with this partnership was that SDGAP’s Internal Audit Adviser was embedded at the NAO, and also granted office space. Meetings with the NAO’s Training Department revealed that a new department manager was appointed. He has indicated a desire to work with SDGAP, and a knowledge assessment was conducted and course design and development commenced. Coaching for the department also began. This included non-biased knowledge assessments, and helping the NAO develop competency assessment quizzes. These sessions were attended by all members of the department, including the Deputy Auditor General which demonstrates the Officer’s commitment to this initiative and willingness to use SDGAP’s technical expertise on this very relevant subject matter. A four-day Forensic Audit Training seminar was also conducted during the quarter. 50 staff members from the NAO attending the training seminar which provided comprehensive instruction on forensics; from the impact it has on audit field work through to the implications it has in adjudication matters of fraud.
Assistance to the NAO for the remainder of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 will focus on developing and presenting seminars on IT auditing and the application of computer assisted auditing techniques and tools. Continued coaching to the Training Department will be sustained through tests and regular and formal skill set evaluations.
Technical Assistance to the National Procurement Commission (NPC)
Activities at the NPC were driven by the new National Procurement Guidelines that were promulgated in 2018. As part of the technical support extended, SDGAP’s international PPP Adviser drafted a summary report, distributed to key stakeholders, which drew out the main points of the 300+ page guidelines. Areas of specific capacity building for the NPC included understanding the fundamentals of procurement, socializing the content of the new guidelines, understanding PPPs and procurement planning.
SDGAP reviewed the new PPP Guidelines and the NPC Five-year Strategic Plan and identified potential donor activity duplication with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB). These discussions led to a potential donor’s roundtable meeting to be held during the next quarter. The review also led to the identification of core areas of support that the NPC needs, including internal institutional capacity building, external capacity building and working with stakeholders (public and private sectors) to harmonize new procurement guidelines. SDGAP also prepared a communications strategy and plan for the NPC that is currently under review.
Assistance to the Commission for the remainder of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 will focus on internal procurement capacity building of the commission. The need for capacity building is driven by a number of factors that include new hires who know very little about procurement and existing employees who do not have procurement experience (estimated to be about 70%). Future capacity building workshops will therefore, focus on the fundamentals of procurement, procurement best practices, contract management, procurement ethics, and insight building of the new procurement guidelines. SDGAP will assist the NPC with capacity building of stakeholder government institutions once the internal procurement policy implementation capacity has been built.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT Activities with other stakeholders
The Project will continue its work not only with the above mentioned stakeholders but also others as it moves into the next quarter and beyond. Expected activities include the implementation of strategic workshops targeted at leadership within the NPC, Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MOIC) and the Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development on the fundamentals of public procurement. Other initiatives for this work stream in the upcoming quarter include meetings with the MCC in Washington to better understand their procurement guidelines to develop a procurement guidelines workshop for the Ministry of Megapolis here in Sri Lanka, in addition to the development of new and revised modules which could be used as resources for such trainings.
These various levers of support, targeted at a group of stakeholders within both Parliament and Government will assist with SDGAP’s overall contribution to important procurement and audit oversight reforms and play an important role in strengthening financial accountability systems in Sri Lanka.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT TASK 2: IMPROVING STRATEGIC PLANNING AND COMMUNICATION, POLICY REFORM AND IMPLEMENTATION PROCESSES
FIGURE 3: AREAS OF STRATEGIC FOCUS- TASK 2.
SDGAP contributes to policy reform, improved strategic planning and communication and the implementation of processes related to good governance in a number of ways. In this results area, the Project focuses on (1) establishing participatory procedures for planning, policy development and lawmaking (2) contributing to mechanisms that enable select parliamentary committees to exercise participatory planning processes and (3) enhanced communication between the Government of Sri Lanka and the public through outreach.
Its activities therefore focus on a multitude of different areas from electoral reform, to process that contribute to the effective implementation of the SDGs, to reinforcing the value of evaluation and related frameworks in holding institutions accountable and therein contributing to longer-term good governance, and capacity strengthening to ensure sustainability and retention of knowledge and information beyond changing political regimes.
The upcoming provincial council elections have been delayed owing to various reasons, one predominantly being the criticism surrounding the new “mixed-member proportional representation” system which was used during the local government elections held in February this year. In response to
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT this growing discourse which was further delaying the elections, and demands from various partners, SDGAP partnered with election monitoring bodies to convene a multi-stakeholder consultation on electoral law amendments.
Following this public consultation, members of Civil Society Review Committee met with Minister of Sports and Provincial Councils and Local Government, Hon. Faiszer Musthapha, and briefed him about the outcome of the consultations and committee recommendations a day prior to tabling the issue of the application of the delimitation report to the forthcoming provincial council elections in Parliament.
The Project expects to continue its work with such dialogues to bring together various stakeholders to not only share knowledge and experiences but also to contribute to the development of a longer-term plan that translates evidence into practice.
“This broad multi-stakeholder coalition around evaluation is the very DNA ofEvalPartners. We see the involvement of parliamentarians and governments as a natural and incremental progression to the pioneering work of EvalPartners in evaluation field building. If we want more demand and use of evaluation, we want parliamentarians and government officials not only advocating for evidence informed policy making, but also the recognition of the added value that evaluation brings to sustainable human development overall, including the SDGs,” Ziad Moussa, Co-chair, EvalPartners on the importance and relevance of gatherings such as EvalColombo 2018.
Evaluation is a critical piece of accountability and therein good governance. Evaluation and evidence based results contribute to oversight through more effective and participatory policymaking and policy implementation. Evaluation policies and frameworks however, are useless without a process for implementation. Given that the Cabinet of Ministers approved the National Evaluation Policy (NEP) in June 2018, the need for mechanisms that implement evaluation frameworks are now more necessary than ever to ensure that momentum on this critical pillar of good governance is maintained. Evaluation and more so, its implementation is a key area of focus for the Project’s support in this area.
SDGAP works with partners at various levels, one of whom is its direct line Ministry- the Ministry of Political and Economic Affairs (MoNPEA). The Ministry has requested that the Project conduct a policy analysis on select sectors and a policy evaluation as well, given the many gaps in policy implementation. Building staff capacity also plays an important role in this overall initiative to strengthening evaluation frameworks and their implementation. Currently, the Project is in discussions with the Ministry regarding the development of a policy evaluation unit.
The Project also has finally received long-awaited USAID approval to contract with MILODA. Next quarter, SDGAP will work with MILODA to develop a training curriculum that includes the cross- cutting areas of participatory development, the SDGs, RTI and the use of technology in project planning. As a means to ensure sustainability and wider knowledge sharing, discussions also centered on the potential of this course being opened up to a wider cross section of state officials. As a means of linking its other areas of work to this overall capacity strengthening initiative, SDGAP will also link its PFM experts to work with MILODA and conduct procurement courses, in addition to those for the Public Finance Committee.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT During this quarter, the Department of Project Management and Monitoring (DPMM) conducted a two- day training program, with support from SDGAP on the drafting of the National Action Plan to implement the National Evaluation Policy and Policy Framework. One of SDGAP’s international consultants – Dr. Ian Goldman (the new Honorary Research Associate of Human Sciences Research Council within the Democracy, Governance and Service Delivery unit and the former Deputy Director General and head of evaluation and research at the South African Presidency’s Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation) facilitated the training program which brought together around 50 participants, including staff from DPMM, and other selected departments and Ministries. The focus of the program was to brainstorm and conceptualize the role of the legislature to advance legislative program evaluation and performance auditing of the state. Facilitated by Dr. Goldman, participants also discussed the possibilities of setting up a structure to conduct evaluations that would determine the degree to which activities and programs funded by the state are accomplishing their goals and utilizing resources efficiently.
Together with support from the Sri Lanka Parliamentarians Forum on Evaluation (SLPFE), SDGAP organized a knowledge sharing session entitled: Sharing of Experience of South Africa on Development Evaluation on September 22 in Colombo. More than 45 participants including the Former Secretary to the President, the Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Sri Lanka Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation (SLPFE), KDS Ruwanchandra and V Signanasothy, other Members of Parliament, Provincial Council members and planners, government officials, development partners and evaluation experts were in attendance. The discussions following Dr. Goldman’s presentation on the South African experience on Development Evaluation centered on challenges and possible solutions on the way forward and how Sri Lanka could use evaluation as a tool for progress.
SDGAP also met with the Deputy Speaker and Chairman of the Sri Lanka Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation (SLPFE) and members of SLPFE, senior officials from Parliament and evaluation experts to conceptualize the establishment of the Evaluation Unit in Parliament. It was decided that Dr. Ian Goldman would support this process. Other recommendations included the forming of a select committee for evaluation and to strengthen the Parliamentary Research Unit to provide both research support and evaluation report summaries to Parliamentarians. External technical expertise on evaluation will also be linked to Parliamentarians through the Research Unit in its role as knowledge broker.
SDGAP supported EvalColombo2018 held on September 17-19 in Colombo. More than 200 delegates including the President of Sri Lanka, the Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament, 100 Global parliamentarians representing 70 countries, development partners and evaluation experts, participated in the forum held from September 17-19. USAID Mission Director, Reed J. Aeschliman attended the inauguration while Robert B. Hilton, Charge D’Affaires, from the Embassy of the United States of America was one of the invited speakers at an event held at the Prime Minister’s Residence later that day. The National Evaluation Policy, which was also supported by SDGAP was also launched on the first day of the conference at an event held at the Prime Minister’s Residence.
EvalColombo 2018 was a significant milestone in Sri Lanka’s history as it was the first time ever that such an event took place in Colombo. Bringing together Parliamentarians from all parts of the world to promote a culture of evaluation was a clear acknowledgement of Sri Lanka’s commitment with the support of the international donor community to good governance. SDGAP supported this event in a
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT number of ways, and also adopted a longer-term strategic approach through its collaboration with EvalPartners, the Sri Lanka Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Parliament and the Sri Lanka Evaluation Association. In preparation for the Global Parliamentarians Forum on Evaluation, SDGAP also worked to ensure visibility of USAID’s support to this initiative. Other areas of support to EvalColombo also involved the preparation of pre-events such as a forum to orient Parliamentarians on the National Evaluation Policy.
The Sustainable Development Goals and their successful implementation is another important area of SDGAP’s work with partners. The goals themselves are many and their implementation far more complex given the need for support and collaboration among different departments and agencies. Capacity strengthening is therefore a critical element of ensuring that those responsible for its implementation not only understand the importance of the SDGs but also their relevance and what implementation entails. In this regard, SDGAP has worked with local training institutions such as the Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration (SLIDA) to mainstream the SDGs and make learning resources available both online and offline for new recruits and other public officials. Initiatives such as this contribute to a culture of greater accountability through more information sharing.
Understanding the SDGs and what their implementation entails is a critical piece of ensuring progress towards the 2030 Agenda. Strengthening the capacity of provincial and district planners- those responsible for various pieces of implementation on how to mainstream the SDGs into their provincial and district level plans, including budgets, and how to communicate about the SDGs are also essential functions supported by the Project to assure that progress is made towards the 2030 agenda. This capacity strengthening was targeted not only at provincial and district planners but also expanded to ministries which would ensure mainstreaming of the SDGs within institutional plans. Training programs and platforms to house that information are not the only areas of support that SDGAP provides in this regard. It also contributes technical expertise that draws from both international and national consultants.
SDGAP’s main partner in mechanisms that support the implementation of the SDGs is the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Wildlife (MoSDW). The Project will support the Ministry with the development of a strategic plan for the implementation of the SDGs. During this quarter, the project hired both an international and a local consultant to develop the strategic plan for operationalizing the SDGs for the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Wildlife. This process has included meetings with key government stakeholders including the President’s Secretariat, Parliament select committee on SDGs, Ministry of National Planning and Economic Affairs, NPD, DPMM, and the Department of Census and Statistics. The draft strategy was then presented at a stakeholder consultation organized in Colombo, with 40 participants who represented civil society, academia, government and the Presidential Secretariat. The consultants used this as an opportunity to solicit feedback and recommendations. A revised draft is currently under review by the Ministry.
Sri Lanka is the only country in South Asia that is a member of the OGP process. The first OGP National Plan (NAP) was developed in 2016 by a coalition of civil society organizations and entailed 12 commitments that hold the government accountable. The first NAP however, has not made much progress owing to little commitment and ownership from government. This also caused delays with the 2nd NAP.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT There was some progress in the last quarter however, when the OGP Secretariat was reinstated in the Presidential Secretariat. Given the opportunity to move this process forward, SDGAP revived its support through its grantee-TISL. The Project through its grant to TISL, helped facilitate a series of national stakeholder consultations, which also included a review of the first NAP. SDGAP has worked on a series of both public and state consultations to build consensus on priority areas of commitment which should be used in the 2nd NAP following both public and state consultations. During the consultation, participants identified nine priority areas and related milestones that will be included in the 2nd NAP. These consultations included participants who represented government departments, ministries and civil society. In its interactions with the Secretariat, there has been a strong call to align the national action plan and results with the national SDG strategy and the government’s development program targets, thereby ensuring integration among the commitments of these various international processes that support democratic governance.
SDGAP also works on bringing Parliament to the public in a number of ways, from opening up select sectoral oversight committee meetings, to support initiatives such as the Parliamentary media center to more innovative ways. In this regard, through its work with one of its 18 grantees- PAFFREL, the project has provided support to an island-wide art competition will not only help improve Parliament’s engagement with the public but also focus on promoting civic engagement through the eyes of Sri Lanka’s youth.
Other areas of support include the coordination of international study tours which focus on relevant topics that would strengthen Parliament. One such example being the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) training in Bern, Switzerland held from July 16-27. SDGAP supported the participation of 3 representatives from Parliament, including the Deputy Speaker, a Member of Parliament and a committee member of the SLFPE, and a senior research officer from Parliament. The objective of the study tour was to study and be familiar with the concepts and application of development evaluation and strategize the action plan to implement development evaluation culture in both the Parliament of Sri Lanka and the country. The Project expects that such initiatives will enable Parliament staff and others to incorporate lessons learned into the development of national initiatives. For example, the participants from this study tour such as the Deputy Speaker have also been proponents of the establishment of an evaluation unit within Parliament.
SDGAP also supports initiatives such as the parliamentary archival project that will help ensure that key parliamentary documents are archived for posterity and made available to the public through the Parliament website. The project will work with the Parliamentary Secretariat through the Director of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and an external vendor who will be responsible for the archiving and indexing of these documents. The total number of pages to be archived is approximately 3.5 million. Work on this project began during this quarter. 90,500 documents were scanned and are in the process of being indexed as part of the pilot phase. Once the indexing is completed the documents will be made available for access by the general public. It is expected that a total of 120,000 documents will be completed by the following quarter.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT TASK 3: INCREASING POLITICAL PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN AND UNDER REPRESENTED GROUPS IN DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE
FIGURE 4: AREAS OF STRATEGIC FOCUS- TASK 3.
While gender and social inclusion are cross-cutting areas of work, SDGAP also contributes an entire suite of activities that focus on increasing the representation and participation of women and under- represented groups in the political arena, to enable the participation of these groups in higher level decision making processes that influence their lives and livelihoods.
A Member of Parliament approached the Project and requested its support in drafting a private members bill which would require 1/3 representation of women on the boards of registered companies. SDGAP, as a project that is responsive and demand-driven responded to this request and completed a draft which was shared with legal experts in the area of Company Law, Industrial Law and Women’s Rights for input and feedback prior to its finalization. The draft will then be presented in Parliament. In its overall commitment to ensure that all have equal access, SDGAP will also provide a translated version of the document. The Chair of the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Women and Gender (SOCWGE) has also sought assistance in the development of a draft of the ‘Patients Right to
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT Information and Equal Treatment,” guidelines. This comes on the wings of a request made by the Speaker. Further discussions are underway to clarify the extent of the support required.
Policy dialogues are a critical measure of success for the Project as they bring together multi- stakeholder groups, from both Parliament, civil society and other arenas around a specific issue. The discourse and recommendations from such interactions also contribute to the Project’s design of upcoming activities as it moves into its final year of operations.
During this quarter, the project completed the fourth, fifth and sixth policy dialogues to strengthen the political participation of women and underrepresented groups with the participation of the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus and Sectoral Oversight Committee on Women and Gender, Civil Society Organizations and Academia. The issues discussed during this policy dialogue were 4) Challenges faced by war widows and by people with disabilities, 5) Tesawalamai personal law and 6) The Land Development Ordinance and its impact on women. An active and engaging dialogue given the issues discussed, participants talked about how to work towards the elimination of discrimination on gender identity and sexual orientation. There was also a clear call for more focused group discussions with Parliamentarians to lobby for reforms around specific issues tied to these greater themes. SDGAP, in its role as facilitator and convener will follow-up with these recommendation and seek to schedule these much requested focused group discussions to ensure progress towards mechanisms for change. As a result of the 3rd policy dialogue on Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA) and Genital Mutilation, MPs, led by Muslim MPs, decided to convene a meeting in Parliament to present the findings of the MMDA report to Parliamentarians The dialogue brought together Members of Parliament including members of the SOCWG , civil society c and academia. It has been reported that the key contents of the MMDA report have been presented in Parliament by the Chairman of the Committee and the MMDA report made available on line to the public . The challenges faced by war widows and people with disabilities were also discussed during one of the policy dialogues which are a part of this series facilitated by SDGAP in collaboration with the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus. This specific dialogue also included the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Women and Gender (SOCWG), civil society representatives and academia at Parliament; including those of SDGAP’s grantee portfolio such as the Association of War Affected Women (AWAW) and others. Proposed recommendations included the need for all NGOs and development partners working on those challenges and issues related to war widows in the North and East to be brought together for a comprehensive mapping of the work done during the last decade. This mapping exercise would help identify any gaps and reasons for the lagging progress in empowering single headed households financially, psychologically and socially. All participants including the Parliamentarians present recognized the need for such an exercise as it would help identify critical needs and design and implement necessary interventions. Participants also included disabled war widows from the North and East who reflected on the importance of such opportunities which enable them to engage directly with Members of Parliament around issues that concern them and their well-being. The Disability Organizations Joint Front which is a network actively involved in promoting inclusivity for the people with disabilities (PwDs) and who participated in the dialogue even wrote to the SDGAP team to express their thanks saying, “You gave us a great opportunity today to present the challenges and issues faced by PwDs to the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus. We believe that this was a good platform for us to raise our issues and get parliamentarians’ attention and awareness on issues pertaining with PwDs. Thank you very
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT much for today’s opportunity and we look forward to working with you in the future for any interventions towards PwDs.” The policy dialogues facilitated by SDGAP have been a clear success owing to the various outcomes received in such a short time. While there is clearly more work to be done identifying how to implement necessary interventions, follow up on recommendations and continue such fora which bring together various stakeholders, this area demonstrates the Project’s value in its role as a facilitator and convener.
Capacity development is another building block of increasing the political participation of women and underrepresented groups.SDGAP has conducted a series of capacity building training initiatives for local women councilors in both the Western and Southern Provinces. The training in the Northern Province was postponed due to issues of political sensitivity. SDGAP does however, have parallel training programs that are being conducted by its grantees- predominantly the Jaffna Social Action Center (JSAC). While these may not be of the same scope, they do target women councilors and others interested in political participation. These workshops focus on building leadership skills and also informing local women councilors about electoral reform, what the implementation of the 25% quota entails, their responsibilities upon having been elected and other essential skills that will give them the means to participate in predominantly and traditionally male spaces.
SDGAP, in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Institute of Local Governance (SLILG) continued its support to the Women’s Caucus to roll out the soft skills training program. This is being done alongside the SLILG core program on technical subjects, using the SDGAP supported training manual to standardize training, for the approximately 800newly elected members. In total, SDGAP has trained a total of 1290 women leaders during the quarter through a series of trainings for women council members, and through its grantees targeted trainings that included elected women councilors and local authority officials. The transfer of knowledge especially that of global experiences being shared locally is also a pillar of SDGAP’s capacity strengthening initiatives. In August, SDGAP supported the fourth Asian Electoral Stakeholders’ Forum (AESF) as it is a regional forum directed at strengthening the political participation of women and underrepresented groups. SDGAP worked together with one of its grantees- PAFFREL to coordinate focused activities which were a part of the overall forum and included (1) technical support through 10 experts from South and South East Asia (2) support that enabled the participation of 20 Sri Lankans from underrepresented groups and (3) a roundtable discussion that brought together the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus, the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Women and Gender (SOCWG), other male champions from Parliament and regional experts attending the forum. The roundtable discussion between the Caucus and electoral experts from the region allowed for a space to share and learn about best practices from the region on democratic governance, women’s political participation and electoral reform.
While the SOCWG has been one of SDGAP’s primary partners in its initiatives towards the increased political participation of women and underrepresented groups, together with the Caucus, this quarter saw a new development in that SDGAP was invited to observe its proceedings. This demonstrates the value that SDGAP’s interventions have added to both the SOCWG and the Caucus as they move forward with the united goal of increasing the number of women and underrepresented groups in politics.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT The Ministry of Women and Child Affairs (MOWCA) is also one of SDGAP’s critical partners in moving this agenda forward. Currently, SDGAP supports MOWCA with the development of the handbook on gender mainstreaming. It is expected that this handbook will be used in all programs of the same level, to train partners in government, and to ensure that gender equality is practiced across all government institutions to support substantive gender equality across government institutions and therein varying levels of government. The handbook will also be translated into both Sinhala and Tamil to ensure access and availability for all. The Project has also assisted MOWCA with communicating its gender mainstreaming policy to 15 other national level ministries during this quarter. The Project also expects to extend its work on gender responsive budgeting, including the development of a GRB platform with the participation of all development partners interested in advancing GRB work in Sri Lanka. SDGAP will also link its PFM experts to this initiative to inform it with their technical expertise on the subject. The Project also expects to expand this initiative at the provincial level to assess the gender responsiveness of budgetary allocations of the 2017 and 2018 budgets of the Eastern Province, as part of SDGAP’s support towards MOWCA’s GRB agenda. In this regard, the Project together with MOWCA in collaboration with MOWCA facilitated a meeting with officers of the Eastern Provincial Council Planning Secretariat to analyze the budget allocations for women’s economic empowerment and compliance to budget allocations.
The integration of gender responsive budgeting at various levels continues also in the work that SDGAP supports on the SDGs. The Project’s GRB consultant conducted a training on SDGs and Gender Goals with the North Central Provincial Council Staff as part of her work with MOWCA. She also met with the planning officials of the North Central Provincial Council to discuss how GRB can be integrated in their rolling plan and annual plan for 2019. Meanwhile, SDGAP continues its efforts to liaise with the NPC and the National Planning Department to obtain new dates for the previously postponed GRB orientation and the inception meeting regarding the GRB platform which would allow for greater mainstreaming.
Efforts to increase participation and representation in political spaces therefore, continues through various levels of effort in collaboration with SDGAP’s key partners. Increased engagement between women, underrepresented groups and government decision makers has seen significant progress through the series of policy dialogues initiated during this quarter and the last. Gender equality across government institutions is another key result area that SDGAP has significantly invested in through its capacity development efforts to mainstream gender and gender responsive budgeting. Its critical partnerships and the mechanisms to which it contributes will help create institutional strengthening, greater accountability through the participation of civil society and better engaged and informed participation in political spaces by women and underrepresented groups.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT GRANTS
SDGAP’s Grants Portfolio of 18 grants is now complete. The Project’s pulse on the ground, this quarter has seen most of the first round of grantees near the completion of most of their activities as their projects will soon come to an end, given the one year time period. Meanwhile, the new rounds of grantees have just begun to implement their activities. These grants all contribute to the Project’s main results areas through their focus on civic engagement and citizen awareness of issues related to governance such as the rights of women and under-represented groups, mechanisms of reform and public accountability such as the Right to Information, Constitutional Reform, the OGP and the SDGs to name a few.
FIGURE 1: the number of citizens receiving civic education through USG assisted programs. The above figure depicts the number of citizens trained through SDGAP’s grantees. A total number of 3287 citizens with a greater number of women (2419) than men (868) were trained during the quarter.
For example, the number of citizens receiving civic education through USG assisted programs has exceeded the planned target; the plan was 300 while the actual number is 36231 citizens trained. While this also includes the work done to support CIABOC with its stakeholder consultations (6 workshops were held during the months of July and August as part of the National Action Plan against corruption process which brought together a total of 363 participants), a significant portion of this total number- 3287 citizens were trained through a series of programs conducted throughout the country by grantees Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL), the Jaffna Social Action Center (JSAC), Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI,) Sarvodaya, Internews, the Muslim Women’s Research Action Forum (MWRAF), the Association of War Affected Women (AWAW), the Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA) and the
1 One of the reasons for these figures is that when targets were first set for year 2, no grants had yet been issued. Therefore, the Project could not account for the results achieved through the grants when setting targets.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT Association for Friendship and Love (AFRIEL). More women than men attended these programs overall with over 2000 women having received or participated in training and information sharing programs conducted by these grantees in various parts of the country.
This quarter has seen a more pronounced focus on the grants and the review of their work by SDGAP’s technical teams to ensure the quality of their work on the ground. A steady increase in the number of milestone deliverables reviewed also means greater disbursements. While the grants are the project’s most dynamic area of work, they do also require a substantial amount of oversight and input from the SDGAP team, given the grantees’ varying levels of capacity and organizational strength.
Here are some highlights from the work carried out by grantees reported on during this quarter:
AWAW: During the quarter, AWAW updated a training manual on enhancing women’s political participation. Contributions to the manual were made through a series of workshops where a selected group of women were trained on themes such as political participation and leadership. As a means of assessing the level of information shared and absorbed by participants, the AWAW team shares pre and post evaluation forms. They also talk to participants to gather what they have learned and how they expect to use the information shared as they continue their work. The AWAW team has also shared the manual among other SDGAP grantees. Given that it is a manual aimed at trainers, their expectation is that their partners in Mannar and Jaffna will use it. JSAC, another SDGAP grantee has reported their plans to use this manual during their trainings.
Here are some quotes from workshop participants:
" The RTI act is very good we are happy that you made us practice to write one we can use it , I will use it no sooner I get back to seek information from the municipality, “ workshop participant, Hambantota
"Knowing about independent commissions is very good, I think the police and human rights commission is very important for people,” workshop participant, Anuradhapura
“My Chairperson was very angry when I spoke about good governance, especially on transparency, he said that it is against our religion for women to be politicians. I wrote it to the local newspaper and they carried it " workshop participant, Mannar.
"Learning about 13th Amendment is good we now know the powers of provincial councils,” workshop participant, Jaffna
This quarter was a big one for AWAW, as it also saw the culmination of the 75 women trained come together to receive certificates for their participation in the trainings conducted by AWAW. The certificate ceremony was held in Colombo in September, with the Speaker of Parliament as the Chief Guest. It was an opportunity to not only bring these women together but also to enable them to engage with members of the political community. SDGAP’s Acting Chief of Party was also present and said a few words to reiterate the importance of such training initiatives. Three representatives of the training group now known as the SMART 75 and representing Kurunegala, Puttalam and Jaffna, also talked of their experiences and the benefits they gained by participating in this initiative.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL): TISL conducted nine island wide public consultations to solicit input and gather information that should be included in the 2nd OGP National Action Plan. One consultation was held in each province to cover Sri Lanka’s 9 provinces. The purpose of these consultations was to inform the public about what the OGP is and what it entails and to obtain their inputs on how to improve transparency, accountability and public participation in order to enhance open governance through the 2nd NAP. Participants included civil society representatives, state officials and the general public, and consultations were held in Colombo, Puttalam, Jaffna, Trincomalee, Kegalle, Galle, Anuradhapura, Kandy and Badulla. The government focal point for OGP was also present during 6 of these 9 consultations and continuously extended her support to TISL to ensure that the 2nd NAP would be the result of co-creation. The final 3 of these 9 consultations were held during this quarter, in Anuradhapura, Kandy and Badulla with a total of 319 participants; 191 men and 128 women. Some of the main topics raised at the meetings were regarding water and sanitation, disability rights, the right to information, reconciliation, mental health, child rights, women’s right, empowerment, corruption, education, language and budget transparency. TISL also published a round of newspaper advertisements calling for expressions of interest from the civil society community to join both the OGP and the civil society steering committee. Approximately 40 applications were received.
Some key achievements for TISL regarding this overall process are: (1) the advocacy conducted by CSO partners to shift ownership from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which resulted in the Presidential Secretariat taking ownership. This has given greater momentum to this effort; (2) Appointment of a new OGP Government focal point- Ms Chandima Wickramasinghe, Senior Assistant Secretary to the President and her participation in the consultations led by TISL; and ,(3) the diversity of CSOs coming on board which include disability rights organizations, women’s rights organizations and research organizations. In addition, existing CSO partners have agreed to remain as members of the CSO Steering Committee.
The input received from these consultations and advertisements will be categorized by theme and district and will be a fundamental part of deciding which themes and suggestions will be included in the 2nd NAP. For example, one of the themes that came up was the increased use of drugs in schools. The next steps for TISL in the wake of these public consultations is to organize a validation meeting to present the feedback gathered from participants through the consultations; this will also included feedback sent via email.
The participation of civil society is a driving force behind the OGP process and SDGAP’s support to both the Presidential Secretariat and TISL are fundamental to strengthening and sustaining good governance overall.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT CHALLENGES AND REMEDIAL ACTIONS
The weak GSL leadership around the OGP process has been a significant challenge but the shifting of responsibility to the Presidential Secretariat has boosted momentum as can be seen from the grantee highlights mentioned above.
Changes in the political environment continue to affect the Project given changing responsibilities, individuals and power dynamics. The delays in the provincial council elections for instance mean that those activities planned during the time frame may have to be postponed owing to members of Parliament and other government officials having to dedicate their time to the elections. Riots and other incidents may also affect the implementation of activities and related events. SDGAP however, continues to think, maneuver and act politically so as to avoid obstacles, overcome challenges and seize opportunities.
During the quarter, SDGAP had to also invest a significant amount of time and human resources on high profile events such as EvalColombo, AEFS, and planning for study tours. All these initiatives are also time consuming owing to the amount of procurement that needs to be done in compliance with DAI and USAID policies and procedures. While the SDGAP Operations team has faced some issues because of staff attrition, the project over the last quarter has utilized short term technical assistance from the home office and a robust recruitment effort to fill positions lost to attrition and to recruit the additional staff needed to handle an increase activity schedule. Though recruitment of key positions in operations were not completed by the end of the quarter, SDGAP plans to complete recruitments next quarter with the caveat that the project is finding t more difficult to entice qualified staff to join a project that is scheduled to close down in less than one year.
One of the challenges will continue to be ensuring that any ad hoc activities proposed by high profile partners fall under SDGAP’s mandate and Results Framework. With support from USAID, SDGAP should be able to manage expectations with our partners to ensure that SDGAP can focus on completing a full slate of work plan activities in our third and final year and leave our governmental partners capable of holding the executive branch to account and initiating public participation in democratic governance and accountability. ACTIVITY MONITORING, EVALUATION and LEARNING PLAN (AMELP)
SDGAP’s Results’ Framework is a constant measure of its progress as well as those areas which may experience lags. These measures allow SDGAP to course correct when necessary and if need be review the underlying assumptions of the Results Framework. As can be seen through Annex A- the summary of results accounts for the total number of indicators, the total number that met or exceeded targets, the total that were close to meeting targets, those that did meet targets, and those where no data was collected.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT For example, as mentioned before SDGAP indicator 132 has almost seen a significant increase in expected results. Where the expected numbers for this quarter were expected to be 300 citizens received civic education, the actual numbers are greater than 3000. This is not owing to poor planning but rather given that SDGAP grantees have now begun implementing their activities throughout the country. The Project only expects to see this number continue to grow in the future, except in the case of sudden shocks such as political chaos which may cause riots or create a state of emergency thereby preventing or delaying the work done by grantees.
Figure 1a: number of citizens receiving civic education in quarter 4.
Another area of success this quarter was with regards to the number of policy and fiscal analyses conducted with the United States Government (USG) assistance. While the planned target was zero, three analyses were conducted this quarter which could be counted under this indicator. These include SDGAP’s support of MOWCA with the analysis of gender responsiveness of the Eastern Province’s rural development budget; a gender analysis on the public investment program, once again in collaboration with MOWCA and an analysis of the selected sector capital budgets of 2018 to access women specific budget allocations. Once again, it should be noted that the planned target for the quarter was 0, whereas the actual number at the end of quarter 4 was 3. This change between the planned and actual target can be attributed to (1) the strength of SDGAP’s partnerships and its support to creating an environment of accountability and (2) the strides made towards gender equality, no matter how small and their ripples as can be seen through the work conducted this quarter towards gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting through government institutions and the respective analyses required to create more effective and sustainable processes that include gender and under-represented groups.
The number of oversight actions taken by legislature receiving USG assistance are also an area of note this quarter. While the overall number for the year has slightly fallen short of the planned number, there was progress during this quarter where the actual number of oversight actions equals the planned number. These are the direct results of two policy dialogues facilitated by SDGAP; one on female
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT circumcision which has resulted in a circular being issued condemning the practice of genital mutilation- which was requested by the SOCWG which identified the procedure as harmful and has initiated processes to abolish the practice. SDGAP has organized a series of consultative workshops with the SOCWG to manage this; the other is the result of a series of activities including a policy dialogue and a subsequent convening of a multi-stakeholder committee to provide recommendations regarding the electoral reform process.
The number of persons trained to advance strategic planning and communication policy reform and implementation (custom indicator 211) has also seen progress during this quarter. Through a focus on evaluation, the SDGs and participatory legislative drafting, a total of 329 people were trained during the quarter- a number that is the cumulative result of a study tour to IPDET Switzerland on evaluation, two workshops on national evaluation capacity, one training on participatory legislative drafting, a workshop on mainstreaming the SDGs into the national budget plan and the workshop to enable district planning officers in the North and East on mainstreaming SDGs into district and provincial level plans. SDGAP’s focus on these areas also show its cross-cutting work. For example, while one area of its work focuses on implementing the SDGs, another area also looks at mainstreaming the SDG requirements within national processes such as the national budget.
Figure 2: the number of USG supported events that advance outcomes consistent with the increased engagement between women and under-represented groups with Parliament and government decision makers. This depicts activity on a quarterly
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT basis and shows the trend of highest activity which took place in quarter 2, followed by an increase in numbers, although not as substantially as before in Quarter 4.
The result areas for gender and under-represented areas have also seen a steady increase in progress this quarter given the completion of the policy dialogues conducted by SDGAP in collaboration with the Women’s Caucus and the SOCWG and the activities of its grantees who work on training programs for local authority officials, women councilors and other elected women. One area that deserves special mention given the collaborative effort of both SDGAP and its work with the Caucus on one level and the work by its grantees on the ground are with regards to the number of events, trainings and meetings that advance outcomes consistence with increased engagement between women and under-represented groups with Parliament and government decision makers. The planned number for this quarter was 3, whereas the actual number was 14. Two policy dialogues, two dialog forums conducted by AWAW and AFRIEL targeting district level political leaders and ministers, officers and ministerial officials and the establishment of 2 district level women caucuses in Killinochchi and Mullativu by Chyrsalis- another SDGAP grantee.
SDGAP’s adaptable and responsive natures means that some of indicators are underperforming while others seem to exceed expectations. This work will be better reviewed during the Year 3 work plan design, to also incorporate the results of the activities conducted through its PFM arm and to ensure that the project is on track to meet the indicators that measure the effectiveness of its activities and progress towards its intended outcomes.
Ensuring data quality assurance and support to grantees SDGAP has worked on ensuring that its grantees use Fulcrum- a data collection application that assures the quality of data collected and reported through real-time access. The M&E Specialist has invested a lot of time during the quarter by also going out into the field to support grantees with its use and implementation as there are some challenges, including reliable access to the internet and the citizen’s fear of a digital footprint. SDGAP continues to work with grantees and help mitigate these issues so as to assure the quality of the data but also encourage the use of the application. SDGAP’s internal DQA policy was also finalized during the quarter. Other areas of support include monitoring of the grantees’ events in the field to ensure that they are on track to meet the indicators that make up their respective MEL plans. There has also been significant work done on TraiNet with the submission of more entries. CLA Continued support to grantees: While the CLA framework underpins all of program design, it is most easily seen through the work done with grantees. During the quarter, SDGAP invested a significant amount of time to work with those grantees who may lack capacity and therefore require more support to complete deliverables. It also facilitated interactions between grantees, such as that between AWAW and JSAC for example, where a training manual created by AWAW has been shared and used by JSAC during its own training sessions. The SDGAP team meets with grantees regularly on a one-on-one to provide support, review and course correction as and when needed as the grantees success is also that of the Project and will contribute to achieving longer-term results beyond its lifespan.
Perception survey. SDGAP contracted KANTAR TNS (KTNS) to carry out a perception survey to assess how citizens perceive the Project’s key partners from the Parliament of Sri Lanka, to varying levels of
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT government and independent commissions. The survey was carried out in two phases; a quantitative phase that measured opinion related to the subject area and a qualitative phase to understand the reasons behind opinions measured in the previous phase. The initial findings of the perception survey were shared with SDGAP technical leads at a presentation made by representatives from KANTAR. Findings were discussed and feedback provided. The final report is due in October and will be presented before USAID and shared with key SDGAP partners.
Weekly Report. SDGAP submits a detailed report to USAID on a weekly basis providing a brief synopsis of the general political situation and its impact on project activities; summary of activities and progress by task/partner as well as planned activities for the next week. This provides USAID with an opportunity to regularly review progress and follow up with SDGAP on questions or course corrections as needed. SDGAP submitted samples to USAID to consider an alternative approach to the weekly which was approved. This quarter has seen a more reader-friendly version that includes a synthesis of key partners, highlights and planned activities, thereby requiring less time and investment to easily identify key SDGAP achievements and challenges.
FINANCE AND OPERATIONS SDGAP handled an increased number of activities through an increased level of effort from both its core team and additional support of home office staff. In addition, the recruitment of key positions especially within the Finance and Operations team helped managed this surge of activities, which included procurements around large scale events and international study tours.
Meanwhile, the SDGAP team continues its efforts to recruit a full-time long-term staff cohort for positions previously approved by USAID in the corrective action and technical direction responses, in addition to the need for other positions which were also identified during the quarter. SDGAP brought out a recruiter from home office earlier on in the quarter, and then brought in a more dedicated recruiter who was able to spend a longer period of time in Colombo, towards the end of the current reporting quarter and who will remain throughout a certain period of the next quarter to ensure that recruitment efforts are finalized.
Listed below are the staff positions filled during this quarter. No positions were filled in the month of July, although work towards filling these positions continued.
AUGUST Start date Training & Event Support Officer August 01, 2018
HR & Operations Officer August 06, 2018
Gender and Inclusion Specialist August 15, 2018
Contract, Operations & Procurement officer (consultant) August 22, 2018
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT SEPTEMBER
Front Office & Administrative Assistant (Subcontractor) September 04, 2018
Senior Finance Assistant September 04, 2018
Senior Program Officer- PFM September 10, 2018
Finance Manager September 13, 2018
Table 1: a list of filled staff positions for the period July-September 2018.
The Finance and Operations Manager resigned in September, with her last day in office having been August. This gap was covered by STTA support from DAI head office.
SDGAP’s continued its response to USAID’s directive on agreed upon activities to be incorporated into the Year 2 work plan and implemented between July and September 2018. The Project has therefore, worked on staffing its PFM team. As a result, SDGAP has now hired the DAI PFM expert, Darrell Freund who was in Sri Lanka in July to provide long term intermittent support on prioritized PFM activities, to liaise with GSL counterparts, and participate in Year 3 SDGAP work planning. David Baxter also joined the PFM expert team to provide short term procurement and PPP technical assistance in support of the NPC and the NAPP and other procurement agencies to deliver on the recently formulated procurement guidelines and other work related to PFM. Rounding out the PFM expert team is Robert Viernum who joined as the International Audit and Oversight Specialist. Meanwhile, longer-term on-site recruitment for the PFM area saw the position filled for the PFM Program Officer as noted in the table above. Meanwhile, recruitment was underway for the PFM Specialist to be based full-time in Colombo. A recruitment matrix is available in Table 2 below.
While the positions noted in the table above are those that were filled during the quarter, other processes for recruitment continued such as the development of scopes of work as well as the identification of potential recruits for the following positions which remain to be filled in the next quarter pending USAID approval. The recruitments below should help staff SDGAP’s technical and operations teams and also help bolster the grants team given that it is currently consistes of a single grants officer.
Recruitment processes underway for the following Status positions Program Officer (Task 1) Candidate identified and selection was made during the last week of September. Program Officer (Task 2) Candidate identified and sent for approval. Process began in September. Communications Associate Candidate was identified in September and is now awaiting USAID approval. Data entry operator Recruitment ended during the third week of September Grants and Sub-contracts Officer Selection process began in September. Currently awaiting USAID approval.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT Procurement and Logistics Officer Selection process began in September. Currently awaiting USAID approval. Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Officer A candidate has been identified. The recruitment process began in August. Public Finance Management Specialist Recruitment ended in September. It is expected that identified candidate will begin work in the next quarter. Executive support assistant Recruitment for the executive support assistant was completed on September 15 and the identified candidate is expected to start work in the next quarter.
Table 2: a list of recruitment processes underway during the quarter.
Another priority for the Project was that of new office space given its growing team. The SDGAP Procurement team identified and began negotiations for proposed office space. Unfortunately, after negotiations and before signing the lease pulled out of the negotiation process because he found a tenant who would agree to a multi-year lease. Therefore, SDGAP had to begin the search for another office space that fit the necessary requirements and has currently identified some possible options.
SDGAP’s Procurement team has been incredibly busy during this quarter owing to a series of large scale procurements approved by USAID in the last quarter, such as the support to EvalColombo- a global event that took place in Sri Lanka, a study tour to the Lok Sabha in India, and several large scale training programs.
. USAID also approved SDGAP’s partnership with MILODA, and a significant of time and effort has been invested to negotiate the terms of the contract. The contract itself however, will be issued during the first quarter of Year 3. The previous quarter also saw the completion of a competitive procurement for the Parliamentary archiving equipment, a large and complex one. SDGAP awarded the contract during this quarter and implementation is now underway.
Description Activity Title Total ($US) Lok Sabha, India - Training Program for Efficient and effective Parliament Secretariat the Senior Staff of Parliament of Sri Lanka
Lok Sabha, India - Training Program for Efficient and effective Parliament Secretariat the Senior Staff of Parliament of Sri Lanka
Forensic Audit Training - Auditor Sectoral Committees strengthened to General Department of Sri Lanka conduct oversight EvalColombo 2018 (4th REC) Strengthened Whole of Government Planning Frameworks
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT MILODA - Capacity Development Strengthened Whole of Government Programme for State Planning Planning Frameworks Agencies EvalColombo 2018 Strengthened Whole of Government Planning Frameworks UPDATE on Political Economy Strengthened Whole of Government Analysis (PEA) of Transparency, Planning Frameworks Accountability and Citizen Participation Capacity Building Programme on Strengthened Whole of Government Strategic Management for Sri Lanka Planning Frameworks Administrative Service - Class I
Capacity Building Programme on Strengthened Whole of Government Strategic Management for Sri Lanka Planning Frameworks Administrative Service - Class I
EvalColombo2018 - Event Strengthened Whole of Government Management company Planning Frameworks Training workshops on SDGs for Sustainable Development Goals provincial and district planners from incorporated into National and Sub-National northern and eastern provinces Planning Processes (with a specific focus on SDGs 5 & 16)
Creating Effective Leaders: Capacity Capacity of the Caucus and SOC's links to Building Workshop for Local Women subnational level institutions enhanced Councilors (Western Province - Colombo)
Capacity Building Programme on Sectoral Committees strengthened to Strategic Management for Sri Lanka conduct oversight Administrative Service - Class I
Table 3: Procurement update: July-September 2018.
The SDGAP finance and operations team continues its activities to ensure that the SDGAP team is completely staffed and large scale procurements in place as it moves towards its final year of operations, as well as anticipated future needs that may arise given unexpected changes in the political environment which may affect operations.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT PLANS FOR QUARTER 1, YEAR 3
1. Parliament: Recruitment of junior consultants for the Internship Program for the Parliament Support for modification of the Table Office of Parliament Study tours – o The US and Canada study tour of Members of Parliament and two officials of the Parliament Secretariat o Short-term academic course at Harvard Kennedy School by the Deputy Secretary General of Parliament Design training modules for Parliamentary researchers Develop agendas with key Sectoral Oversight Committees and Women’s Caucus Provide budget analysis support to Public Finance Committee Conduct one field visit with parliamentary committee 2. Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus: Discussion to Develop the Action Plan for the Caucus; conduct a series of discussions including that with civil society to input into the Caucus Action plan.
3. CIABOC: National Consultation on the Development of National Action Plan to Combat Bribery & Corruption in Sri Lanka Launch of National Action Plan to Combat Bribery and Corruption in Sri Lanka; the President is expected as the chief guest and all MPs, elected members of provincial councils and local government authorities, media partners, CSOs, diplomatic corps, participants of all regional and national consultations of the NAPCC will be invited to attend. This will include designing and printing of NAPC and its annexes Continued support to the law review program
4. RTIC: Continued assistance through consultants to help process RTI applications 5. National Police Commission: Recruitment of a national consultant to develop newsletters for NPC 6. MoFMM Finalization of documents/papers on public outreach campaign on RTI and RTI resource center 7. SDGs: Mainstreaming SDGs into the National Budget Framework Capacity Building Program on SDG Alignment into the SLIDA Training Curriculum for SLIDA Consultants Consultation on SDG aligned Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation for DDCs Launch of Capacity Development Program for State Planning Agencies Stakeholder consultation with the SDG council on development of SDG Strategy Mainstreaming SDGs into National Budget Framework (2019) in Sri Lanka – 3rd Program
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT Meeting with Parliament Committee Chairs
8. Public Finance Management: Workshop on the Fundamentals of Public Procurement Auditing in a Computerized Environment A series of oversight awareness trainings on budget planning, execution and SOE management Procurement training
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT ANNEX 1 – RESULTS SUMMARY
SDGAP PERFORMANCE MONITORING INDICATORS, YEAR 2, QUARTER 4, JULY-SEPTEMBER 2018
SDGAP Results Framework Indicators (19) Note - 17 are new indicators for Year 2, developed during revision of AMELP in Year 2 Quarter 1 except two standard indicators, 121 (DR.2.1-1) and 321 (GNDR 8).
Objective Level Indicators
ID Performance Type Unit Disagg. B-LINE Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Monitoring Indicator Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Act. Plan 01 Number of laws, Outpu Number Adopte 0 N/A N/A 6 6 1 2 2 0 2 3 1 1* 6 Y2 Q4 Actual policies t of laws, d/Imple strategies and policies, mented 1. New Standing Orders of Sri Lanka Parliament (15 April 2018* Late reported) standard strategies Result operating and Parliament of Sri Lanka has approved and adopted new standing orders th th procedures standard Source procedures on 7 March and implemented from 15 of April 2018. This adopted and/or operating process has open the committee proceedings to general public. “SDGAP has implemented procedure facilitated the process by conducting the workshops for revision the with USG s procedures, meetings with relevant parties” stated by the DSG of the th assistance parliament (conversation with DSG on 5 Sept 2018).
(Custom) Illustrative plans SDAGP has initiated processors on;
1. SDG Strategy SDGAP supported to complete the consultative process in developing SDG strategy lead by Ministry of Sustainable Development. The process is being completed and its ready to submit to Cabinet approval.
2. Strategy for National Evaluation Policy Implementation SDGAP has hired consultant to finalize the strategy for National Evaluation Policy implementation. The national evaluation policy was passed by the Cabinet in June 2018.
3. OGP 2nd National Action Plan SDGAP facilitated finalizing of developing the 2nd OGP National action plan by supporting to President Secretariat and cartelizing the process by providing grant to TISL to ensure the engagement of civic participation. The 2nd NAP to be published for comments from general public and its being planned to be presented for Cabinet approval in mid-October.
4. Electoral Reforms SDGAP supported to complete the consultative process with all stakeholders to finalize the recommendations. The finalized report to be submitted to
Cabinet approval.
5. Private members bills for 1/3 of board of companies formulated on company act SDGAP supported the consultative process to amend the private member bill under company act.
6. MMDA SDGAP facilitated the consultative process to make amendments to MMDA. The Act was published in the web with the initiative for comments. The INGOa and SOWCG led the process.
7. CIABOC National Action Plan SDGAP supported to complete the consultative process to finalize the National Action Plan for CIABOC with the strategies for prevention and active disclosure. The NAP is planned to be launched in mid-November.
8. Establishing of a National Evaluation Unit for Parliament The hired consultant has facilitated the process of finagling the structure of setting up of a National Evaluation unit. A Cabinet paper is submitted for approval to finalize either to proceed as a Evaluation Select Committee or to proceed as an independent unit operated by the Parliament.
Y2 – Adopt National Evaluation Policy Y2 –Adopt PBO act Y2 –Adopt revised Standing orders on opening parliamentary procedures to public Y2 – Establishing Parl. Media center Y2 _Adopt CIABOC Prevention Strategy Y2 _ implementing KPI Y2 _The 25% quota and the caucus action plan Y3_Implementing National Evaluation Policy Y3_Implementing PBO Act Y3 – implementing the SDG Act Y3 – Operationalizing the Parl. Media center Y3_Implementing CIABOC Prevention strategy Y3_Adopt revisions to two anti-corruption laws
Ting Performance Type Unit Disagg. B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes ID Monitoring Indicator LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Act. Plan Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan
02 Parliamentary Index Parliam 0 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Y2 Q4 Actual effectiveness Score ent, SDGAP MEL has developed SOW and RFP for Parliamentary Effectiveness Index index score individu and shared with technical team for comments. Vendors were finalized to (Custom) al commit circulate the SOW.
tees Illustrative plans
and Sub-grantee will develop index, test, validate and roll out by Yr3Q1. Targets will Wome be established at same. n’s Caucus
Objecti ve Level index scores and Results level index scores
ID Performance Type Unit Disagg. B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Monitoring Indicator LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Actua Plan Act. Plan Actua Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan l l 03 Number of civil Outpu Number Type of 0 0 12 16 6 6 3 0 3 10 0 0 0 Y2 Q4 Actual society t of civil interve No grants were issued in quarter 4 as overall target was achieved in Q3. organizations society ntion receiving USG organizati (Advoc assistance ons acy engaged in (DR.4.2 advocacy, - monitoring or 2)/Moni oversight toring interventions and (Custom) Oversig ht/Othe r?
Develo pment Sector Intermediate Result 1.1. Mechanism for transparency, accountability and access to public information strengthened ID Performance Type Unit Disagg. B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Monitoring Indicator LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Actua Plan Act. Plan Actua Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan l l 111 % of appeals Percentag Public 20 N/A N/A 30 8 45.2 65.2 63.9 Y2 Q4 Actual processed by e of Authori (Sep RTI commission has received 254 complaints from 1st of July to 30th of RTIC written ty 2017) September. The In overall 1175 complains received to the RTI commission from (Custom) appeal 1st of January 2018. Commission has processed 109 cases in Q4, where the decisions Wheth cumulative figure of processed cases is 450, which bring the overall rate of er processing of appeals is 63.9%. Commission has concluded 187 cases in this
original quarter and in overall 217 cases has been concluded out of 715 cases received decisio since January 2018. In general RTI commission has concluded 30% of the cases n is received since January 2018. affirme d, reverse d, or modifie d
Appeal decisio n announ ced within 30 days of receipt of appeal.
ID Performance Type Unit Disagg. B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Monitoring Indicator LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan 112 Number of Number Sector 0 N/A 2 5 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 3 4 Y2 Q4 Actual policy and fiscal of analyses Policy/F 1. Eastern province 25% Rural Development Budget Analysis analyses iscal SDGAP has hired a consultant to do the independent budget analysis of the conducted with Plannin Rural Development Budget 2017 of Eastern Provincial Council. MoWCA USG assistance g, Policy was supported the process. Consultant has submitted the final analysis to (Custom) Develo MoWCA. pment, Comm 2. Gender analysis on Public Investment Program June 2017 – 2020 unicatio on MONPEA n (Task SDGAP has hired a consultant to do the gender analysis on public 2) or investment program with the support of MoWCA. Consultant has Oversig submitted the final report to MOWCA and the findings were shared with ht/Moni three Provincial councils which are Eastern, Sabaragamua, and Northern toring and with seven ministries; Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, National (Task Planning Department, North Central Provincial Council, Ministry of Housing 1) and Construction, Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, Ministry of Land Parliamentary Reforms, Ministry of Social Empowerment.
3. Analysis of the selected sector capital budgets of 2018 to access women specific budget allocations SDGAP has hired the consultant to analyze selected sector capital budgets. Consultant has finalized the analysis report and the information was shared with seven ministries: Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, National Planning Department, North Central Provincial Council, Ministry of Housing and Construction, Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, Ministry of Land Parliamentary Reforms, Ministry of Social Empowerment and with two provincial councils which are Eastern and Sabaragamuwa.
Illustrative Plans 1. SDGAP has hired consultant to analyze National Evaluation Policy of Sri Lanka. 2. Establishment of Policy Analysis Unit SDGAP has facilitated the process to set up a policy evaluation unit under Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs. 3. Establishment of PBO SDGAP will support to establish the PBO and capacitate to analyze the national budget independently.
ID Performance Type Unit Disagg. B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Monitoring Indicator LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Actua Plan Act. Plan Actua Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Act. Plan l l 113 Number of Outpu Number Person 0 N/A 1000 762 150 149 250 194 300 37 300 382 1000 Y2 Q4 Actual persons trained t of persons – Sex, (T: 382: F: 110, M 272) to advance age rd th public SDGAP has conducted 3 training programs for class one officers on 3 July, 17 th accountability and 28 August Total: 187, F: 62, M: 125, Instituti th th systems on Two oversight action trainings on 8 and 28 of August Total: 126, F: 37, M: 89, th th (Custom) Locatio One Forensic Audit Training on 25 to 28 August Total: 51, F: 5, M: 46 n – And two study tours to Harvard Kennedy from 8th to 17th August by DSG and Countr visit to Loak Shaba India from 26 September to 5th October Total : 17, F: 6, M y, 11. Provinc e, District, Municip ality
ID Performance Type Unit Disagg. B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Monitoring Indicator LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Actua Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan Actual Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan l 114 Number of Numbe Geograp 15 40 9 50 61 15 8 15 5 15 37 10 11 60 Y2 Q4 Actual r of hic (2016) convictions As per the written communication with Director General’s Office, its confirmed convic location secured by that 11 convictions completed from 1st of July to 30th of September. CIABOC tions CIABOC webpage has yet to update full details. Person: (Custom) https://www.ciaboc.gov.lk/prosecute/convictions. Sex, age, SDGP deployed two senior consultants to work prosecution guidelines and law review program. Also three junior level consultants to facilitate the reporting Public and research purposes. SDGAP also facilitated consultative process for Instituti developing the CIABOC national action plan where the senior officials were on taken into grass root level to have traction with various targeted audiences as CSOs, Artists, private sector members, CSOs, etc.
Intermediate Result 1.2. Greater parliamentary oversight of
government actions and performance ID Performance Type Unit Disagg. B- Y1 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Monitoring Indicator LINE Y2 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Plan Actua Plan Act. Plan Actua Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan l l 121 Number of Outco Numbe Type of 0 8 4 8 6 2 0 2 1 2 3 2 2 10 Y2 Q4 Actual executive me r of Action DR. execu oversight Source 1. Female circumcision has been condemned - July 2018 2.1- actions taken by tive 1 legislature oversi Gender A circular issued by Dr. Anil Jasinghe, Director General of Health Services receiving USG ght Under- states, “Any involvement in the procedure, be it conducting the procedure or assistance action represe encouraging it, is considered highly unethical and that all medical professionals s (Standard) nted are instructed to refrain from any involvement in female genital mutilation, adding that “Disciplinary action shall be taken against any medical professional practicing or promoting female genital mutilation, and not adhering to the stipulated instructions.”
Dr. Jasinghe states that the circular had been issued at the request of the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Women and Gender of the Sri Lanka Parliament which has identified the procedure as harmful and has initiated processes to abolish the practice in Sri Lanka. SDGAP has organized series of consultative workshops with SOCWG to manage the process.
http://www.ft.lk/healthcare/Health-Ministry-Circular-against-female- circumcision-comes-under-flack/45-658798
2. Electoral Reform Process Hon Faizal Musthapa has questioned the house on 6th July on recommendations provided by the PAFFERAL and CMEV (CPA 2) on electoral reforms. SDGAP has facilitated the process to finalize the recommendations on electoral reforms by conducting consultative meetings. In the meantime SDGAP has provided the grant to CPA2 to facilitate the electoral reform process.
https://www.parliament.lk/en/business-of-parliament/webcast/parliament-live- on-demand?o Session 1.30 to 2.35 by Hon Faizal Musthapa
Intermediate Result 1.3. Increased CSO engagement and participation in government oversight
ID Performance Type Unit Disagg. B-LINE Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Monitoring Indicator Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Actua Plan Act. Plan Actua Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Act. Plan l l 132 Number of Outpu Number Person: 0 N/A 2000 6908 1000 1266 350 1069 350 950 300 3623 2000 Y2 Q4 Actual DR citizens t of citizens Sex, (T-3623, F:2512, M: 1111) receiving civic receiving Age
3.2- education civic SDGAP Grantees of TISL, JSAC, SLPI, Sarvodaya, Internews, MWRAF, AWAW, 5 through USG- education CPA 2 and AFRIEL has conducted program around the county in Q4. assisted programs nd (Standard) SDGAP has conducted 6 workshops on Developing NAP on CIABOC on 2 July with CSO and Media Partners, 3rd with private sector people, 6th Kalthar with GOSL officials and CSO members,, 10th in Gampaha with GOSL officials and CSO members, 2nd August with Officials with GOSL, and 3rd August with Artists. Total 336, F: 93, M: 243. Intermediate Result 2.1. Participatory Procedures for planning, policy development and lawmaking are established, including civic participation ID Performance Type Unit Disagg. B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Monitoring Indicator LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Actua Plan Plan Actua Plan Actual Plan Actual Plan Act Plan l l 211 Number of Number Person 0 N/A 500 624 100 85 200 159 200 51 100 329 750 Y2 Q4 Actual persons trained of persons – Sex, (T:329 F:212, M:208) to advance trained age strategic SDGAP has conducted one study tour to IPDET Switzerland for GPEF members Instituti from 7th to 28th July - Total 3: F: 0 M: 3, Two workshops were conducted to planning and on communication, National Evaluation Capacity on 20-21 Sept. and 22 September Total: 73, F: 25, M: policy reform Locatio 48, and n – One training on Participatory legal drafting on 25th July Total: 79, F: 38, M: 41 implementation Countr y, One workshop on Mainstreaming SDG in to National Budget plan on 26 July, (Custom) Provinc Total: 68, F: 21, M: 47, e, One workshop to capacitate district planning officers in North and East on District mainstreaming SDG in to district and provincial plans held on 2nd to 4th August , Total: 60, F: 9, M: 51. Municip ality
Performance Typ B- ID Monitoring Indicators e Unit Disagg. LINE Y1 Y2 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Y3 Notes
Intermediate Result 2.2. Selected parliamentary committees exercise participatory planning and processes ID Performance Monitoring Type Unit Disagg B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Indicator . LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan Actu Plan Actual Plan Actu Plan Act. Plan al al 221 Number of finalized Num Com 0 6 0 1 0 2 0 2 0 1 0 5 Y2 Q4 Actual committee plans ber of mitte New standing order Parliament of Sri Lanka was adopted on 15th April developed through finaliz e 2018, which open up the process of developing plans based on participatory procedures ed participatory procedures. (Custom) com mitte e Illustrative plans plans Women Caucus Consultant is being hired by SDGAP to fine tune the National Action Plan of Women Caucus. The consultative meetings are planned in mid- October 2018.
SDGAP will finalize the committees that more in line with AWP 3 of SDGAP.
ID Performance Monitoring Type Unit Disagg B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Indicator . LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Act Plan Act. Plan Act Plan Act Plan Act Plan Act. Plan 222 Number of USG Num Com 0 25 20 5 3 7 4 8 7 5 6 35 Y2Q4 Actual supported events that ber of mittee advance outcomes event /Cauc 1. 4 July Stakeholder Consultation to Discuss Issues on Existing Electoral consistent with s us Reforms 2. 20 July Discussion on Anti-Corruption for SOCs & Heads of Key effectiveness of Government Institutions in Parliament Parliamentary Event 3. 6 August Interactive Dialogue on Reconciliation with MPs and with all committees and Women (Traini key officials Parliamentarian’s Caucus ng, 4. 10 August Policy Dialogue on Tesalawalamai Personal Law & the Land (Custom) Meetin Development Ordinance organized by Women Caucus g, 5. 28 August Roundtable Discussion of Caucus/SOCWG with AESF4 Com Experts mittee 6. 6 September Meeting for Women Parliamentarian's Caucus on 25% hearin Quota for Women at Provincial Council Elections g)
Result (Over sight, Policy/ Planni
ng, Com munic ation/ Outre ach, Gende r/Und er- repres ented groups )
Intermediate Result 2.3. Enhanced GSL strategic communication, institutionalized public engagement and public outreach ID Performance Monitoring Type Unit Disagg B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Indicator . LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Plan Act Plan Plan Actu Plan Actual Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan ual al 231 Number of visits to the Outp Num Month 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1000 Illustrative plans Parliamentary Media ut ber of Location for the media center is being finalized and the draft plan is in the Centre visits Gende process of finalization. SDGAP expect to finalize the process before mid- (Custom) r November. Target will be set once the center is being set up.
ID Performance Monitoring Type Unit Disagg B- Y1 Y2 Y3 Quarters Y3 Notes Indicator . LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Plan Act Plan Act. Plan Actu Plan Actual Plan Act. Plan Act. Plan ual al 232 Number of parliamentary Outp Num Archiv 0 0 0 1000 0 0 0 0 0 200 0 800 0 5000 Y2Q4 Achievement documents archived and ut ber of ed Illustrative plans indexed parlia (Custom) menta As per the discussion with Technical Coordinator of Parliamentary Indexe Archival System, 90,500 documents were scanned and is in the process of ry d docu indexing the documents as the pilot. Once the indexing is completed the ments documents will be available for the access of general public. As per the milestone plan 120,000 documents will be completed before November 2018. Notes ID Performance Monitoring Type Unit Disagg B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Indicator . LINE Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Plan Act Plan Act. Plan Actu Plan Actual Plan Actu Plan Act. Plan ual al al 233 Number of USG Outp Num GSL 0 0 0 10 35 2 2 2 2 3 22 3 9 12 Y2 Q4 Actual supported events held to ut ber of institu 1. 26 July: MoSDW: Mainstreaming SDG Into National Budget Plans facilitate GSL strategic USG tion (2019) in Sri Lanka. communication suppo 2. 4 August : MoSDW: Implementation of SDG Act - Discussion with (Custom) rted Type North & East District Planning Officials on mainstreaming SDGs into event of
s Event District Action Plans and strengthening their communication capacity on SDGs. 3. 23 August: MoSDW: Stakeholder Consultation to Draft National Strategic Plan on Implementation of SDGs. 4. 28 August: AESF4: Asian Electoral Stakeholders Forum IV 5. 19 September SLPFE: EvalColombo 2018 Global Forum for Parliamentarians 6. 25 September CIABOC: Discussion on NAP to Combat Bribery & Corruption for Professionals Working Group 7. 28 September: MoFMM: RTI Week - Event #2 - Discussion Forum for RTI Trainers 8. 28 September MoFMM: RTI Week - Event #3 - RTI Day Celebrations 9. 29 September MoWCA: Awareness Program for the Executive Level Carder on Establishing Gender Mainstreaming Program at Ministerial Level
Intermediate Result 3.1. Increased women and underrepresented group’s engagement in parliamentary processes
Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Performance Monitoring Disagg B-
ID Indicator Type Unit . LINE Y1 Y2 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Plan Act Plan Act. Plan Actu Plan Actual Plan Actu Plan Act. Plan ual al al
311 Average number of times Num Gende 20.6 N/A N/A N/A 5.81 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Y2Q4 Actual women MPs and MPs ber of r/Und (Annual This data is culled from manthri.lk and it has been updated till December from other under- times er- ) represented groups repres 2017. SDGAP discussed with Verite to get the raw data and analyze it participated in ented internally. SDGAP will follow this up in next quarter. Parliamentary groups proceedings Individ (Custom ) ual MP Type of partici pation
Intermediate Result 3.2. Increased participation of women and underrepresented groups, and substantive gender equality across GSL institutions
ID Performance Monitoring Un Disagg. B- Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Indicator it LIN Y1 Y2 Type E Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Plan Actual Plan Act Plan Actu Plan Actu Plan Actu Plan Act. Plan al al al 321 Number of persons Outp Nu Gender Y2 Q4 Actual GNDR trained to advance ut mb Under- 0 2000 2391 500 2240 100 84 150 35 150 831 100 1290 500 SDGAP has conducted 5 trainings for women council members on outcomes consistent er nd th rd th 8 represen soft skills and leadership development on 2 , 6 and 23 July, 15 with gender equality of ted and 28th August Total: 529: F: 529, M:0, or female per empowerment so Age On 19 August workshop for achieving SDG targets Total: 25, F: 23. through their roles in ns Geograp M, 2. public or private trai hic SDGAP grantees of; sector institutions with ne Location CPA – Conducted 10 programs targeting elected women councilor USG assistance d Public/Pr conducted Total: 247, F: 231, M: 6 (Standard) ivate FSLGA – 3 Programs for local authority officials Total : 52, F: 10 sector M: 42 Institutio n CDF -9 Programs Total; 398, F: 191, 2017, Grant CHO -1 Program for elected women in Kurunegala Total: 39, F: 39, M:0.
ID Performance Monitoring Type Un Disagg. B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Indicator it LIN E Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Actual Plan Act Plan Actu Plan ActuPlan Actu Plan Act. Plan al al al 322 % Individua 50 Illustrative plans of l – GBO has not being selected as the priority area of SDGAP. co Gender, mp age lain ts Instituti pr on oc ess ed
Intermediate Result 3.3. Increased engagement between women and under-represented groups with parliament and government decision makers/duty bearers ID Performance Monitoring Type Uni Disagg. B- Y1 Y2 Y2 Quarters Y3 Notes Indicator t LIN E Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Plan Act Plan Act Plan Actu Plan Actu Plan Actu Plan Act. Plan al al al 331 Number of USG Outp Nu Type of 0 0 0 10 51 1 2 3 27 3 8 3 14 10 Y2 Q4 Actual supported events, ut mb event Conducted by SDGAP trainings, meetings er (event, that advance of training, 1. 5 July: CAUCUS: Policy Dialogue on Non-discrimination based outcomes consistent eve meeting) on Gender Identity & Sexual Orientation & Challenges by War with increased nts Widows & People with Disabilities 2. 19 July: CAUCUS: Policy Dialogue on Challenges faced by War engagement between governm Widows & People with Disabilities women and ental Conducted by AWAW underrepresented institutio 3. Five dialog forums were conducted by AWAW with key district groups with n level political leaders and ministers. parliament and (Parliam government decision ent/GSL) Conducted by AFFRIEL 4. Five dialog forums were conducted by AFRIEL with respective makers/duty bearers officers and ministerial officials (Custom) Gender/ Under- 5. Chrysalis have established 2 district level women caucus in represen Kilincochchi and in Mulative and have conducted two sessions ted with the participation of LA members, and local CSOs. groups
ANNEX 2 – PROJECT ORGANIZATIONAL CHART
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT
ANNEX 3 – SUCCESS STORY
Evaluation: building an evidence-base for
accountability
Evaluation provides September 2018 – Evaluation is a critical piece of accountability and parliamentarians with a robust therein good governance. Over the last decade, interest has grown evidence base of the steadily among parliamentarians in the role of evaluation as an evidence- base for decision-making on national development, and more recently performance of development the assessment of progress towards the Sustainable Development programs and allows them to Goals. both highlight success and to hold governments accountable. The Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation together with EvalPartners, the Sri Lankan Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation (SLPFE), Prime Minister’s Office of Sri Lanka, Parliament of Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka Evaluation Association, and donor agencies such as USAID through the Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability Project (SDGAP) hosted EvalColombo2018, a three-day forum from September 17-19 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
EvalColombo2018 is a significant milestone in Sri Lanka’s history as a post-conflict state moving towards a sustained democracy as it was the first time that such an event took place in Colombo, where over 200 international delegates including more than100 parliamentarians from 70 The Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka welcomes His Excellency, President Sirisena at the countries, UN representatives, representatives of the donor inauguration of EvalColombo2018 surrounded by the Prime Minister and others. Photo Credit: Global Parliamentarians community, academics, researchers and practitioners came together to Forum For Evaluation. promote a culture of evaluation that reaffirms and reinforces the importance of using evidence as part of policymaking, oversight and “The overall vision is that evaluation overall good governance. becomes so embedded in good The President of Sri Lanka, Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament all governance that no policy maker or attended the event on the day of its inauguration. manager will dare hold an important meeting, or reach and important The purpose of the forum was to promote demand and use of evaluation by parliamentarians for decision making, to bring about decision without having reviewed dialogue and exchange, and generate innovative approaches to tackling relevant evaluation information”- Kabir issues at a global level. Hashim, Chair of the GPFE, and Minister of Public Enterprise Development, Sri Lanka
Evaluation and evidence - Evaluation policies and frameworks however, are useless without a process for implementation. Given that the Cabinet of Ministers based results contribute to approved the National Evaluation Policy (NEP) of Sri Lanka in June 2018, oversight through more the need for mechanisms that implement evaluation frameworks are now more necessary than ever to ensure that momentum on this effective and participatory critical pillar of good governance is maintained. policymaking and policy Sri Lanka is the first country in the South Asian region to introduce a implementation. National Evaluation Policy (NEP), which was launched as part of the forum, at an event held at the Prime Minister’s residence, and reiterated not only the importance of an event of this scope but also its ramifications on implementing an evaluation policy for Sri Lanka as a mechanism of good governance.
SDGAP played a key role in providing technical support towards the development of the National Evaluation Policy by working closely with the Department of Project Management and Monitoring (DPMM).
The role of USAID initiatives such as SDGAP in supporting global events such as this contribute not only to a global aligned focus on evaluation but also to facilitating strategic communication among varying levels of the Government of Sri Lanka.
The event was also a crucial mechanism in promoting the dialogue between parliamentarians, government, evaluation practitioners and civil society to create a more conducive environment that enables evaluation Dr. Soma De Silva, former EvalPartners Co-chair and former IOCE President gives her thoughts on lessons and therefore sustainable democratic governance. learned from voluntary national reviews on day 2 of EvalColombo2018. Photo Credit: Global Parliamentarians Forum For Evaluation. Following the event, the Parliament of Sri Lanka has also since made a move to establish a select committee on evaluation. SDGAP met with the Deputy Speaker and Chairman of the Sri Lanka Parliamentarians’ Forum for Evaluation (SLPFE) and members of SLPFE, senior officials from Parliament and evaluation experts to conceptualize the “….When a government adopts establishment of the Evaluation Unit in Parliament. rigorous evaluation policies, it is EvalColombo2018 was supported by the USAID – Strengthening Democratic a bold step towards better Governance and Accountability Project (SDGAP) in Sri Lanka. The project, which democratic governance and runs from 2016 – 2019, is implemented by DAI. accountability,” excerpt from remarks USAID is one of the main donors of this event through the SDGAP project as made by Robert B. Hilton, Chargé the overall initiative of EvalColombo2018 is to promote and reinforce the use d’affaires ad interim, U.S. Embassy in Sri of evaluation as a pillar of good governance; which aligns with SDGAP’s overall Lanka, objective of sustainable mechanisms for more effective and accountable governance.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT
Creating effective leaders: linking grass roots
level issues to the national stage
As a collective, the newly September 2018- In August 2017, in a move to ensure that women are better represented in decision-making processes, the Parliament of Sri elected women local Lanka passed an amendment to electoral law that enforces a mandatory councilors can be a powerful 25% quota for female candidates in local general elections. The source of advocacy in voicing amendment was the result of a prolonged struggle headed by women the ground realities and activists, female politicians, a number of civil society organizations, and the donor community including USAID through its three-year initiative issues to the national level. on governance- the Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability Project (SDGAP).
The 25% quota was enforced at the local government elections held in February 2018, and as a result 1919 women were elected out of 8691 nominations. Now, there was clearly greater representation of women in elected bodies, although more work clearly needs to be done. But what does this mean for Sri Lanka’s female politicians? Enter USAID’s SDGAP project which supports mechanisms that strengthen democratic governance.
Following the February 2018 local government elections, the Women Members of the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus and key Parliamentarians’ Caucus asked for SDGAP’s support to conduct a resource persons pictured at the workshop held in Matara in July. Photo Credit: SDGAP. series of trainings for the newly elected or appointed local women councilors. “The Women Parliamentarians’ Ensuring the greater participation of women and under-represented Caucus takes measures to increase groups in elected bodies is a critical piece of this objective. In the the number of female previous quarter SDGAP had begun to initiate a series of policy representatives in politics. When it dialogues, in collaboration with the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus and the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Women and Gender comes to issues faced by women, (SOCWG) that create a forum which increased engagement between we forget party politics and instead women, under-represented groups and parliamentary and government work together to overcome those decision-makers on issues of relevance, such as the 25% quota. issues faced by us as a whole,” Hon. A key recommendation from the first policy dialogue was to strengthen Chandrani Bandara, Minister of Women and the capacity of both potential and elected women candidates through Child Affairs, Chairperson of the Women the implementation of training programs at the district and provincial Parliamentarians’ Caucus. levels. Thus began a series of workshops organized with the objective of
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT Awareness building of the building the capacity of newly elected female local government members. quota system and need for improvement of women’s representation and As was emphasized by the Caucus, majority of these women were new engagement in politics that to public office; therefore, they required a quick orientation on reaches beyond urban and leadership and communication skills, the knowledge on female political participation and skills to hold public office with confidence. middle-class areas is a fundamental part of ensuring To date, SDGAP, together with the Caucus, has successfully completed better representation of a series of capacity building trainings in 7 provinces training approximately 900 local women councilors. these groups in political spaces. These workshops therefore, presented the opportunity to link women parliamentarians with newly elected councilors at the grassroots level. For Caucus members, these workshops provided an opportunity to share the challenges they have faced in their political careers, lessons learnt, and how best to face or avoid negative impacts stemming from social, cultural, political, economic and religious barriers.
They also talked of how being members of a strong platform of women parliamentarians who advocate for women’s issues beyond the confines of political parties was a critical element that defined the success and efficacy of the Caucus. They addressed the women gathered at the workshop and echoed their expectations that the newly elected local councilors would be inspired to progress in their political career, as strong, empowered leaders who could form local caucuses in their own A workshop participant speaks out on grassroots level issues at one of SDGAP’s training programs for right, thus replicating the structure of the Parliamentary women’s local women councilors. Photo Credit: SDGAP. caucus.
The women councilors, in turn were encouraged to share challenges faced as new politicians and to both engage with and learn from these parliamentarians and other local women councilors. Feedback from these workshops across all provinces emphasized the need for continuous mentoring and in-depth trainings.
“It is important to see how the For most of the newly elected local women councillors, this was one of newly elected members work for their very first experiences as public servants. Therefore, the their areas as it plays a major role workshops was tailored to contribute to their leadership skills and help in their future political career. Being them engage in public office as confident, elected officials. Interactive sessions also helped them managed elements related to diversity and honorable and dedicated as women the role of women in politics. politicians will benefit the political Feedback from these workshops across all provinces emphasized the future of the country,” Dr. Sudharshini need for continuous mentoring and in-depth trainings with extended Fernandopulle, Member of Parliament time durations. (MP) and Vice Chairperson of the Women While the SOCWG has been one of SDGAP’s primary partners in its Parliamentarians’ Caucus. initiatives towards the increased political participation of women and USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT under-represented groups, together with the Caucus, this quarter saw a new development in that SDGAP was invited to observe its proceedings. This demonstrates the value that SDGAP’s interventions have added to both the SOCWG and the Caucus as they move forward with the united goal of increasing the number of women and underrepresented groups in politics.
Gender and social inclusion are cross-cutting areas of work, however, SDGAP also contributes an entire suite of activities that focus on increasing the representation and participation of women and under-represented groups in the political arena, to enable the participation of these groups in higher level decision making processes that influence their lives and livelihoods.
This series of workshops was supported by the USAID – Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability Project (SDGAP) in Sri Lanka. The project, which runs from 2016 – 2019, is implemented by DAI.
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT
USAID SDGAP QUARTERLY REPORT