BUILDING RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT: BENIN’S NATIONAL EVALUATION SYSTEM, 2007-2015 SYNOPSIS Beginning in 2007, Benin’s reformist leaders sought to strengthen the quality of governance and public management by instituting a system for evaluating public policies. National policies and programs often had little impact on development outcomes, and existing systems for monitoring and evaluating government initiatives were largely donor driven and designed to fit donors’ needs. As a result, the government struggled to define, prioritize, and coordinate policies within and across disparate sectors like agriculture, health, and education. With the support of newly elected president, Boni Yayi, Pascal Koupaki, Benin’s minister for planning, development and evaluation, created a bureau for policy evaluation to analyze public policies across different ministries, assess their impacts, and recommend improvements. Given the prevalence of inefficiency and ineffectiveness, the idea of evaluation initially enjoyed little political support. However, a small team based in Koupaki’s ministry, gradually built national evaluation capacities and increased internal demand for policy evaluation. By 2015, the bureau had become a permanent part of the administration, completed more than a dozen evaluation studies, and inspired the establishment of national evaluation mechanisms in West African neighbors Togo, Burkina Faso, and Mali. Pallavi Nuka, ISS Associate Director, and Khady Thiam, of Science Po's Paris School of International Affairs drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Cotonou and Abidjan in September 2015. Case published April 2016. INTRODUCTION leaders who served the country rather than “It can change. It must change. It will change.” themselves. 1 Yayi, a political newcomer who had Thomas Boni Yayi’s 2006 presidential campaign headed the Togo-based West African slogan captured the hopes of many Beninese who Development Bank for 12 years, campaigned on wanted more effective government and political an independent platform that championed anti- ISS is a joint program of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice: successfulsocieties.princeton.edu. ISS invites readers to share feedback and information on how these cases are being used: [email protected]. © 2016, Trustees of Princeton University Tristan Dreisbach Innovations for Successful Societies corruption reform, support for small-and-medium Aware that public investment often failed to enterprises, education, and youth employment. His translate into the anticipated development vibrant campaign and absence of affiliation with outcomes, Yayi sought to improve policy choices any political party caught the attention of the and target government interventions more country’s predominantly young electorate and led effectively. In many countries, a cabinet secretariat to a landslide victory on March 22 against long- or a presidential policy unit facilitated consultation time opposition figure Adrian Houngbedji. and coordination across government, ensured that The election marked the end of nearly three policies were well-designed and included impact decades of rule by Mathieu Kérékou, who assessments and action plans, monitored controlled Benin as a military-socialist dictator implementation, and reported progress to the from 1972 to 1990 and returned to power in 1996 cabinet, called the Council of Ministers. But no as elected president for an additional 10 years. such system existed in Benin’s administration. Although the country was among the first in In June 2007, Yayi reshuffled his cabinet and French-speaking Africa to democratize, Benin appointed Koupaki minister of state in charge of lagged behind many of its neighbors in terms of planning, development and evaluation of public action. economic development. Structural reforms In this role, Koupaki oversaw economic policy and initiated in the early 1990s had stagnated under planning, and controlled most development Kerekou’s last years. More than 80% of the assistance flowing into Benin. He coordinated a working-age population relied on informal work, complex portfolio of development projects across and recently the price of cotton, the nation’s main 20 ministries. By explicitly including the evaluation export, had plummeted.2 function in the ministerial title, Yayi also gave Many observers both inside and outside Benin Koupaki the authority to assess the pointed to policy failures, poor financial planning, implementation of policies across all sectors. and corruption within government—issues that “For the first time, the government decided gained credence during Kérékou’s second term— that the minister of state charged with as major causes of Benin’s failure to achieve development would also be responsible for public growth and improve living standards for its people. policy evaluation,” said Martin Gbedey, one of Donors that had rallied to support the young Koupaki’s economic advisors. “The objectives democracy in 1990s became increasingly were to reinforce the system of accountability and concerned about the lack of government action to ensure the relevance and effectiveness of and the mismanagement of aid money. national policies.” When he took office in April 2006, Yayi In late 2007, as Koupaki considered how to set immediately appointed 22 ministers, many of them up a framework for policy evaluation in Benin, he technocrats and bankers rather than politicians. He turned to his chief of staff, Antonin Dossou, and a turned to Pascal Koupaki, a former director of the technical advisor, Aristide Djidjoho. Like Koupaki, Central Bank of West African States in Dakar, to both men were seconded from the Central Bank of be minister of finance, economy, and West African States. The bank served eight West development. Together they launched a series of African countries that shared a common currency reforms designed to address issues of and comprised the West African Economic and accountability and governance. Yayi signed into Monetary Union. Dossou had been the bank’s law an official code of conduct for government director for research and statistics for the past employees. Koupaki launched financial audits of three years, and Djidjoho had been an assistant all the ministries and 60 state-owned enterprises, director for financial control. In August 2007, and prosecutors eventually brought charges against Koupaki asked the two men to research and several high-ranking officials for misuse of public propose the ways the ministry ought to approach resources. the task. © 2016, Trustees of Princeton University Terms of use and citation format appear at the end of this document and at successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/about/terms-conditions. 2 Tristan Dreisbach Innovations for Successful Societies “It was an extraordinary challenge,” Dossou benefit in evaluating the implementation of their recalled. “We had to conceive this new function own policies. Evaluations were viewed as a threat, and find ways to realize and institutionalize the given the prevalence of inefficiency and notion of public policy evaluation.” ineffectiveness in a government where the relationship between employment and job THE CHALLENGE performance was tenuous and appointments to the “We had problems at three levels,” said Eric civil service were largely a function of personal ties Vickey, a long-time economic advisor in the or patronage and.3 For similar reasons, evaluations Ministry for Development and Planning. had little support among regional and local First, Benin’s government was not efficiently government officials. programming the use of resources, especially the “The demand for evaluation was largely resources provided by external partners. Second, external,” said David Houinsa, an evaluation the government was not prioritizing. Policymakers specialist and former planning ministry official tried to incorporate every proposal with little who advised on the creation of the public policy attempt to identify and focus on those that were evaluation unit in Benin. “Up until that point, the most important for the country’s development. government had little experience in evaluation. Third, without external pressure, the public sector The technical and financial partners commissioned made little progress on the implementation of expensive external evaluations of their projects.” development projects. Private firms conducted most of these studies, “We have projects that have been running for such as a 2005 evaluation of primary education 30 years that were viewed as short-term projects,” reform.4 said Vickey. “If you have a five-year plan that takes Because of past reliance on donor-funded you 20 years to implement, it’s absurd.” evaluations carried out by international Evaluation had the potential to address these consultants, Benin’s government had little capacity problems of efficiency, prioritization, and to conduct its own. Aside from 20 or so highly implementation. “Evaluation helps you to specialized staff at the Observatory of Social understand change, both anticipated and Change, a semi-autonomous agency that unanticipated, and plan for what happens next,” monitored poverty, and the National Statistical said Dossou, who later became minister for Institute, few public servants had the necessary evaluation. “It does this by establishing why the knowledge or the mandate to evaluate public level of performance is being achieved, what policy. Each ministry had a handful of personnel difference is