Fiscal Decentralization in an Era of Globalization: An Evaluation of the World Bank Institute's Decentralization Program Werner Bussmann Maurya West Meiers Adrian Hadorn WBI Evaluation Studies No. ES02-54 The World Bank Institute The World Bank Washington, D.C. TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..............................................................................................................iv FOREWORD...................................................................................................................................vii 1. FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS...............................................................................................1 Integrated Public Policy and Training Framework........................................................................1 Comprehensive Program Rationale ...............................................................................................2 Evaluation Concept Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Elements.............................................4 2. PROGRAM FORMULATION AND START .............................................................................6 Progress in Theory and Empirical Research..................................................................................6 Growing Concern over Issues of Governance ...............................................................................6 Start of the FD Program with Pilot Core Course in Vienna, Austria (March 1998)......................7 3. PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT AND OUTPUTS 1998­2001.....................................................9 Subject of the FD Program ............................................................................................................9 Objectives and Strategy of the FD Program ..................................................................................9 Management of the FD Program....................................................................................................9 Components of the FD Program ..................................................................................................10 Financial Aspects.........................................................................................................................22 Evolving Context .........................................................................................................................23 Participant Views of Outputs.......................................................................................................27 4. FD PROGRAM PARTNER ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS....................38 FD Program's Multiple Target Groups ........................................................................................38 Quality of Partnerships Assessed by Partners..............................................................................38 Development of Partnerships.......................................................................................................38 Assessment of Partnerships and Networks ..................................................................................40 Impacts of Partnerships on Policymaking....................................................................................42 5. PARTICIPANT ASSESSMENTS OF OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS.....................................47 Training for Policy Improvements ..............................................................................................47 Enlightenment Function of Social Research ...............................................................................47 Overview of Usefulness of the Course (Personally; in Work; in Training, Teaching, and Research Activities; and Overall)................................................................................................49 Factors Restricting Impacts.........................................................................................................61 Strategies to Overcome Obstacles...............................................................................................62 6. OPTIONS FOR THE FUTURE.................................................................................................64 Two Perspectives.........................................................................................................................64 The Core Course Participants' Views .........................................................................................64 FD Program Partners' Views .......................................................................................................66 Synthesis......................................................................................................................................68 7. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.....................................................................69 Strengths and Weaknesses...........................................................................................................70 Choices and Possible Strategies for the Future ...........................................................................72 References and Selected Bibliography........................................................................................80 ii ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS AFR Africa region (sub-Saharan Africa) CEE Central and Eastern Europe CEU Central European University, Budapest-Main Campus COE Council of Europe DL Distance learning EAP East Asia and the Pacific region ECA Europe and Central Asia region EDI Economic Development Institute (until March 1999, the predecessor of the WBI) ESAF Escola de Administração Fazendária (School of Financial Management, Brasilia, Brazil) FD program Fiscal Decentralization program FDI Fiscal Decentralization Initiative for Central and Eastern Europe FIPE/FEA- Faculdade de Economica, Administração e Contabilidabe--Universidade de São Paulo USP FSU Former Soviet Union GDLN Global Distance Learning Network GSU Georgia State University IFRLFM Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Financial Management IMF International Monetary Fund IPEA Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada LAC Latin America and the Caribbean region LGI Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative of the Open Society Institute LOGIN Local Government Information Network MDP Municipal Development Programme MDPESA Municipal Development Program for Eastern and Southern Africa MENA Middle East and North Africa region NGO Nongovernmental Organization OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OSI Open Society Institute (of the Soros Foundation) PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers SA South Asia region SDC Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation UNDP United Nations Development Programme USAID United States Agency for International Development WBI World Bank Institute iii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The World Bank Institute's Fiscal Decentralization (FD) program is engaged in managing and enlarging a cutting-edge knowledge base on fiscal decentralization issues and providing training opportunities to a wide audience that includes university teachers, national and subnational public officials, and employees of private institutions, among other groups. It also provides specific services to policymakers. This is done with both the financial and intellectual support of donor partners and the work of training partners who assume large training responsibilities and will eventually take over entire course delivery. Fiscal decentralization encompasses many elements of governance. A particular interest lies with the different layers of government within the state. The FD program deals with the question of assigning revenues and tasks to the national and subnational governments. Fiscal decentralization also involves the question of how to reduce economic differences among regions. It involves questions of transparency and accountability in providing services. These institutional arrangements have an effect on the citizens' balance of taxes paid and services received. The aim of this evaluation was to gather information about outputs, outcomes, and impacts of the FD program; to determine its strengths and weaknesses; and to contribute--through the information provided--to its improvement. Although the summative and formative functions of evaluation are not easy to reconcile, this evaluation has aimed at accomplishing both of them. In conjunction with the ongoing evaluation, the FD program team has, in the past year and a half since this evaluation commenced, updated and enlarged course materials (adding cases, exercises, self-tests, and new modules and translating materials into French, Chinese, and Russian) and addressed new regions and countries (including very poor countries in Francophone Africa, South Asia (SA), and East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) regions). These efforts have resulted in the FD team emphasizing the link between fiscal policy and poverty reduction, both in content and geographical reach. It has also provided policy services to countries torn by ethnic and political cleavages. The FD program's main partners expressed great satisfaction about the timing and content of the FD program. The FD program has handed important responsibilities over to them and supported their self-initiated activities. Partners have been able to combine and cross-fertilize the FD program training that they gave jointly with the WBI with their other activities. Through these activities the outreach of the FD program has been greatly increased. Chances are good that the training of the majority of these partners will be firmly rooted and entirely taken up by them within the coming years. Judging by the results of the survey of former course participants, the respondents were satisfied with the courses they took and with the outcomes and impacts that the courses had on their work. They regard the high quality of contents and materials and instructors and presentations as the principal strengths of the course. The main weakness that was mentioned is the short duration or high intensity of the course. A total of 84 percent of the respondents rated the overall usefulness of the course that they took with "4" or "5" on a five-point scale (with "1" being a low rating and "5" being a high rating; mean=4.1). When asked how the course has helped them personally, the top-rated items were meeting new people or networking (mean 4.2) and two aspects related to the conceptual (enlightenment) function of training: providing fresh or new ideas (mean 4.2) and providing a framework for thought (mean 4.1). Following closely behind were improving professional skills (mean 4.1) and updating previously acquired skills (mean 4.1). To a lesser degree respondents also iv considered courses to have been helpful to them in solving existing problems (mean 3.3), becoming involved into new professional activities (mean 3.4), and increasing opportunities for promotion (mean 3.1). A total of 70 percent of respondents has integrated elements of the course into training, teaching, or research activities, which leads to the expectation of considerable multiplier effects from the FD program training. When asked to rate the extent to which the courses helped them in their work, survey respondents gave the top ratings to the way the courses helped them to make choices among various policies (arbitrage function); they feel safe in arguing for or against certain policy options (mean 4.0), in supporting or opposing policy options by referring to best international practices (mean 4.0), and, to a lesser extent, in identifying the most suitable policy options (mean 3.8). The second highest rating received was the advisory function, which consists of advising colleagues and managers (mean 4.0) and advising the political top level (mean 3.7). For the policy initiative function--which covers developing better policy options (mean 3.7) and developing technical content of policies (mean 3.5)--the rating is still above average, or a rating of "3," but lower than for the other functions. The last two points relate to the fact that the 5-10-day training in fiscal decentralization cannot fulfill all the needs for knowledge transfer and that demand is far from being saturated, even in the regions already covered by the FD program. Partners of the FD program and course participants were asked about their views on improving the FD program. Both favor a strategy that preserves the identity of the FD program and builds on its main strengths. Partners would like to improve the regional knowledge and content base (for example, by developing regional course modules) and to have the quality of their work ensured through peer reviews or input from advisory groups. They would like to incorporate more practitioners into course delivery and to extend its geographical limits (a wish that has already been taken up by the FD program team). In a similar vein, participants favor tailoring courses more to country and regional needs, providing advanced courses that develop specific skills and developing and using more examples and case studies. They suggest including more policymakers as participants to build further regional networks for courses, to increase knowledge dissemination, and to establish post-course communication networks for alumni. As most of these options are rather resource intensive, even more functions will have to be devolved to partners to respond to these concerns. The FD program's partners also suggested increased The recommendations for the FD research on the relation between fiscal decentralization and program are presented on pages poverty reduction. The present evaluation cannot provide 72 to 79. sufficient evidence on this causal path. The formulation and implementation of policy reforms in fiscal decentralization takes time. More than three years have passed since the start of the training. Multiple cases of policy initiatives due to the FD program can be documented. A few years from now it would be useful to document successful country cases. This evaluation also recommends that scientific inquiry into the relation between fiscal decentralization and poverty reduction be intensified to empirically examine the linkages postulated by theory to further refine the theory. During this evaluation effort, the FD program team has already undertaken the following activities that were desired by participants and partners: emphasizing the link between fiscal decentralization and poverty alleviation by adding content and targeting poor countries in training delivery; preparing and delivering the core course for the first time in French; and revising and improving the web site by improving search options, adding content, and providing more information on past and future activities. v The FD program team has mainly collected information on the outputs, outcomes, and impacts of the FD program in two ways. First, the Budapest Experts Workshop brought together the FD program team, partners of the program, and the evaluation team for five days to discuss the quality of partnership and explore ways to further improve the FD program. Second, the program team distributed a survey to former participants of core courses. It included questions on the background of the participant such as sex, country, and profession; strengths and weaknesses of the course; insights gained during the course; usefulness of the course personally; usefulness of the course for policymaking and teaching; and assessment of the curriculum, instructors, and activities. The questionnaire also asked for suggestions for improvement of the course. Of the 512 participants in the course participant database, 25 percent responded to the survey (of the 422 participants who were successfully contacted by mail, e-mail, or fax, 30 percent responded to the survey). Additional research tools were document studies, interviews, and participant observations of two core courses and two policy service events. vi FOREWORD This report presents the findings from the evaluation of the World Bank Institute's (WBI's) Fiscal Decentralization (FD) program. The study was carried out between May 2000 and November 2001. The evaluation team conducted preparatory work (evaluability assessment, including analysis of goals and program content) during spring 2000. The evaluation aims to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the FD program. It presents evidence on outputs, outcomes, and impacts. In doing so, it draws on the experiences and views of those who have come into contact with the program during the past years, that is, the program's main partners and the participants of the core courses offered in the context of the FD program. The objective of this report is to present as rich a picture of the FD program as possible. Even though this is sometimes postulated by evaluation theory, the present report does not strive to make a summative judgment on the worth and merit of the FD program. Such a judgment would have required a cross-comparative evaluation of all of WBI programs, an endeavor well beyond the means dedicated to this study. The information provided in this report by itself will not be an appropriate management decision tool. Combined with other information sources this report should however be able to improve the information base on WBI programs. It will also contribute to improve accountability of its programs. Most programs are part of a larger policy or institution. The FD program is one of WBI various programs. It has not been a purpose of this study to evaluate the FD program completely isolated from its context. This means that the strengths and weaknesses of this program reflect not only efforts of the FD team but the overall WBI context. The evaluation process has been marked by a flow of information (by means of discussions and email) within the evaluation team and between the evaluation and FD team. It has been a learning process for both sides. The evaluation team hopes that the evaluation has been helpful in the strategic reorientation that the FD program is undertaking for FY 2002, which includes emphasizing low-income countries; moving toward knowledge building through activities such as developing new skill-based activities; responding to special, client-demanded training workshops; and integrating the WBI's and its partners' knowledge of training for capacity building into the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper process and the Country Assistance Strategies. Because this evaluation has been funded by the Swiss government, it is also hoped that the experiences gained during this process will flow back into the evaluation practices within Swiss cooperation and development policies and that donors and others will benefit. The FD program team has been most cooperative throughout this evaluation. Within the time constraints that it is confronted with in its various activities, it has provided all the information that was necessary and useful. It was generous in giving access to all of its activities. Although the evaluation was undertaken in close partnership between the FD program team and the evaluation team, its impartiality has been assured. The study has been financed by sources outside of the WBI, notably the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The program's training and donor partners provided their time, resources, and guidance throughout this evaluation period. I would like to thank all of the partners for their willingness to be interviewed and the support that the training partners provided in our survey of former vii participants of the core courses. Finally, the partners who attended the Budapest Experts Workshop contributed to making the experience fruitful for all involved. This report is the fruit of a close collaboration among all the team members charged with this study. I thank my partners for this study, Maurya West Meiers and Adrian Hadorn, for their commitment to this evaluation and for their precious help. At all turns, the FD program team members, Robert Ebel, Victor Vergara, Michelle Morris, Serdar Yilmaz, and Blanca Moreno- Dodson, provided information and assistance in all aspects of the evaluation. Also acknowledged is the valuable assistance of the following individuals at the WBI: Patrick Tse, William Eckert, Michelle Daniels, Zhenfang Shi, Matilde Bordon, Sandra Gomes de Castro Lopes, Roman Novojilov, Violaine le Rouzic, Marlaine Lockheed, Jaime Quizon, Nidhi Khattri, Tanya Loftus, Connie Hurley, Humberto Diaz, Marie-Aline Wood, Gulnara Febres, Galina Voytsekhovska, Christopher Duggan, and Lilian Quiah. Finally, I would like to thank the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation for their financing of and cooperation in this project. Werner Bussmann viii 1. FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS The following sections provide the evaluation approach used in this study and present the Fiscal Decentralization (FD) program rationale. INTEGRATED PUBLIC POLICY AND TRAINING FRAMEWORK The present study rests on the assumption that the FD program goes well beyond transmitting specific skills to its target audience, which consists largely of academics, civil servants, policymakers, nongovernmental organization representatives, and persons from the private sector. Aside from providing training, it aims to enhance the conceptual understanding of the complex issues and interrelated facets of FD (with the creation of a knowledge base and materials) and at promoting a global dialogue on FD. Conceptual learning and the results of an improved dialogue should prepare the groundwork for policy improvements in fiscal decentralization. Improvements of the fiscal system and of service delivery will ultimately contribute to political stability and to poverty reduction. The FD program thus ultimately aims at policy changes. To take account of both the training and the policy content of the FD program, the evaluation team has combined two evaluation approaches, which are shown in table 1.1. Table 1.1. Two Evaluation Approaches Bussman, Klöti, and Knoepfel's A training approach developed by seven-step public policy approach Kirkpatrick for training purposes links the policy concept to the final identifies four levels of analysis results of the program A. Policy concept B. Policy design/ or administrative program C. Institutional arrangement D. Implementation plan E. Output 1. Participants' reaction F. Change of behavior of target 2. Participants' learning group (outcome) 3. Participants' change of behavior G. Economic, social, political, environmental, and so on change 4. Final results due to program (impact) Source: Bussmann, Klöti, and Knoepfel (1997, 1998); Kirkpatrick (1998). The two concepts are similar. Kirkpatrick's level 1 is related to the public policy approach's output (E), levels 2 and 3 are related to outcomes (F), and level 4 is related to impacts (G). Combining the two approaches provides an integrated framework that highlights the causal path of the FD program as shown in table 1.2.1 Table 1.2. Combined Evaluation Approaches to Highlight the Causal Path of the FD Program Policy concept Policy design or administrative program Institutional arrangement Implementation plan Output Services and training provided Partners' and participants' reactions Change of behavior of target group (outcome) Participants' learning Partners' and participants' change of behavior Economic, social, political, environmental, and so on change due to program (impact) Source: Bussmann, Klöti, and Knoepfel (1997, 1998); Kirkpatrick (1998). COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAM RATIONALE Programs are usually constantly evolving; priorities and goals shift, and processes and structures change. This is true of the FD program. For the purpose of conducting the present study, however, it was necessary for the FD program team and the evaluation team charged with this study to reach a common, albeit temporary, understanding about the basic components of the program, its objectives, and the ways it can achieve outcomes and impacts. The result of these deliberations is the program rationale. The program rationale was originally developed in discussions between the FD program team and the evaluation team and further refined by program partners, trainers, and donors at the Budapest Experts Workshop in Budapest in February 2001. The program rationale will serve as a framework for presenting outputs, outcomes, and impacts of the evaluation (see figure 1.1). The approach adopted in this study is to follow the causal path of the program and its effects. Due to the multifold objectives of the study, a control group design was not used (see Annex 1, section entitled "Analysis of Outcome and Impact"). 1For a theoretical discussion, see Chen (1990) and Pawson and Tilley (1997). For an example of an evaluation of World Bank training, see Leeuw, van Gils, and Kreft (1999). 2 Figure 1.1. Program Rationale FD program Training: OUTPUTS Knowledge Core courses Partnerships and Policy base and other networks services courses Creating Satisfying Creating cutting- Teaching sustainable demand for policy edge knowledge reference knowledge partnerships advice Teachers, Trainers, and Academic Community--Change Agents in the Public Sector and Civil Society Building capacity and human OUTCOMES capital (partnerships and networks, Enlarging policy options and skills and conceptual promoting global dialogue on FD understanding) in FD Improved governmental fiscal systems through the facilitation of institutional changes to improve responsiveness, efficiency, transparency, equity, and fiscal justice Systematic Economic Political Social and improvements improvements improvements environmental improvements International, national, Service delivery closer Grassroots democracy, Quality of life outcomes subnational, and local to people and efficiency political diversity, and effectiveness of governments gains legitimacy, and expenditures accountability IMPACTS Other Political stability · Economic efficiency & justice Other factors Rule of law · Poverty reduction factors Source: Authors and FD program team. 3 EVALUATION CONCEPT MIXING QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE ELEMENTS To facilitate understanding of the substantive findings in the subsequent chapters, the evaluation design is briefly presented here in table 1.3. It is described in more detail in Annex 1. Table 1.3. Evaluation Concept of FD Program FD program components FD program dimensions Evaluation components · Knowledge base · Output (partners and · Document studyb, c participants' reactionsa · Training (core and services and training · Interviewsc courses) provided) · Data analysisb,c · Partnerships and · Outcomes (participants' network building learninga, skills and · Budapest Experts concepts, career Workshopc · Policy servicesa opportunities, contacts, and improvements in · Brazilian, African, and policy advice) Central European case studiesc · Impacts (policy initiatives and policy changes) · Peer reviewc · Long-term impactsa · Surveyb a Not included in the study b Quantitative methods c Qualitative methods Source: Authors. The FD program contains four key components: knowledge base, training (core courses), partnerships and network building, and policy services. This study evaluates all program components with the exception of policy services, although some information on policy services is included in this report. Policy services consist of short (one to two day) training sessions, usually upon request (typically by governments or World Bank country offices). Most policy services are jointly organized with other institutions or other offices of the World Bank. Because of the unique qualities of each policy service, varying organizers, and the short duration of the training, it is inherently difficult to obtain reliable information on outcomes and impacts of policy services. Furthermore, it would have taken considerable time to improve the participant database sufficiently to include policy service participants into the survey. A cautionary note should be added with regard to partnership and network building. The study has not focused on the individual performance of partners, and it has mostly relied on partners' judgments when assessing the quality of partnerships. 4 With respect to the causal path of the FD program (see table 1.2), this study covers all of its dimensions with three exceptions: partners and participants' reactions, participants' learning, and long-term impacts. Partners and participants' reactions can more easily be assessed immediately after the event. Due to the time that has elapsed since the 1998 and 1999 core courses, this also holds true for the learning dimension, which has been excluded entirely from this study. Because the FD program was launched as recently as March 1998 and because it can be safely assumed that it has major latent ("sleeper") effects, it is too early to assess its long-term impacts. However, the evaluation will examine whether the FD program actually has created a potential for such long-term improvements. The evaluation combines qualitative and quantitative methods. Its cornerstones are the Budapest Experts Workshop and a survey of former participants of the program's core course, Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Financial Management (IFRLFM). The Budapest Experts Workshop (February 12-16, 2001) united 27 experts outside of the World Bank Institute (WBI) who are affiliated with the program, five persons from the FD program, and three persons from the evaluation team. At this workshop, the attendees took stock of the FD program and discussed options for its future development (see Annexes 1 and 2). The survey was addressed to all the participants of the IFRLFM core course offerings held since March 1998. Out of the 512 participants in the WBI database, 126 (25 percent) responded. However, only 422 of all participants were successfully contacted by e-mail, fax, postal mail, or telephone. Taking this number into account, the response rate becomes 30 percent. The questionnaire included questions on the background of the participants such as sex, country, and profession; the strengths and weaknesses of the course; the insights gained during the course; the personal usefulness of course; the usefulness of course for policymaking and teaching; and an assessment of curriculum, instructors, and activities. The questionnaire also asked for suggestions for improvement of the course (see Annexes 1, 3, and 4). Because of the limited number of respondents, comparisons of appraisals among the main regions covered by the FD program were not feasible. Other methods used in the evaluation include (i) document studies; (ii) statistical analyses that concentrate on program outputs; (iii) interviews and participant observations of core courses (Annex 5); and (iv) Brazilian, Eastern and Southern African, and Central European case studies of partnership relations, core course organization, and related teaching and research activities. These case studies were presented at the Budapest Experts Workshop and served as inputs for the debate. Additionally, Professor Bernard Dafflon, Professor of Public Finance at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland is conducting a peer review of the knowledge base. 5 2. PROGRAM FORMULATION AND START Issues of good government and of governance have in the past years become a growing concern for development policies, especially within the World Bank. Fiscal decentralization has been a theme of scientific inquiry, and analysts have made theoretical progress in this discipline. Better public finance data has facilitated international and inter-regional comparisons and empirical tests. PROGRESS IN THEORY AND EMPIRICAL RESEARCH In the past decades, economic theorists have turned their interest to the institutional framework of economically relevant activities. As part of this endeavor, a body of knowledge on fiscal decentralization has steadily evolved over the past 40 years, which has normative implications with regard to the distribution of competencies in matters of expenditures, taxation, and transfers between the national and subnational levels of government. Parallel to the increased theoretical interest, analysts have made efforts to improve data on public expenditure and revenue at the national and subnational levels. In the past decades, analysts have continually improved the database and expanded it to include countries beyond the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The improved database in turn serves to test the theoretical presumptions about fiscal decentralization. GROWING CONCERN OVER ISSUES OF GOVERNANCE Over the last decade, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have embraced good governance to guide their work with member countries (Ngaire 2000). In its 1989 report on sub-Saharan Africa (AFR), the World Bank defined governance as encompassing the state's institutional arrangements; the processes for formulating policy, decisionmaking, and implementation; information flows within government; and the overall relationship between citizens and government (World Bank 1989). Subsequently, this understanding of governance has been expanded and refined by both the World Bank and the IMF so as to propound standards that are in keeping with their constitutional mandates and that might improve the effectiveness of their members' use of resources. In 1992, the World Bank published a report on governance and development, followed up in 1994 with a book on the World Bank's experience of governance (World Bank 1992, 1994). Since these publications, the World Bank has focused even more on the issue of good governance, underlining in the 1997 World Development Report that "an effective state is vital for the provision of the goods and services--and the rules and institutions--that allow markets to flourish and people to lead healthier, happier lives," and publishing many statements and studies on good governance (World Bank 1997a). In both of the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and the IMF, the good governance agenda includes promoting transparency, accountability, efficiency, fairness, participation, and ownership. These values translate into a broad objective to improve political accountability, participation, the rule of law, transparency, and flows of information between governments and their citizens. The international institutions recognize that this support requires political accountability, such as through elections or other direct links between those who rule and those who are ruled. Limited by their own mandates, however, both the IMF and the World Bank have found narrower ways to implement principles such as participation and ownership so as to enhance support and commitment from citizens and governments toward IMF and World Bank programs. The new orthodoxy is that active participation by local policymakers and citizens must be sought in planning and designing policies and programs, because this ensures local commitment and action in implementing and maintaining them. 6 The transition from communism to democracy has highlighted the importance of good governance. The fall of communism left not only a vacuum in economic terms but also in terms of the way the state was organized. Communist rule had relied heavily on national decisionmaking and implementation. The transition in economic systems resulted in the need to create a more balanced system of assigning tasks and revenues at the national and subnational levels. To help transition economies carry out intergovernmental reform and create a knowledge base for disseminating best practices, a joint multiyear program called the Fiscal Decentralization Initiative (FDI) was launched in 1995. Initiated by the Council of Europe (CoE), the OECD, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the WBI (which was called the Economic Development Institute until March 1999), the initiative represented an effort to coordinate donor activities and to serve as a development and dissemination learning center. The World Bank's involvement in FDI was an important catalyst for developing a core course on fiscal decentralization.2 START OF THE FD PROGRAM WITH PILOT CORE COURSE IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA (MARCH 1998) The following section describes the beginning of the program, which started with the development of a knowledge base and delivery of its first core course. WBI Core Course on Fiscal Decentralization In fall 1997 the WBI established a series of so-called core courses. They were designed to meet client demands for learning activities of greater length and depth than had been previously offered. IFRLFM was among the themes to be established as a core course. Many reasons existed for the organization of the IFRLFM course: it could enhance World Bank operational missions to various countries in support of their strategies of fiscal decentralization (see Annex 6); it was consistent with the World Bank's recent commitments to the broad issues of governance; and it was influenced by the World Bank's involvement in FDI and the urgent needs for training and support in transition countries. Course Preparation From the start, the pilot IFRLFM core course was targeted to countries from all regions of the world. It was designed to facilitate well-functioning intergovernmental systems in the context of transition economy reforms and with the intent that the course would be replicated in other regions. So while the location of the course (Vienna) and some of the regional focus was on the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region initially, it was conceived with a global perspective in mind. The course was organized by the WBI, the Fiscal Affairs Division of the OECD, and Georgia State University (GSU). The outline of the course structure and its main contents were designed within the WBI. During a thinkers' session the key players in the World Bank and the scientific community reviewed strategy and contentsamong. Within the established structure, persons of proven expertise elaborated on the modules (see program and resource persons of the Vienna core course in Annex 7). 2Robert Ebel, codirector for the FD program was responsible for FDI in WBI. He subsequently had a lead role in developing core course content for the FD program. 7 The knowledge base created through this joint effort was novel in four ways: · It had a global focus. This meant that it focused on best practices and on lessons confirmed by international comparative research. Content was apt to be used in different political contexts. This in turn meant that the content should be presented as contextually neutral and that value-loaded terminology (such as federalism, which has partisan and even contradictory connotations in different parts of the world) was to be avoided. · It was designed to be comprehensive, that is, to include all knowledge elements relevant for a deeper understanding of decentralized systems of governance. · It was designed to be open to further refinement and adaptation. While some modules were and are forming the core of the course (Concept of Fiscal Decentralization and Worldwide Overview, Intergovernmental Relations and Macroeconomic Stability and Growth, Expenditure Assignment, Revenue Assignment, Local Revenues, and Intergovernmental Grants), others are more apt to be included or excluded according to participants' needs in different course offerings. · It was designed to be adapted and extended regionally and for individual country focus use. Vienna Core Course The first course took place at the OECD Multilateral Tax Centre in Vienna, Austria March 16-27, 1998 (see Annex 7). Its objectives were threefold: (i) to provide an operational framework to raise the level of fiscal policy debate, (ii) to build long-term capacity through the training of trainers, and (iii) to develop a network for cross-country sharing of experiences with best (and failed) practices. The target audience comprised 32 senior and mid-level participants who were involved with training activities as heads of research institutes, university professors, and subnational and central government training officials. Participants came from 17 client countries and represented all major regions of the world, particularly Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the Near East, Africa, and Latin America. There were approximately ten observers in addition to the registered participants. 8 3. PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT AND OUTPUTS 1998­2001 This chapter provide information on the FD program's development and outputs, including participants' assessments of core course outputs. SUBJECT OF THE FD PROGRAM Fiscal decentralization encompasses many elements of governance. The FD program deals with the question of assigning revenue sources and tasks to the national and subnational government. This has effects on and is related to service provision to citizens and the fiscal arrangements that facilitate service provision. Fiscal decentralization also involves questions of how to reduce economic differences among regions and of transparency and accountability in providing services. These institutional arrangements have an effect on the citizens' balance of taxes paid and services received. Fiscal decentralization can be done well or badly. It can have an influence on citizens' well-being. This is why training and policy services in the field of fiscal decentralization can be a useful tool for poverty reduction (see the program rationale in figure 1.1). OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGY OF THE FD PROGRAM The WBI's FD program strategy reflects a predominantly regional (as opposed to country) focus for knowledge development and dissemination. Below are the objectives and strategy of the FD program as developed in the year 1998 (see also FD program rationale in figure 1.1). · Define, document, and disseminate the world's best practices. This involves providing participants and partners with different types of decentralization options and outlining advantages and disadvantages of these options. · Develop training (capacity building) materials adapted to the region that relate to emerging developments in the discipline. Consistent with WBI management's interest in producing and assembling innovative knowledge, the FD program team strives to develop a cutting-edge knowledge base. · Transmit knowledge that can be used by participants and partners. · Build, in a sustainable way, client capacity in local and central financial management through the establishment of partnerships worldwide. This also includes supporting the development of partner-partner relationships or networks. · Actively draw on the comparative advantages of bilateral (cofinancing partner or donor) and other multilateral experts and on the knowledge base being developed by other divisions of the World Bank. MANAGEMENT OF THE FD PROGRAM When this evaluation began, the FD team comprised five members: codirectors Robert Ebel (Lead Economist) and Victor Vergara (Senior Public Sector Management Specialist), task managers Serdar Yilmaz (Public Sector Specialist) and Blanca Moreno-Dodson (Senior Economist and Course Director), and Michelle Morris (Program Assistant). In addition, two senior fellows, Richard Bird and François Vaillancourt, were and continue to be affiliated with the program. Consistent with the growth of the FD program and a reorganization of all WBI programs (fall 2001), the FD program has been renamed Public Finance, Decentralization, and Poverty 9 Reduction, and now also includes Serap Bindebar (Research Assistant), Jasmine Chakeri (Research Assistant), Eric Champagne (Urban Specialist), Migara de Silva (Senior Economist), Vasumathi L. Rollakanty (Team Assistant), and Roxanne Scott (Public Sector Specialist and Gender Analyst). Backgrounds of team members are found in Annex 6. COMPONENTS OF THE FD PROGRAM Recognizing the merits of a multitool approach to learning, the FD program is organized as a balanced mix of knowledge base (curriculum), training, policy services, and partnership and networking activities (shown in figure 3.1). Each program component draws upon other components to contribute to and take advantage of information and experiences. Thus, for example, each policy service event, which is usually offered in response to a specific client country request, not only draws upon a curriculum developed in support of training activities (such as the IFRLFM core course), but also serves to bolster the practitioner knowledge element of the next training activities. Properly designed, this knowledge development and dissemination strategy has a potential for synergy. Figure 3.1. Four Main Components of the FD Program Fiscal decentralization program Knowledge Training base IFRLFM core course (Curriculum) and other courses Partnerships Policy and network services building Source: Authors. Knowledge Base (Curriculum) The knowledge base, as it is referred to in the WBI, is the program's curriculum. See Annex 8 for a detailed list of modules and materials. Main Contents The main priority of the FD program involves preparing and updating a knowledge base of content related to the field of fiscal decentralization. This knowledge base is the foundation of the program and enables the WBI and its partners to provide training in fiscal decentralization. The program's IFRLFM core course is structured around the knowledge base and consists of 13 different modules on the broad theme of fiscal decentralization as shown in box 3.1. 10 Box 3.1. Original Modules of IFRLFM 1. Concept of Fiscal Decentralization and Worldwide Overview Lays out some key questions to be examined in subsequent presentations and discussions. 2. The Political Economy of Fiscal Decentralization Provides a general outline and introduction into political mechanisms necessary to make fiscal decentralization work. 3. Constitutional and Legal Framework and Guidelines Lays out the objectives for writing local government laws and reviews the types of laws that typify an intergovernmental system. 4. Intergovernmental Relations and Macroeconomic Stability and Growth Examines the intergovernmental theory and practice for designing a system of decentralized fiscal decisionmaking consistent with stabilization policy. 5. Expenditure Assignment Offers a guide to expenditure assignment and the problems that may result from failure of clarity and stability in the assignment process. 6. Revenue Assignment Discusses the macroeconomic module as a way of introducing the conventional scope of inquiry and its limitations as it may apply to different systems. 7. Local Revenues Examines revenue sharing versus surcharges of income and receipt levies, local property taxes, vehicle taxes, and business receipts or profits tax. 8. Intergovernmental Grants Discusses the objectives of an intergovernmental grant system, types of grants, and the trade- offs of alternative formula approaches. 9. Financing Infrastructure Discusses the roles of user charges in planning, financing, and improving the delivery of infrastructure services like water supply and electric power. 10. Budgeting Outlines the purpose of budgets, reviews how to evaluate financial outcomes, and discusses the nature and role of capital budgeting. 11. Credit and Debt, or How to Measure Municipal Creditworthiness, and Policies on Borrowing and Debt Covers the general features of municipal credit markets, reviews important parameters of municipal fixed income instruments, and provides examples of structured financing. 12. Fiscal Risk Focuses on the needs of policymakers to understand and handle different types of fiscal risks (such as explicit, implicit, direct. and contingent liabilities). 13. Accountability and Transparency in Municipal Governments Outlines the principal mechanisms for establishing accountability and presents a conceptual framework for defining curative and preventative initiatives for minimizing corruption at the local level. Source: FD program team data. 11 Development 1998­2001 The knowledge base has in the past years been continually expanded and updated. It is almost entirely accessible on the Internet (available at http://www.decentralization.org). Contents are also available on CD-ROM. Currently the WBI is developing a sourcebook. Through the courses given in the regions and with the help of the partners, more and more documents related to regional contexts (ECA, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), AFR, SA, EAP, Middle East and North Africa (MENA)) have been developed. As courses have been presented in various languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and most recently French) many course documents have been translated and are available on the program web site. Country papers on fiscal decentralization have also been made accessible. New themes (such as accountability and transparency, asymmetrical federalism and minorities, and e-governance) have been added as library topics to the web site. Recently the WBI commissioned reports on the theme of governance and decentralization as part of its new Learning Resource Series. The first book published in this series is entitled Russia's Transition to a New Federalism, which was authored by Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Jameson Boex of GSU and edited by the FD program team (Martinez-Vazquez and Boex 2001). Two recent additions to this series are Decentralizing Education in Transition Societies: Case Studies from Central and Eastern Europe (Fiszbein 2001) and The Development of Property Taxation in Economies: Case Studies from Central and Eastern Europe (Malme and Youngman 2001). An updated sourcebook on Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Eastern Europe is expected to be completed in early 2002 (Urban Institute forthcoming). It is funded by the FD program and USAID and is being prepared by staff of The Urban Institute and Training Resources Group, Inc. In early 2003, the FD program plans to deliver a textbook and CD-ROM of its modules and complementary materials. The FD program is continually updating materials, especially the course module on the concept of fiscal decentralization and the worldwide overview. Documents that are out of date are deleted from the web site and from the course syllabus. Training (IFRLFM Core Course and Other Courses) Core courses were introduced in the fall of 1997. They were designed to meet client demands for learning activities of greater length and depth than had been previously offered by the WBI. Before this time, the WBI has delivered mainly basic skills training, which by 1997 was becoming increasingly available from other institutions. The introduction of core course helped to move the WBI toward a goal of offering a curriculum focused on the policy courses and specialized knowledge needed to address the issues critical to equitable and sustainable development, particularly in areas where World Bank expertise represents a comparative advantage (EDI 1998). Concept The WBI and its partners provide module-based training to participants, mostly in the form of core courses that typically have a duration of five to ten days. The program's IFRLFM core course is planned, programmed, and delivered in close collaboration with regional and local partners. At the inception of the program, the WBI's FD team organized courses and taught modules. In the three years since the first course, the WBI's partners (such as training institutes or universities) have taken over the lead role in most of the organization and design of courses and have modified the course design to meet their local needs. These training partner institutions organize and sponsor 12 training events to meet the needs of their local audiences, finding trainers from their own universities and institutions. Now, WBI FD team members' participation in courses is more limited. They teach some modules, provide some organizational aid, help to build partner relationships, and directly provide or locate funding for training partners. Using the WBI or other donor funding, training partners have greater flexibility to do such things as hiring internationally recognized experts or trainers to deliver training sessions in the core courses (see also boxes 3.2 and 3.3). In addition to the IFRLFM core courses, the FD program offers similar training activities. For instance, a course might have an emphasis that is different from that of a typical IFRLFM course. An example is the training course, Latin American Distance Learning Seminar on Municipal Management, offered by the Monterrey Institute of Technology, Virtual University in Monterrey, Mexico in collaboration with the FD program. Beginning in January 1999, this course represented the FD program's first attempt at distance learning. This particular course involved videoconferencing and web-based learning. Since then-- consistent with the World Bank's strategy of increasing distance learning offerings to World Bank clients--the FD program has organized or helped to organize five courses via distance learning. Participants: Typical participants include the following: trainers such as heads of research institutes, university professors, researchers, and subnational and central government training officials; national- and subnational government officials who are responsible for the design and implementation of intergovernmental fiscal relations and local financial management; employees of public and private institutions who deal with fiscal issues; and World Bank country office staff. The trainers who participate in courses are particularly important because they can contribute to large multiplying effects in knowledge dissemination. This group of participants reflects the WBI's objective to train trainers. Organizers of the courses--usually partner institutions--are responsible for the selection of participants. Trainers and Presenters or Resource Persons: International and regional experts from universities, think tanks, training institutions, professional associations, and government organizations, in addition to World Bank staff, are the typical presenters of courses. 13 Box 3.2. How Training Is Organized and Delivered: Five Illustrations 1. The WBI FD program leads the organization of courses, instruction, and participants. 2. Partner institutions lead the organization of courses and selection of participants and provide training with a combination of: · Their own trainers · Experts or guest speakers from institutions such as the government, academia, or the private sector in their own countries or regions · International and/or regional expert trainers, often funded by the WBI or donor agencies. 3. A consortium of partners organized a multiyear program in 2001 on Creating Change Networks For Local Governance in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) through the Fiscal Decentralization Initiative for CEE (see www.decentralization.org, Fiscal Decentralization Initiative). 4. A fully CD-ROM-based course designed for face-to-face and distance learning (DL). DL pedagogies will be published in spring 2002. This self-standing source book on Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Financial Management in Central and Eastern Europe includes a users' guide for self-study with an extensive and up-to-date bibliography and glossary (Urban Institute forthcoming). 5. A Russian language course based on the WBI core course is now being developed by the Russian Academy of Civil Service in cooperation with the Institute of Urban Economics in Moscow. It will be piloted in both face-to face and DL formats in late 2002. Box 3.3. WBI Core Course Guidelines Core courses are designed to increase both efficient resource use and impact in the following ways: · They address issues of critical importance to the development process globally, rather than simply in one or several countries. · They incorporate content that draws on state-of-the-art theory and practice. · They are replicable worldwide. · They have a syllabus, peer review, and a core body of materials that can be presented in person or through distance education. · Theyuseinstructionalmodelsthatallowforlargerclasssizeandlowerunitcostswithoutreducingquality. · They involve partner institutions in their development and teaching and facilitate rapid transfer to these partners for replication. · They recover costs from the private sector and share costs with the public sector. Criteria for selecting core courses The subject matter must be of critical importance for development policy and action. · The World Bank must have a comparative advantagea and strategic interest in the topic. · The client countries must exhibit evidence of demand. · The course must exhibit depth and intensity relevant to the subject matter. · The course must be replicable. a Comparative advantage means first that the course is based on the World Bank's multicountry experience; second, that the World Bank has subject matter specialists on the course topic, that is, if necessary, the WBI can (and often does) call on other World Bank staff and/or donor and training partners to deliver parts or all of the course; and third, that the World Bank has the necessary expertise to peer review the course to ensure that its content is indeed state-of-the-art. Source: WBI (1998). 14 Development 1998 ­ 2001 The Vienna core course was a catalyst for offering Box 3.4. Impact of the 1998 Vienna similar yet regionally adapted courses in various IFRLFM Course regions of the world (see box 3.4). Following this Maria de Fatima Cartaxo, Director of the Escola de Administração Fazendária (ESAF) in pilot course, several Vienna core course Brasilia, Brazil participants immediately worked to offer core courses at their respective institutions.3 The course "After the Vienna course the power and prestige was delivered in cooperation with and/or adopted of the World Bank contributed to adopting this by institutions in Brazil, Hungary, Venezuela, and course in Brazil. The high level of content of Zimbabwe. Other institutions later joined the course materials lead to a commitment and finalization of partnership...Wtihout having the effort. Some participants of the Vienna course initial support of the Vienna course, certainly acted as trainers (resource persons) for these new the Brazilian partners probably could not be offerings. Finally, some expert trainers from the able in implementing such an important and Vienna course established new relationships with prestigious program...The excellent these institutions and provided training in the new relationship with WBI staff in Washington was offerings, funded in part by the WBI and by other a great input for the whole process in terms of donors (COE, the United Nations Development support, flexibility, and specialized knowledge Programme (UNDP), and the governments of about the course themes." Belgium, Canada, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands Statement at the Budapest Experts Workshop Spain, Switzerland, and the United States). With the help of its partners, the FD program has been very successful in increasing the outreach of its training. Since the start of the program in Vienna, 672 students received training in the IFRLFM core course. In FY 2000 (July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2000), the FD program was involved in offering training to 3,956 participants for all of the program's training activities, excluding FDI activities. (This accounts for 14 percent of all WBI participants and 19 percent of all WBI training days. Training days are calculated by multiplying the number of participants by the number of days of the course.) Partly due to this and other efforts, the FD team received a WBI-wide performance award in June 2000. The FD program has been able to reach so many participants in part through its use of distance learning. In addition to the courses with distance learning components such as the Latin American Distance Learning Seminar on Municipal Management discussed earlier in this chapter, the team has undertaken two additional distance learning initiatives: East Asia Decentralization Dialogues and the Africa Local Government Action Forum. Currently in its second year of operation, the dialogues draw on a wealth of decentralization training materials and utilize the distance education facilities of the Global Distance Learning Network (GDLN). The audience consists of central, regional, and local government officials as well as other stakeholders who interact on topics of decentralization and local financial management. The dialogues are structured as five three-hour interactive sessions (between October 2001 and June 2002) that are currently being delivered via videoconference among GDLN facilities and World Bank country offices in Bangkok, Beijing, Hanoi, Jakarta, Manila, and 3Maria de Fatima Cartaxo and Amaury Gremaud from Brazil, Rosa Amelia Gonzalez from Venezuela, and Adrian Ionescu and Gàbor Péteri working in Hungary established courses at their institutions. Three other Vienna course participants, Tekaligne Godana, Nobuhle Maphosa, and Richard Madavo, were in close contact with two officials from the Municipal Development Programme (MDP) in Zimbabwe, George Motovu and Winnie Mulongo- Luhana, leading to the MDP's engagement with the course and three subsequent offerings of it. See list of Vienna core course participants in Annex 7. 15 Washington, D.C. Each session includes a 60-minute presentation on the fundamentals" of a topic that combines a worldwide and regional perspective, followed by a two-hour dialogue on the country-specific application of these concepts to the decentralization envisioned or being implemented. The Africa Local Government Action Forum is a joint initiative of the Municipal Development Program for Eastern and Southern Africa (MDPESA), the WBI, and the GDLN through distance learning centers in Africa (Abuja, Accra, Addis Ababa, Dar Es Salaam, Harare, Kampala, Kigali, and Nairobi). The program consists of 12 modules, presented on the first Friday of each month. Each four-hour module is based on a keynote presentation supported by a reference reading. The reading is posted on the MDPESA web site and the FD program web site. The forum includes a core set of approximately 100 participants, who are awarded certificates for regular attendance, as well as an additional 60-80 participants who participate in specific sessions depending on their particular interests. Special sessions are added as needed. Over the past years the FD program has been engaged in expanding its activities to different parts of the world. This has met with varying degrees of success. In some regions, the IFRLFM core courses are well rooted, such as in the ECA, the LAC, and AFR regions, while in other regions, courses have only been presented three times, as in the EAP region (Chiang Mai, Thailand once; Beijing, China twice) or not at all, as in the cases of the SA and MENA regions (see World Bank regional divisions in figure 3.2). Figure 3.2. World Bank Regional Divisions Source: World Bank map department data. It is interesting to note that training activities were not taken up in all of the regions represented at the Vienna workshop. In choosing their regional fields of activity, the FD program team has followed a demand-driven approach. While participants from the MENA region were well represented at the workshop, no IFRLFM core course training activity has occurred there, in spite of FD program team efforts. In contrast, strong partnerships have developed in the ECA region with the Central European University, the Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative of the Open Society Institute, the Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation, and the COE; in the LAC region with the ESAF, the University of São Paulo, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean; and in AFR with the Municipal Development Program and many courses have been offered as a result. Very few participants from the EAP and SA regions attended the Vienna core course. See figure 3.3 for locations of IFRLFM courses and box 3.5 for a description of key events in the evolution of the core course of the FD program. See also Annex 9 for more details on each the program's core course deliveries since 1998. 16 Figure 3.3. Locations of IFRLFM Core Courses (March 1998-May 2001) Source: Authors. 17 Box 3.5. Evolution of the IFRLFM Core Course Coorganized by Partners and the WBI since 1998 Location and partners for each offering 1998 Pilot IFRLFM core course occurs. Partnerships to offer the course begin with former participants of the Vienna course in · Vienna, Austria in March 1998 at the OECD Multilateral Tax Centre, organized and presented jointly with the Fiscal Affairs Division of the OECD and GSU. · Budapest, Hungary in September 1998, organized with the COE and the USAID · Brasilia, Brazil in November 1998, organized with the ESAF, Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade- Universidade de São Paulo (FIPE/FEA-USP), and Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA) · Harare, Zimbabwe between November 1998 and December 1998, organized with the MDPESA. 1999 Partners continue to deliver courses and new partnerships are formed and DL is introduced in · Chiang Mai, Thailand between February 1999 and March 1999, organized with the National Economic and Social Development Board of the Royal Thai Government and the World Bank-Netherlands Partnership · Caracas, Venezuela in June 1999, organized with El Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración, Centro Latinoamericano de Capacitación y Desarrollo de Los Gobiernos Locales, LAC Regional Office of the World Bank, and the WBI · Budapest, Hungary between July 1999 and August 1999, organized with the Open Society Institute (OSI) of the Soros Foundation, the Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative of the Open Society Institute (LGI), and the Central European University (CEU) · Beijing, China in November 1999, organized with the Ministry of Finance · Brasilia, Brazil in November 1999, organized with the ESAF, the FIPE/FEA-USP, and the IPEA · Jinja, Uganda in December 1999, organized with MDPESA · Monterrey, Mexico in January 1999, organized with the Monterrey Institute of Technology, Virtual University in Monterrey, Mexico. 2000 Partners continue to deliver course and new partnerships are formed in · Budapest, Hungary in April 2000, organized by the COE and the USAID · Almaty, Kazakhstan in April 2000, organized by the Eurasia Foundation, the COE, the Academy of Civil Service under the President of Kazakhstan, and the UNDP · Santiago, Chile in June 2000, organized by the Economic Commission for the LAC region, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, GmbH · Beijing, China in June 2000, organized by the Ministry of Finance · Budapest, Hungary in July 2000, organized by the OSI, the LGI, and the CEU · Atlanta, Georgia between July 2000 and August 2000, organized by GSU · Brasilia, Brazil in October 2000, organizaed by the ESAF, the FIPE/FEA-USP, and the IPEA · Kampala, Uganda in November 2000, organized by the MDPESA. 2001 Partners continue to deliver course in the following countries. In addition, a French-language version of the course was introduced. · Budapest, Hungary in July 2001, organized by the OSI, the LGI, and the CEU · Atlanta, Georgia between July 2001 and August 2001, organized by GSU · Brasilia, Brazil in November 2001, organized by the ESAF, the FIPE/FEA-USP, and the IPEA · Dakar, Senegal in October 2001, organized by the Municipal Development Programme for Western and Central Africa · Kampala, Uganda in December 2001, organized by the MDPESA and the Uganda Management Institute. Source: FD program data. 18 Partnerships and Network Building Cofinancing and Training Partners The WBI works with a number of partners from institutions in cooperating countries. These partners belong to two groups: cofinancing partners and training partners. A complete list of cofinancing and training partners is in box 3.6. Box 3.6. Cofinancing and Training Partners Partners represented at the Budapest Experts Workshop are listed in bold letters. · Academy of Civil Service under the President of Kazakhstan in Almaty, Kazakhstan · Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco · Asociación de Universidades Confiadas a la Compañía de Jesús en América Latina (Association of Latin American Jesuit Universities) at 26 universities in 13 Latin American countries · Belgian Administration for Development Cooperation in Brussels, Belgium · Canadian International Development Agency · CEU in Budapest, Hungary · Centro Interamericano de Administraciones Tributarias (Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations) in Panama City, Panama · China National School of Administration in Beijing, China · Comision Económica para America Latina y el Caribe (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), headquarters in Santiago, Chile · COE, headquarters in Strasbourg, France · Council of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (Council of Europe), headquarters in Strasbourg, France · Government of Denmark · ESAF in Brasilia, Brazil · Eurasia Foundation, headquarters in Washington, D.C. · Government of Finland · FDI, based at the Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative, Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation in Budapest, Hungary · Foundation for Local Government Reform in Sofia, Bulgaria · FIPE/FEA-USP in São Paulo, Brazil · GSU in Atlanta, Georgia · Institute of Federalism of the University of Fribourg, in Granges-Paccot, Switzerland · Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, The Netherlands · Institute of Urban Economics in Moscow, Russia · IPEA in Brasilia, Brazil · Instituto de Estudios Fiscales in Madrid, Spain · Instituto de Estudios Superiores En Administracion in Caracas, Venezuela · Government of Italy · Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge, Massachusetts · LGI in Budapest, Hungary · Metropolitan Research Institute of Hungary in Budapest, Hungary · Ministry of Finance, People's Republic of China in Beijing, China · Monterrey Institute of Technology, Virtual University in Monterrey, Mexico · MDP at the Western and Central African office in Cotonou, Benin and the Eastern and Southern African office in Harare, Zimbabwe · National Economic and Social Development Board, Royal Thai Government in Bangkok, Thailand · Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs Minister for Development Cooperation, Netherlands-World Bank Partnership Program in The Hague, The Netherlands · New York University, Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in New York, New York · OSI in New York, New York and Budapest, Hungary · OECD Taxation and Fiscal Affairs, headquarters in Paris, France · Romanian Academic Society in Bucharest, Romania · Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) in Bern, Switzerland · Uganda Local Government Finance Commission in Kampala, Uganda · Uganda Management Institute Kampala, Uganda · UNDP Sustainable Human Development, headquarters in New York, New York · USAID in Washington, D.C. 19 · Universidad Rafael Landivar in Guatemala City, Guatemala · University of Toronto, Rotman School in Toronto, Canada · World Bank Poverty Net, headquarters in Washington, D.C. Source: FD program data. Cofinancing (Donor) Partners: The WBI has an expanding range of partnerships with bilateral and multilateral donors, foundations, and private sector organizations. The WBI's learning programs depend on cofinancing partners for intellectual and financial support (box 3.7). The FD program, its partners, and the Box 3.7. Key Cofinancing Partners and Roles in broader community interested in fiscal Intellectual and Financial Support decentralization issues have benefited · Belgian Administration for Development Cooperation greatly from the support of cofinancing · Canadian International Development Agency partners. Importantly, their funding has · Government of Finland enabled the FD program to engage · Policy and Human Resources Development researchers in developing materials for the Trust Fund of the Government of Japan program's knowledge base. The WBI and · Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs its training partners have used cofinancing Minister for Development Cooperation, funds to hire experts to teach sections of Netherlands-World Bank Partnership Program program courses. These funds have also · Government of Spain been applied to supporting general course · Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation organization expenses, including · United States Agency for International arrangements for scholarships for some Development participants. Another example of the use of donor support involves a recent effort by the FD program in working with countries on their Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). For some African countries, the course has been linked to their respective PRSP processes and coordinates with the World Bank's Attacking Poverty Program. PRSP teams from these countries--which emphasize intergovernmental fiscal relations--have received special support from the WBI, with funding provided by the Belgian Administration for Development Cooperation. The purpose of this funding is to enhance the relationship between intergovernmental fiscal reforms and poverty reduction. The funding to PRSP teams will be available on a multiyear basis. In addition to the intellectual and cooperative support that donors have provided the program, their financial support has been substantial. The donors' contributions to the program make up approximately 60 percent of the program's budgets for both FY 2000 (July 1999 ­ June 2000) and FY 2001 (July 2000 ­ June 2001). The planned budget for the current fiscal year (FY 2002) also has a ratio of 60 percent donor funding and 40 percent from World Bank sources. Training Partners: The WBI has established formal training partnerships with many academic and training institutions (universities, research centers, and think tanks). Training partners in both developing and industrialized countries collaborate with the WBI in preparing course materials and modules. They also work together with the WBI in the presentation of courses. The WBI forms partner relationships with developing country institutions to build their capacity and enable them to take over full responsibility for presentations of courses originally developed by WBI (WBI 2000). Among the key benefits to the World Bank of these partnerships is that they expand the reach of the World Bank's work and support the World Bank's efforts to link lending and learning. 20 The arrangements with training partners are usually formalized with two types of working agreements: memorandums of understanding and work program agreements.4 As mentioned earlier, an important responsibility of the formal partners involves the organization of training. Common duties of partners are to determine regional content needs, advertise courses, select participants, recruit trainers, and organize logistics. Development 1998-2001 From the beginning of the program (Vienna core course), the FD program team established partnerships that proved to be crucial for the delivery of core courses. While these contacts have remained strong, the FD program team has created and nourished contacts with other partners. In the past year, the FD program team has established contacts in countries where core courses and policy services have not been delivered as yet (including Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam, and, through the FDI partnership, Armenia and Georgia). More demand for partnership building and cooperation on training has been expressed, but the FD team reports that additional staff time and resources are necessary to pursue additional activities. Policy Services Although policy services were not evaluated for this study, a brief description of the role of policy services in the FD program is provided in the following section. Concept Although a relatively small part of the FD program in terms of staff time and financial commitments, the FD program team organizes and/or participates occasionally in policy services. The policy services are usually two- to three-day training events, often tailored to specific requests from governments and World Bank country offices for knowledge and learning in a particular area where the WBI has strong expertise. They can take the form of seminars, conferences, and regional forums. Box 3.8 contains titles of select policy service events. Box 3.8. Selected Policy Services from 1998 to 2001 · MDP Steering Committee Meeting (Annually) · Mediterranean Development Forum in Marrakech, Morocco (September 6-8, 1998) · Armenia Forum on Fiscal Decentralization in Yerevan, Armenia (March 15-17, 1999) · Symposium on Critical Issues for Subnational Governance in Bangalore, India (March 24-27, 1999) · Symposium on Fiscal Decentralization in Yerevan, Armenia (April 20-21, 1999) · Urban and City Management in Toronto, Canada (May 2-12, 1999) · Forum on Fiscal Decentralization in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (June 14-16, 1999) · Annual Bank Conference for Developmental Economics-LAC 1999: Decentralization and Accountability of the Public Sector in Santiago, Chile (June 20-22, 1999) · Annual Bank Conference for Developmental Economics- LAC in Santiago, Chile (June 20-23, 1999) · Turkey Municipal Finance Workshop, Seminar for Mayors on Fiscal Decentralization and Local Government Policy in Antalya, Turkey (June 21-22, 1999) · Latin American Summit of Mayors in Miami, USA (July 6-10; 1999) · Africa: Dialogue with Ministry of Local Government in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe (September 20-24, 1999) 4A memorandum of understanding is typically a long-term umbrella agreement that generally outlines such things as work responsibilities and funding arrangements. A work program agreement is usually used for an individual project or activity. The WBI and its partner organizations develop and agree to these terms jointly. 21 · Serbia Mayors Seminar in Budapest, Hungary (September 30 - October 1, 1999) · Fiscal Decentralization for Asian Development Bank Staff in Manila, Philippines (October 11-15, 1999) · Palestinian Local Finance in Nablus (October 18-22, 1999) · Participatory Budgetary Workshop in São Paulo, Brazil (November 10-13, 1999) · Swiss Forum on Diversity in Bern, Switzerland (December 8-9, 1999) · Diversity and Asymmetry Project: The Conference on Intergovernmental Relations and National Cohesion in Murten, Switzerland (February 10-12, 2000) · Benefits and Risks of Decentralization in Singapore (June 5-8, 2000) · Nepal Decentralization in Kathmandu (October 2000) · Symposium on the Japanese Model of Achieving Intergovernmental Reform: A Dialogue for East Asia in Bangkok, Thailand (June 15-16, 2001) · African Local Government Summit in Côte d'Ivoire (1998) and Namibia (1999) · Delivering and Financing Local Services in East Asia in Denpasar, Indonesia (January 2001) Source: FD program data. Development 1998-2001 Policy services are very much demand-driven. They not only allow the use of the FD program team's accumulated knowledge for training and consulting, but also enable the team to broaden the base of its experience. Policy services can open gates for further training activities. The FD program team has been quite successful in providing policy services. In FY 2001, Robert Ebel together with the other coorganizers received the Nepal Country Management Unit-Nepal Country Office Spot Awards for the Nepal Decentralization Workshop. A WBI-World Bank Indonesia Country Office decentralization-grants workshop in Indonesia also received very positive feedback from the World Bank's Country Director for Indonesia. FINANCIAL ASPECTS The program has benefited from the generosity of donors who contributed approximately 60 percent of program funds for the current fiscal year (FY 2002) and two previous fiscal years (FY 2001 and FY 2000). The donor funds have been used for such things as supporting travel and tuition costs for participants in some courses, covering organization costs for training partners, and the hiring of expert trainers (consultants) for courses. World Bank funds have accounted for the remaining 40 percent of the three fiscal years' budgets. The World Bank funds have paid for similar activities as those mentioned in the context of donor funds, in addition to such things as World Bank staff salaries and operating costs. The budgets for the current and two most recent fiscal years are found in table 3.1. 22 Table 3.1. Source of FD Program Funding Percentage Percentage Percentage FY 2000 of total FY FY 2001 of total FY FY 2002 of total FY Source of disbursed 2000 disbursed 2001 planned 2002 funds (US$) (percent) (US$) (percent) (US$) (percent) Donor trust 1,481,723 62 1,306,996 60 1,687,176 60 World Bank 915,204 38 877,539 40 1,133,583 40 Total 2,396,927 100 2,184,535 100 2,820,759 100 Source: FD program data. EVOLVING CONTEXT Change Management in the World Bank and the WBI Although this present evaluation clearly focuses on the FD program, its evolution can only be understood in the broader terms of the World Bank's and the WBI's expanding strategies. The WBI is the World Bank's learning arm. Although activities in fiscal decentralization had been undertaken within the World Bank throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the focus on fiscal decentralization grew clearer when, in 1997, the WBI announced its intention to present a series of core courses for topics of strategic importance. This strategy was and is strongly motivated by the Knowledge for Development initiative as elaborated in the 1998-1999 World Development Report (World Bank 1999). It put the focus on extensive use of information technology and DL. The challenge and ambition of the WBI has been to generate cutting-edge knowledge on relevant development issues. To progress in this strategy requires stronger links to the learning and knowledge producing centers of the World Bank and within the WBI, including (i) the research arm of the World Bank (Development Economics group); (ii) the knowledge networks within the World Bank (such as the Human Development Network, the environmentally and socially sustainable vice presidency, the private sector and infrastructure network, and the poverty reduction and economic management network); (iii) research capacity centers in development countries; and (iv) learning and knowledge production centers in industrialized countries. Impacts on the FD Program The evolution of the FD program's strategy in many ways reflects the changes that have been initiated in the World Bank group and in the WBI. In the last three and a half years, the FD program has established and consolidated core courses. Strengthening partnerships is widening their outreach and deepening their impact deepened. This echoes another leitmotiv of the World Bank during the 1997-2001 period: partnership. The FD program is strongly and increasingly--through its partners and support--involved in DL. The Latin American Distance Learning Seminar on Municipal Management course at the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico was presented entirely in DL form in cooperation 23 with the FD program. This emphasis on DL is very much in line with the Knowledge for Development initiative. Some of WBI's more recent decisions, for example, the grouping of the former 25 core courses into 15 thematic groups, are motivated by the objectives of better integration and a clearer focus. Some of the FD program's partners expressed a wish for better integration of different training programs at the Budapest Experts Workshop, noting their desire to see the World Bank and other suppliers' training programs better bundled and coordinated (see chapter 6). This requires consolidation and better cooperation among course suppliers. In the period 1998-2001, the FD program's core courses reached maturity. This opens new horizons. Partners of the FD program are assuming full responsibility for the FD program's core courses in ECA and LAC. By design, the FD program team is reducing its substantive work in presenting those courses, thus reducing the WBI's financial inputs. Substantial knowledge and experience is flowing back to the WBI. The expertise the FD program team, affiliated expert- trainers, and partner organizers have gained since the 1998 pilot course could be exploited in future sponsorship of core courses and policy services in other regions. The know-how of the FD program team can provide inputs for operational activities (especially lending operations) within the World Bank Group. To that end, it might prove useful for World Bank operational staff to be more involved in the training activities. Management Information Systems within the WBI Management decisions within the WBI have had an immediate impact on the management of the FD program. The FD program has quickly taken up the WBI's emphasis on program outreach. The FD program's strategy of increasing outreach by wholesaling training to strong and reliable partners has corresponded well with the WBI's management objectives. WBI management's value placed on participant days (number of participants per course multiplied by the number of days per course) appears to be a relatively weak indicator of a program's overall performance. Participant days involve aspects that can only be partly assessed quantitatively. Currently the WBI is trying to move from output- to impact-related indicators. Impact indicators may yield information about whether impact targets are reached. Because impact indicators necessarily involves causal aspects, such indicators can rarely confirm that impacts are due to the program in question. Some indicators may get manipulated. A vast array of information is needed to get a full picture of training programs (Bussmann 1999). Strategic Themes for the FD Program Many strategic themes guide the FD program. One important theme is the position of the WBI as the learning arm within the World Bank Group. Since 1998 there has been a strong drive to bring the lending and the learning functions of the World Bank closer together to improve the relevance and impact of training programs (EDI 1998). This move raises the crucial question about the function of the WBI within World Bank: is it a learning arm in terms of a training institution or in terms of a learning institution, that is, an institution that is acquiring and developing the best available knowledge, has efficient outlook capabilities, and is capable of drawing lessons from its own and others' past successes and failures? While the WBI clearly understands the function of a learning arm in the second sense, it is debatable whether all necessary skills for this ambitious role (for example, self-reflective capabilities) are fully developed. 24 The WBI's programs in fiscal decentralization have grown in response to the convergence of an increasing client demand and the World Bank's emphasis on developing knowledge programs as a critical ingredient for accomplishing the twin goals of economic development and poverty reduction. Moreover, because of its special nature as an institution with a rich and continuing expertise in public sector economics, the World Bank is well positioned as a value-added knowledge institution in fiscal affairs. In response to these developments, beginning in FY 2002, WBI reorganized key elements of its fiscal programs and has incorporated the FD program under the broader program of Public Finance, Decentralization, and Poverty Reduction. The program now has three components (of which FD still clearly dominates): decentralization, public tesource policies to benefit the poor, and tax policy in developing countries. Box 3.9 contains a description of these componants as described by the FD program team in their FY 2002 WBI program brief. Box 3.9. Componants of the Newly Formed Public Finance, Decentralization, and Poverty Reduction Program Decentralization The 1999­2000 World Development Report: Entering the 21st Century (World Bank 2000), finds that there are two forces shaping the world in which development policy will be defined and implemented: globalization (the continuing integration of the countries of the world) and localization (the desire for self-determination and the devolution of power) (World Bank 2000). Within this context, three key points emerge that reveal the logic of a WBI program in public finance, decentralization, and poverty reduction. First, localization, which is the devolution of political and fiscal power to subnational, regional, and local levels, stresses the inherently intergovernmental nature of governance, that is, the central-local sorting out of decisions about how people collectively determine the services that each level of government should deliver and how they should deliver them by establishing a set of transparent and competent institutions that citizens can understand and control. Thus, localization is at the same time a public finance discipline (for example, service delivery and finance) and a policy dimension (the governance of how collective institutions are organized and structured). As the 1999-2000 World Development Report (World Bank 2000) notes, decentralization is about the rethinking of government as we enter the first millennial decade. Second, a well designed intergovernmental system is a critical element in a successful strategy to attack poverty. The proximity of subnational governments to the poor and familiarity with the institutional situations and hostile environments that the poor inhabit in different regions and communities provide distinct advantages to the well decentralized governmental units in designing and implementing antipoverty policies. Third, the shift from government to governance is fundamentally tied to the topic of decentralization. The degree to which good governance objectives are achieved is a often contingent on getting the right sequence of sorting out the respective roles of central versus local service providers and then following up by developing capacity for carrying out the assigned tasks for service delivery and revenue mobilization. 25 Public Resource Policies to Benefit the Poor With the PRSP initiative and the release of the 2000­2001 World Development Report: Attacking Poverty, the World Bank is moving to further mainstream poverty reduction in its partnership development and capacity building activities (World Bank 2001). As part of this effort, the WBI is developing learning products that concentrate on cutting-edge issues related to poverty analysis and poverty reduction strategies, which range from measurement issues to the impact of macroeconomic adjustment on poverty and income distribution to poverty and decentralization and gender budgeting. In designing these products, the WBI taps into the World Bank and its partners' accumulated knowledge on poverty reduction matters, including conceptual issues and best practices as indicated by international experience. Three major issues are the main focus of the WBI's work on poverty reduction, as reflected in its product lines: · The kind of economic growth (that is, equitable and sustainable) most favorable to the poor. · The policies and institutions to build the capacity of the poor to fully benefit from growth, ranging from distributional issues to participatory approaches to enhance social inclusion. · The interventions required to protect the most vulnerable segments in the developing world's societies. The FD program team's contribution is the development of a training program (to date, entirely DL)--Public Resource Policies to Benefit the Poor--that focuses on budget (revenues and expenditures) as a central locus of strategies to fight poverty. After various consultations, it is clear that a strong demand exists for such a course not only in PRSP countries but also for the client base generally. Tax Policy in Developing Countries One of the key messages of the World Bank's Strategic Compacta is that if it is to effectively address its priorities of poverty reduction, empowerment and social inclusion, and good governance, it must be selective in its programmatic structure and yet comprehensive in its approach. These are not contradictory concepts. Selectivity is about focusing on activities that have a large impact on people's lives. It is therefore about how a society's resources are both transferred and used. However, for this selectivity strategy to work, the tools chosen must be comprehensive in the sense that all the essential components of a system are understood and considered. Within this context, the proposal for further development of the World Bank's tax program passes the joint tests of selectivity and comprehensiveness. There are two sides to the comprehensiveness test: the use of collective resources and the generation of resources. The World Bank extensively addresses the use side through a variety of specialized activities that range from a focus on public expenditure management to sectoral work. The resources side, which is an essential component of a comprehensive view of public sector management, is given much less attention. This is true even though a well designed revenue system is key to the achievement of many of the broader reform objectives of our clients. Indeed, of all the facets of public involvement in the economy, few are as a cross-cutting and multidimensional as the system of laws, rules, and institutions established for paying for its collective needs, that is, the tax side of the budget. As a matter of governance, then, the tax system is more than a compendium of technical laws and arcane institutions; rather, as noted before, it is a fundamental expression of community relationships between the people and their government. 26 Indeed, a society's tax and revenue system is both an entry point for citizen participation and a critical vehicle for giving citizens ownership of their government. This combination of entry and ownership is the essence of good governance. At the same time, the way that a revenue system is designed and implemented has enormous consequences for the achievement of a nation's broader economic goals of fiscal architecture of good governance, private sector development, poverty reduction, and an effective anticorruption policy. a.The Strategic Compact is a plan for fundamental reform and renewal of the World Bank to make it more effective in achieving its basic mission of reducing poverty (World Bank 1997b). Source: FD program data. PARTICIPANT VIEWS OF OUTPUTS The text and tables in the remainder of this chapter are drawn from the results of a survey that was sent to former IFRLFM core course participants in April-May 2001. Assessment by Course Participants Course output quality has been assessed through the survey among former core course participants. Details about the survey, the questionnaire, and the aggregate results are presented in Annexes 1, 3, and 4. Survey questions on outputs concerned: · Contacts and information about the course · Utilization of knowledge base · Satisfaction with course delivery · Insights from the course · Strengths and weaknesses of the course. Contacts and Information about the Course Course participants were asked how they learned about the course they attended. It is interesting to note that while 83 of the respondents reported that they were employed by central, subnational, or local governments (see Annex 4), only 50 government employees had received information about the course from the government itself. However, four respondents that were not employed by the government received information about the course through government sources. Another 24 participants received the information from the World Bank (either by direct contact, for example by e-mail, or by visiting the web site). Additional sources reported by respondents (shown in table 3.2) were the World Bank's regional training partners (26), employers (private or nongovernmental organization (NGO)) (9), friends or relatives (6), and other sources (30), which included training institutes and development agencies. 27 Table 3.2. Source of Information about Course Question 2. From what source(s) did you learn about the course? (Fill all that apply.) Total Government 54 Employer (private sector or NGO) 9 School, university, training -research institution, or regional training organization 26 Friends or relatives 6 World Bank 24 Other 30 Source: Participant survey data. Forty-one respondents reported that direct mail and e-mail was the main medium of information. For 23 respondents, indirect mail or e-mail (through newsletters, flyers, brochures, posters, and so on) was the main source of information. Newspapers or magazines, television, and radio did not provide respondents with any course information. The FD program team makes its knowledge base, to a great degree, accessible on the Internet. The FD program web site has thus the character of an international public good. Within the 12-month period between June 2000 and May 2001, of 28,921 unique visitors to the FD website, 6,290 of them were multiple visitors (that is, visitors who visited the site more than once during the period).5 Visitors most frequently came to the FD program web site from Internet service providers of the following ten countries as shown in table 3.3. Table 3.3. Web Site Visitor Sessions Organized by National Internet Service Providers (Top 10) June 2000­May 2001 Rank Country visitor sessions 1 United States 24,011 2 United Kingdom 2,250 3 Canada 896 4 Australia 691 5 Germany 532 6 Japan 404 7 Mexico 347 8 Netherlands 332 9 Indonesia 311 10 Brazil 293 Note: Visitor sessions indicate the number of visits to the web site. 5Most of these users visited several pages. Altogether 572,858 hits were counted for this period. 28 Source: FD program data. While the providers of the most frequent visitors are located in industrialized countries, people using providers in transition and developing countries, including very poor countries (for example, Bhutan, Cuba, Ethiopia, Nepal, and Zimbabwe) also visit the site. Core course participants were asked in the survey about their assessment of Box 3.10. A User's Recommendation of the FD Web the strengths and weaknesses of FD Site program web site. Out of 51 comments, nine mentioned the "A superb site on fiscal federalism from a global abundance of information, six wrote perspective, from the World Bank. Features an on-line about the high quality of information, course, Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local and four found no weaknesses (see box Financial Management, Course Directors: Dr. Robert 3.10). Weaknesses were mentioned in Ebel and Victor Vergara." 11 comments and concern was expressed about various aspects of the Source: GWU Washington University doctoral web site (such as lack of translations, candidate web site on federalism (available at insufficient regional focus, and http://www.min.net/~kala/fed/index.htm). difficult to use). Satisfaction with Course Delivery Course participants were asked whether they were satisfied with the main aspects of the delivery of the course (giving ratings of 4 or 5 on a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being a low rating and 5 a high rating). Thematic aspects received the best two ratings: 93 percent of the respondents (mean=4.4, N=121) were satisfied with the course materials and 93 percent with the curriculum (mean=4.3, N=120). Next, 88 percent of the respondents were satisfied with classroom interaction among participants (mean=4.3, N=120) and 82 percent were satisfied with the degree case studies were relevant to their country (mean=4.2, N=120). These two ratings refer to the responsiveness to needs of the course participants. Following these ratings, 79 percent of respondents were satisfied with social activities, or opportunities to network and socialize with one another, (mean=4.2, N=119) and 76 percent with instructional techniques (mean=4.1, N=118). The lowest ratings received (69 percent) concerned the short duration of the course (mean=3.9, N=120). While the questionnaire only asked about the duration in general (meaning it could be either too long or too short), the 32 respondents who provided comments on this issue all noted that the course was too short and/or too loaded with content for the given course period. Figure 3.4 shows the respondents' satisfaction with the course delivery. 29 Figure 3.4. Overall Satisfaction with Course Aspects Question 20. To what extent were you satisfied overall with the following aspects of the course? Mean (1 to 5 scale) 1 2 3 4 5 a. Course materials 4.4 c. Curriculum (contents of the course) 4.3 e. Classroom interaction among participants 4.3 b. Degree to which case studies were relevant to your country or region 4.2 f. Social activities (opportunities to network and socialize with one another) 4.2 d. Instructional (pedagogical) techniques 4.1 g. Duration of the course 3.9 Source: Participant survey data. Satisfaction with and Insights Gained from Course Materials, Curriculum, Instructors, and Activities The text and tables in the following section highlight the insights that survey respondents reported gaining from the course materials, curriculum, instructors, and activities. Insights from the Course Related to the main modules of the course participants were asked to describe the most important insight that they gained from the course. Respondents answered this question in two ways: (i) they mentioned specific course modules that provided them with important insights, and/or (ii) they described the nature of those insights. Modules that Provided the Most Insights Referring to the 13 module titles provided in the questionnaire (see box 3.1), respondents mentioned that the course modules presented in table 3.4 provided the most important insights that they gained from the course. 30 Table 3.4. Usefulness of Course Contents by Module Question 12: Taking into consideration the main contents of the course, please describe the most important insight that you gained from the course. Total Rank Intergovernmental grants 27 1 Concept overview: Concept of FD and worldwide overview 26 2 Revenue assignment 26 2 Expenditure assignment 18 4 Budgeting 17 5 Intergovernmental relations and macroeconomic stability and growth 14 6 Local revenues 11 7 Accountability and transparency in municipal governments 11 7 Political economy of FD 9 9 Financing infrastructure 6 10 Constitution and legal framework 5 11 Credit debt or how to measure municipal creditworthiness: Policies on borrowing and 5 11 debt Fiscal risk 4 13 Source: Participant survey data. Respondents also listed modules only offered in certain regions (mostly Brazil) from which they also gained important insights. Nature of the Insights A total of 88 comments were given on the nature of insights that the respondents gained (see table 3.5). The two most frequent comments can be grouped under (i) understanding or comparing international experience of decentralization of government (27 comments) and (ii) general overview of FD principles and responsibilities of different levels of government (16). Next come (iii) tools or mechanisms to implement changes (6), (iv) sharing responsibilities among different levels of government (6), and (v) trade-offs of decentralization (benefits and risks) (6). Most of these comments do not assess the course outputs, but are already indications of outcomes (change of behavior of participants). A major part of these insights (i, partially ii, and v) concern what Carol H. Weiss calls the "enlightenment function" (described in chapter 5). Only (iii) is related to instrumental use, that is, to direct application of knowledge. Examples of comments related to insights are shown in box 3.10. 31 Table 3.5. Usefulness of Course Contents: Substantive Aspects Question 12: Taking into consideration the main contents of the course, please describe the most important insight that you gained from the course. Total Rank i. Understanding or comparing international experience of decentralization 27 1 of government ii. General overview of FD principles and responsibilities of different levels 16 2 of government iii. Tools or mechanisms used to implement changes 6 3 iv. Sharing responsibilities among different levels of government 6 4 v. Trade-offs of decentralization (benefits and risks) 6 5 Source: Participant survey data. 32 Box 3.10. Comments on the Nature of Insights Question 12: Taking into consideration the main contents of the course, please describe the most important insight that you gained from the course. "Before the course I did not consider FD an important issue (probably under the influence of IMF philosophy). Now I think FD is an important ingredient in building democracy and promoting transparency." "I had intuitive knowledge about all the themes. However, to study these themes concretely and take notice of the international reality was very useful, as it provides more trust in a broader analysis. At that time, 1998, the Fiscal Responsibility Law was a very polemical subject, because it was the beginning of these discussions in the country, so it was very relevant to take notice about the international experiences." "The most important were the presentation about the international experience on fiscal decentralization, the outcomes, the advantages, and the disadvantages." "Generally, the course helped me to improve my capacity of analysis and policymaking in the FD field." "For me the main contribution of the course was not in obtaining new knowledge (although this occurred), but in the general vision of the program and the inter-relation between the different modules. For those who, like me, belong to academic and training institutions, this value-added is very important for the design of new courses and programs." "Experiences on Intergovernmental Grants and Transfers were particularly relevant as this is an area under the spotlight in ...[name of the country] at the moment. The need for constitutionalizing fiscal arrangements between the central and local governments is still under debate in my country, so the course provided useful insights. It was also clear that in many countries, local revenues are not receiving adequate attention, yet they can become the main source of local government finance as is the case here." "The analysis comparing the fiscal realities in the countries of the Americas. Analyzing the strong points in my country and the successful experiences in other countries." "During the course I acquired knowledge of the world practice of fiscal decentralization. Especially interesting was the Hungarian experience. I also acquired knowledge about problems in budgetary relations and about ways of resolving it used in different countries. The Russian experience is of particular importance to us." Note: Identifying information has been removed. Source: Participant survey data. Strengths and Weaknesses of Course Participants assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the courses that they had attended. The respondents could list as many strengths and weaknesses as they desired. This is why the total number of comments (206 strengths and 139 weaknesses) exceeds the number of respondents (107 respondents listing strengths, and 34 respondents listing weaknesses) to this question. Strengths and weaknesses of the course were asked in two separate questions (questions 26 and 27, see Annexes 3 and 4). Because another survey question on course delivery (question 21: provide suggestions for improvement if ratings on satisfaction with aspects of the course were rated lower than 3; see Annex 4) provoked similar comments, the results of these two questions are presented together. 33 Strengths The 206 comments on the strengths of IFRLFM courses concern a wide array of aspects, summarized in table 3.6 along with a sample of comments in box 3.11. Table 3.6. Strengths of the Course Question 26: What are the strengths of the course(s) that you attended? Total Rank Contents and materials 54 1 Instructors and presentations 46 2 Exchange experiences, interaction, discussion 21 3 Organization, facilities, equipment, and atmosphere 20 4 International comparisons 18 5 Networks, contacts, follow up 11 6 Cases 7 7 Teamwork 6 8 Quality participants 6 8 Videoconferencing 5 10 Social activities 4 11 Pedagogical techniques 3 12 Exercises and examples 2 13 Computer simulation 2 13 Conceptual learning 1 15 Unique comments 206 Respondents to question 107 Source: Participant survey data. Fifty-four respondents considered contents and materials to be the key strengths of the IFRLFM core courses. A participant commented on contents and materials, saying "the strengths of the course stem from its conceptual framework, highlighting the comprehensive or systems approach to the design and implementation of fiscal decentralization." For 46 respondents the quality of instructors and presentations was a strength of the courses. The high level of teaching was often mentioned along with instructors being noted for quality, excellence, and competence. Mentioned by 21 respondents as a strength of the course was the exchange of experiences, interactions, and discussions. Typical comments from this group concern the opportunity to exchange experiences and meet people from different countries with different opinions and different knowledge. Cited by 20 respondents were organization, facilities, equipment, and atmosphere, and 18 respondents mentioned international comparisons (of fiscal decentralization experiences) as strengths of the course. The last point is related to the contents and materials. 34 Another 11 respondents noted networks, contacts, and follow up as a strength of the course. Rounding out the strengths, 36 respondents listed a variety of items such as case studies, group work, and quality of participants, among others. The high quality of contents and materials and of instructors and presentations together with the comparative approach, which in turn facilitates participants' exchange of experiences and favors their interactions, clearly emerge as the core strengths of the IFRLFM core courses. Box 3.11. Comments on the Strengths of the Course Question 26: What are the strengths of the course(s) that you attended? "The high qualification of some instructors, the level of preparation and the experience of several participants, the quality of the information discussed, and the opportunity to participate in a network of relations, with people who work in related areas." "(i) Variety of topics covered in a relatively short time period; (ii) good and useful, highly relevant practical cases illustrated; (iii) Good alumni network established after the course and continual news updates; (iv) a very good social program during the course." "All presentations in general were very good and laid out themes that opened the mind. The material was very good and the willingness of (name removed) to submit more materials was excellent." "(i) Instructors' competence, (ii) organizers' efficiency, (iii) contents, (iv) new relationships." "The strengths of the course were that it combined presentations that covered all aspects of decentralization. It involved good lecturers with much expertise and experience in decentralization. It provided a good set of training materials." "New. Comprehensive. Professional. Experienced." Note: Identifying information has been removed. Source: Participant survey data. Weaknesses There were 150 comments in response to questions 21 and 27 (see table 3.7) describing course weaknesses. Sample comments on weaknesses are in box 3.12. 35 Table 3.7. Weaknesses of the Course Question 21: If you provided an answer of "3" or lower for question 20, please provide suggestions for improvement on these items or any other aspect of the course. Question 27: What were the weaknesses of the course(s) that you attended? Total Rank Short, loaded, intensive 32 1 Lack of country or regional examples 18 2 Lack of time for interactions or discussions 11 3 Insufficient quality of instructors or presentations 11 3 Insufficient pedagogical techniques 11 3 Thematic changes suggested 9 6 Participant selection 7 7 Lack of social activities or opportunities 7 7 Lack of follow up and support 5 9 Repetition of themes or course too large 4 10 Organization or insufficient respect for schedule 4 10 Lack of on site visits 3 12 Insufficient preparation of participant presentations 3 13 Other (single comments) 14 14 Total comments (excluding "no weaknesses found") 139 Respondents to questions (excluding "no weaknesses found") 34 No weaknesses found 11 Total comments (including "no weaknesses found") 150 Source: Participant survey data. Citing an imbalance between content and duration, 32 persons mentioned that duration was too short, the course was too intensive (too loaded) or both. The lack of examples from their particular country or their particular region was mentioned by 18 respondents. Among the comments explaining this weakness were "instructors were not sufficiently familiar with their country or region" and "course materials did not include country or regional examples." Another 11 respondents commented on the lack of interactions and discussion during courses and a similar number on the insufficient quality of presentations and/or instructors. The same number, 11 respondents, were not able to find any weakness at all in the courses they had taken. Yet another 11 participants mentioned insufficient pedagogical techniques of various kinds, for example, too academic and inappropriate visual aids. A total of nine respondents suggested various thematic changes (for example, to include the topic of ethics or social questions). 36 Additional comments on other aspects of course delivery included: inappropriate selection of participants, especially with regard to knowledge of language (7 respondents); lack of social activities or opportunities (7); lack of follow up and support (5); repetition of themes or course too large (4); lack of on-site visits (4); organization or disrespect for schedule (3); insufficient preparation of participants' presentations (3); and other aspects (14). Besides the short duration and/or high intensity of the course, a complaint not uncommon among the WBI's core courses, no common denominator emerged from the answers of the respondents on weaknesses. In other words there does not seem to be an inherent flaw in the IFRLFM core courses. However, this does not mean that room for improvement does not exist in the IFRLFM core courses (see chapter 6 on options for the future). Box 3.12. Comments on Course Weaknesses Questions 21 and 27: If you provided an answer of "3" or lower for question 20, please provide suggestions for improvement on these items or any other aspect of the course and what were the weaknesses of the course(s) that you attended? Duration too short: "I see the short duration of the course (two and a half weeks) as the major weakness of the course." Lack of examples from particular country or region: "The instructors and discussions tended to favor overseas and were not adequate or very little on Africa." Lack of examples from particular country or region: "More detailed study of cases that are relevant to our region. It is necessary to choose the countries that have conditions close to those of our region for detailed study and generalization of experience." Insufficient quality of presentations and or instructors: "Instructional techniques should be for adults. Models and examples should be the basis of the presentation." Insufficient quality of presentations and or instructors: "Some teachers were not up to the job; maybe they were experts, but they had no talent for teaching and their lectures were boring." Lack of interactions and discussion during courses: "It should be stimulated and provided an open space in the course's agenda, for the creation of discussion groups of people who work in related professional areas, so that they could discuss among them, their problems, experiences, and potential solutions." Lack of interactions and discussion during courses: "The course should be more interactive, using adult-learning methods and techniques. The participants should have similar level of understanding English." Note: Identifying information has been removed. Source: Participant survey data. 37 4. FD PROGRAM PARTNER ASSESSMENT OF OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS Information on partner assessments of outcomes was gained through the authors' individual interviews with partners, group discussions with partners at the Budapest Experts Workshop, and partner-prepared case studies and presentations at the Budapest Experts Workshop. FD PROGRAM'S MULTIPLE TARGET GROUPS The FD program seeks through a multilayered path and together with various actors to improve conditions in transition and developing countries (see figure 1.1, the program rationale). Training is not an end in itself but a means to support policy changes in the countries involved. The quality of partnerships with training institutions however already has merits of its own. Strong and sustainable partnerships contribute to capacity building, which has spillover effects beyond the FD program. QUALITY OF PARTNERSHIPS ASSESSED BY PARTNERS The partners themselves can best Box 4.1. Shifting Roles of the WBI and its Partners: assess the quality of those From Exiting by Regional Wholesaling to South-South partnerships. The quality of Learning to World Bank Staff Learning interactions within the partnerships and their effects on capacity building were discussed Both the FDI and ESAF partnerships have been so successful at and assessed during the Budapest wholesaling the initial coure course concept and content that now, Experts Workshop, which was in two regions, the WBI has not only largely exited its lead role to partners in Central Europe and Brazil, but also stepped back to the attended by representatives of extent that these partners now have the lead in South-South more than half of the FD IFRLFM knowledge development and training. In Central Europe program's partner institutions, (since 2000) and now, increasingly, in Central Asia and the especially those with the main Caucuses, the FDI is the lead developer and presenter (with the responsibilities of training.6 WBI still a partner) of the IFRLFM core course (with the FDI led WBI's partners presented three by the LGI, the Metropolitan Research Institute in Budapest, and case studies (from the LAC, AFR, the UNDP Good Governance program in Bratislava). Similarly, and ECA regions) of partnership ESAF has not only taken over (and expanded) the core course for relations, core course all of Brazil, but is in the lead for FD training for Portuguese- speaking Africa (the first course was held jointly with the WBI organization, and related teaching and the SDC in mid-February 2002). To take this wholesaling- and research activities. These partnership a (major) step further, the WBI is now in exploring-- case studies served as inputs for with both the FDI and the ESAF--the possibility of a joint FDI- the workshop. WBI and ESAF-WBI development and delivery of a new FY 2002 program for training World Bank field staff in the ECA and DEVELOPMENT OF LAC regions, respectively. PARTNERSHIPS Source: FD program data and evaluation team interviews. In all three cases presented, similar developments of partnerships took place (see also box 4.1). 6See box 3.6. 38 1. A short time after the Vienna workshop in March 1998, IFRLFM core courses were offered in Budapest (September 1998), Brasilia (November 1998), and Harare (November-December 1998). While these first core courses were almost identical to the one presented in Vienna, increasingly more time has been devoted to country or regional questions (in the Brazilian and Central European cases more than in the African case) in the subsequent courses, although the basic contents have been retained. 2. The main partner institutions of the WBI in turn have increasingly collaborated with partners from their respective country or region. In the case of the third offering of the IFRLFM in Africa (Kampala, Uganda in November 13-17, 2000), organized by the MDPESA in partnership with the WBI, the Institute of Social Studies, and the Uganda Management Institute, two-thirds of the presentations were delivered by regional and local resource persons. 3. The knowledge gained by organizing and giving the IFRLFM core courses has led to further training activities. The most interesting case in this respect is the ESAF's School of Financial Management in Brasilia, which has engaged in related activities (see box 4.2). From the perspective of the IFRLFM core courses these activities can be considered spin-offs. They can also be considered an intelligent combination and a cross-fertilization of the various activities in which the FD program's main partner institutions are engaged. Partner institutions bundle programs offered by the World Bank and other donors in such a way that they serve best the needs of their target groups. While ideas and concepts of the IFRLFM core course have been integrated into other activities of the WBI's partners, the IFRLFM core courses in turn have also benefited from their other activities. In the ESAF case experience, the preparation of the Brazilian law on fiscal accountability has enriched IFRLFM course content. Most recently, the ESAF and the WBI have worked together more closely on the joint preparation of modules. 4. Persons from partner institutions are also being increasingly used as resource persons for contracting purposes by other international organizations. Box 4.2. Brazilian Case Study: Synergy from Partnership Two Brazilian scholars, Amaury Gremaud, Professor at the Fundação Instituto de Pesquisas Econômicas (Institute Foundation of Economic Research) of the University of São Paulo and Maria de Fatima Cartaxo, Director of ESAF, the School of Financial Management, attended the March 1998 Vienna course. The ESAF is a large training institute in financial and fiscal management for civil servants, teachers, and researchers. Its headquarters are in Brasilia, and it has 10 regional training centers. Maria de Fatima Cartaxo and Amaury Gremaud were both interested in ways to improve the professionalism of government staff in the fiscal sector. Immediately after the Vienna course, the ESAF and the University of São Paulo established a partnership with the WBI for presenting the IFRLFM core courses. Courses were then offered in Brasilia in November 1998, November 1999, October 2000, and November 2001. When presenting the course in Brasilia, the core materials and structure of the original Vienna course were retained, with complete course materials translated into Portuguese and distributed to the participants. Conceptual references, however, were shortened. The time for treating current issues of Brazilian fiscal federalism was expanded. Numerous national experts were included as course presenters for that purpose. The ESAF's activities in financial management training and in Brazilian fiscal reforms (for example, laws on fiscal accountability, tax reform, and participatory budgetinga) have had a positive impact on the further development of the course. These three Brazilian offerings of the IFRLFM have concentrated on Brazilian experiences and, to some degree, other Latin American cases. The majority of attendees were Brazilian, with a small number of participants from other Latin American countries. The course also created South-South linkages by including participants from lusophone Africa. 39 The ESAF had established strong ties with regional and global institutions prior to the Vienna core course. For example, in June 1997, the ESAF hosted--in partnership with the OECD--the first International Conference in Decentralization, Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations, and Macroeconomic Governance. The partnership with the WBI helped to improve the already existing ties. It enhanced the relations among partners in the field of fiscal decentralization on the national level (for example with the Banco Nacional para o Desenvovimento Economico e Social) and global level (for example with the WBI, the OECD, the IMF, the UNDP, the Inter-American Center of Tax Administration, and the Inter-American Development Bank). The partnership with the ESAF and the University of São Paulo has also extended to other WBI training programs including the Urban and City Management core course beginning in 1999 and the Macroeconomics Management: New Methods and Current Policy Issues core course, beginning in January 1999. The partnerships with Brazilian institutions had (and has) several advantages for the FD program. It contributes to enlarging the knowledge base of the program. The Brazilian reform process is an interesting case for the interaction between macroeconomic reforms and decentralization policies. It is therefore well observed in international economic and policy research. Strong regional partners are of great help in this work. As far as training is concerned, course management in Brazil presents features that are of interest to other institutions as well (for example, pre- and post-course tests, focus groups for evaluation purposes, and plans for workshops with former core course participants). Participation in the FD program has had positive impacts on the ESAF as a whole. Elements of the course have been introduced into other teaching activities. Basic concepts were integrated into the training-of-trainers in the National Program of Fiscal Education for Citizenship. This program has a large outreach (measured in the number of its target population: almost one million students in the year 2000), but effects will only gradually, with continuous training-of-trainers, make themselves felt by the target group. In a similar vein, concepts of the FD program have been introduced into a number of other activities, including university graduate courses at the ESAF, the University of São Paulo, and the University of Brasilia; training of civil servants; training of mayors; workshops for the secretaries of finance of the states to assess the tax reform bill introduced in Parliament; and various teaching activities about the Brazilian law on fiscal accountability. Some of these themes and new topics, such as participatory budgeting and strengthening democracy, transparency in public management, and social control, are being presented during courses and workshops in 2001-2002. A most interesting facet of the ESAF's activity lies in civic education. The ESAF contributes to educational videos, games, and workshops within the National Program of Fiscal Education for Citizenship. It has established an educational magazine Tudo as Claras (everything out in the open). Concurrent with the objective of the law on fiscal accountability citizens are encouraged to use their rights and ask for information on public spending. The very poor who contribute to public revenue often without realizing it (for example, through sales taxes) are a special target to inform of their rights as citizens. The ESAF, through this training and information, contributes to create preconditions that are crucial for the success of fiscal decentralization reforms (effective democracy and financial accountability). Thus the ESAF's approach to fiscal relations is comprehensive. The ESAF strives to link issues of fiscal decentralization with those of reducing poverty and of strengthening democracy. Cross-fertilization between the FD program and the ESAF's other activities is taking place. Although the IFRLFM course represents only a small fraction of its training activities, participation in the FD program is of high priority for the ESAF. At the Budapest Experts Workshop, the ESAF's director mentioned the prestige of the World Bank and the WBI; the knowledge, flexibility, and strong support of its groups of experts, and the high level of the Vienna course materials as main reasons for the ESAF's strong commitment to the program. It may be added that the partnership with the World Bank (and with other institutions as well) contributes to enlarge the knowledge base of the ESAF, to link it with the global knowledge network and to strengthen its position within the national and the regional (Latin American) context. a The City of Porto Alegre has introduced so-called participatory budgeting by reserving a fraction of the budget for projects for citizens' groups. This part is then spent on the best project(s). Source: Compilation of text from presentations given by Maria de Fatima Cartaxo, Director General of the ESAF, at the Budapest Experts Workshop. ASSESSMENT OF PARTNERSHIPS AND NETWORKS At the Budapest Experts Workshop strengths and weaknesses of partnerships were implicitly treated in the case studies and discussed. Questions about future collaboration were raised and 40 proposals for improvements put forward (see chapter 6, "Options for the Future"). These discussions also provided opportunities to assess strengths and weaknesses of partnerships and networks. Strengths The FD program has in the past three years been remarkably successful in building partnerships and networks. The program clearly came about at the right time and with the appropriate and desirable content. The twin forces of globalization and localization combined with the problems of countries in transition have contributed to the growing interest in fiscal decentralization and local financial management. The WBI's IFRLFM core course attracted partners and helped to create contacts and networks, some of them of temporary, others of a strong and ongoing nature. The WBI's partnerships have greatly increased the outreach of the FD program. The main content and the inherent message of the IFRLFM courses--the devolution of power to noncentral agencies--to a large degree has been translated into the management of the FD program itself. A common philosophy exists within the IFRLFM courses that favorable results are not achieved by imposing conditions, but by providing high-quality services provided and vivid and intensive interactions among the FD program team and its partners. The FD program team integrates more and more people into its networks through a variety of means such as involving new persons in courses, visiting courses and partners, exchanging e-mails, and conducting videoconferences, and encourages its partners to do likewise. All of these factors help to explain the fact that the FD program team contributed 19 percent of the WBI's training days and in June 2000 won a performance award for its work during the period July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2000. Questions It is too early to determine whether the partnerships created and the networks formed will continue to function well after the WBI has ceased supporting and financing these activities. At the Budapest Experts Workshop, the FD program's partners said that at present it was too early for the WBI to exit. However, they could not define the moment when sustainable partnerships will have been created. Whether the FD program goal to create sustainable partnerships will be achieved can only be assessed in about three to five years. Partnerships with the ESAF and CEU are already on the verge of being sustainable. In choosing their regional fields of activity, the FD program team has clearly followed a demand- driven approach. It developed strongholds where reliable partners could be found that would take over responsibility for the training. However, the FD program team--due to limits in resources-- was not able to meet all demands. It concentrated on the regions with the greatest potential for outreach. In spite of demands voiced (and reiterated at the Budapest Experts Workshop), French was not included in the languages in which the knowledge base is presented and in which core courses are offered until October 2001.7 Also, case studies illustrating and enlarging the content of core courses have been developed in and for Central Europe and Latin America, but to a much lesser degree in and for AFR. 7As a result of the Budapest Experts Workshop a French version of the knowledge base was established in FY 2002, with a course offered in October 2001 in Dakar, Senegal. New regions will be addressed based on priorities. 41 Weaknesses The demand-driven approach to partnerships, which is due to the small size of the FD program team, has had a price. Geographical distribution of the main partners and of courses offered is uneven across the globe. Regional strongholds are CEE, Latin America, and AFR. IRFLM core courses have also been offered in China, Kazakhstan, and Thailand. However, China, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, where a large proportion of the world's poor live, are not well covered by the FD program. Among the transition countries, the Russian Federation and some of the countries within the Commonwealth of Independent States are not yet well integrated into the FD program's networks. The reasons for this weakness are to a large degree beyond the control of the FD program team. Explanations for this include other economic or political questions being on the agenda of governments or of World Bank country offices; lack of awareness about the various options on fiscal decentralization; and difficulties in planning events in some regions, such as bureaucratic obstacles and requirements by governments to select participants and approve materials. Over the past year, the FD program team has made special efforts to extend beyond its recent geographical strongholds and plans to do so even more intensely in FY 2002. The program web site has started to include documents in Russian. Close contacts have been established with institutions from Indonesia, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, and other countries. A French- language version of the course has recently been prepared and delivered. Policy services workshops in decentralization have been held in Indonesia, Nepal, and other countries, perhaps opening doors to closer relationships. However, it would clearly take a considerable effort to cover those areas more densely. IMPACTS OF PARTNERSHIPS ON POLICYMAKING Partners report that involvement with the FD program has strengthened their knowledge, functions, and credibility. This in turn has improved their capacity to provide policy advice. All of the FD program's main partners in the ECA, LAC, AFR regions have been involved in policy advice at the national and the subnational levels. The ESAF has been involved with the formulation and implementation of the law on fiscal accountability and was recently involved with the tax reform bill introduced in the National Parliament. The main partner in Zimbabwe, MDPESA, has initiated at the ministerial level a process of explicitly recognizing the merits of municipal governments (see box 4.3). In CEE and the former Soviet Union (FSU) region, policy advice has been advanced through the FDI grant program that was designed to assist transition economies in carrying out intergovernmental reform (see box 4.4). 42 Box 4.3. Case Study from the AFR Region: Victoria Falls Declaration Three representatives from Zimbabwe attended the March 1998 pilot IFRLFM course held in Vienna. They had contacts with George Matovu and Winnie Mulongo-Luhana, Regional Director and Senior Program Officer (respectively) of the MDP, Eastern and Southern Africa. This organization is mainly financed and supported by the World Bank and the Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands. Following the Vienna meeting, the MDPESA organized the first core course for the AFR region in November-December 1998 in Harare, Zimbabwe. Among the participants were academics, policymakers from the central government, mayors, and town clerks (including municipal treasurers). This first course was important in several respects, according to Winnie Mulongo-Luhana: "It was the first time that representatives of the countries of AFR had come together to discuss specific intergovernmental relations in their respective countries. We discovered so many differences in the ways the countries operated. Some were ahead in municipal development, some behind." The first core course in Africa inspired the MDPESA staff to hold a political summit on municipal questions at the impending turn of the century. According to Winnie Mulongo-Luhana, "We thought it would be important to bring ministers of local government and ministers of finance from the African continent together in order to get their collective views and visions. At the turn of the century we wanted to be guided on what we should focus on in the 21st century." The summit idea was presented to the MDPESA board of directors, which agreed to pursue this idea. The Government of Zimbabwe was requested to host the ministers of the African countries. The then Zimbabwe Minister of Local Government and National Housing, Honorable J. Nkhomo, put the request to the Republican President Mugabe and after his approval, invited his fellow ministers to the summit. MDPESA staff and the Zimbabwean Ministry of Local Government and National Housing organized the conference. From September 19-21, 1999, delegations from 25 AFR countries, in 15 cases led by the ministers of local government, converged at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. It was the first time that ministers of local government from this area had come together in this fashion. Representatives from each country made presentations on the state of decentralization and the financing of their local government in their respective countries. The delegation then worked out the Victoria Falls declaration, which laid out the vision for municipal development in Africa in the 21st century. The governments that signed the Victoria Falls declaration committed themselves to devolving power and responsibility to lower echelons, promoting local democracy and good governance, and promoting local government structures that are representative of and accountable to all sectors of the local population and that enable effective community participation in local governance. Furthermore financial resources should be available to local authorities in a manner that is reliable, adequate, predictable, transparent, accountable, sustainable, and equitable, and the basic components of a decentralized system of local government should be enshrined in the constitution. The governments pledged to cooperate, share information, and build capacity on local government issues by supporting the formation and strengthening of national associations of local government; supporting exchange programs among African countries; promoting information sharing and encouraging the development of systems for information dissemination; and, last but not least, recognizing the useful role that traditional leaders, wherever they exist, play in the process of development. The print and electronic media coverage of this event in Zimbabwe and the other African countries was very wide. The Victoria Falls conference was a building block to the second Africities summit that took place from 15-20 May 2000, in Windhoek, Namibia. This meeting of central government officials and of city and town representatives focused on the financing of local government. The Africities summit reached consensus and affirmed the vision that came from the Victoria Falls conference. Source: Based on two interviews with Winnie Mulongo-Luhana, Senior Program Officer of MPD, Eastern and Southern Africa. As mentioned earlier, in the CEE and FSU region, policy advice has been advanced through the FDI grant program (see box 4.4). 43 Box 4.4. The WBI Flagship Partnership Program in Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia: The FDI The FDI is a grant program designed to assist transition economies carrying out intergovernmental reform. It is designed to provide institutions such as central governments, parliaments, subnational governments, and associations of local authorities with technical and financial resources to analyze problems, develop solutions, and implement improvements in local government policy and management. The FDI seeks to assist transition economies in the areas of capacity building, institutional strengthening and training, fiscal decentralization, and improving fiscal management. Its major objective is to facilitate the analysis of policy options and develop a knowledge base, thereby enhancing the capabilities and effectiveness of newly formed local governments throughout CEE. The needs of the governments and other institutions in the process of fiscal decentralization drive the program. Donor agencies support the process with financial and technical resources and facilitate access to global knowledge. The FDI is a joint undertaking of the COE, the OECD, the OSI, the WBI, USAID, SDC, the Canadian International Development Agency, and the UNDP. In early 2002, a new FDI member emerged as a new member, with the Czech Republic Ministry of Foreign Affairs moving from being a client to a donor partner. The client ownership is evidenced not only by the direct client control over all aspects of the program content, but also by the fact that as of June 2001 the role of the General Secretariat has been fully transferred from the WBI to a newly established client-based NGO (which is based in Budapest and retains the name of the FDI). The FDI's activities encompass three different spheres: (i) grants to CEE experts and practitioners to conduct research or activities on the issues of fiscal decentralization and local government reform, (ii) seminars and conferences, and (iii) region-wide, multiyear knowledge dissemination-capacity building projects. Grants A portion of the FDI operating budget is set aside to fund proposals from organizations in CEE and the FSU to conduct action research in some aspect of intergovernmental relations and local financial management. Some 35 proposals have been funded after being reviewed by the FDI Steering Committee (comprised of the nine donor-partner organizations). They range from support for a workshop on municipal energy efficiency in Lithuania to training for government officials in Bosnia- Herzegovina in budgeting and financial reporting. The FD program maintains a list of all activities for FDI since the inception of the program including all national and regional conferences, proposals funded, and publications. Virtually every country in the region is represented here. Proposals can come from governments, universities, NGOs, research institutes, or associations of local authorities. Research is almost always linked to a dissemination strategy, for example, workshops, seminars, or other training, and the results are also frequently published as part of the FDI publication series (twelve publications to date). It is important to note here that all of the grant monies for this program fund experts in the region and all research and activities are conducted by country experts. It is not a vehicle for hiring Western consultants. Core Courses and Seminars Under the leadership of the LGI and its program delivery partner the CEU, the FDI has drawn on the WBI core course curriculum to tailor training courses throughout the region. In addition, the FDI has sponsored national forums on fiscal decentralization in nine countries in the region with more planned for the future. These activities bring together all of the various players in fiscal decentralization issues from all levels of government, sometimes for the first time, to discuss the most 44 pressing issues confronting them. The goal is not only a reconnaissance of the issues, but a discussion of next steps in intergovernmental reform. Participants are encouraged to submit their proposals for action research to the FDI for possible funding, which frequently takes place. Regional conferences are organized, frequently with the assistance of donor partners and always with a client country partner. Topics are identified by a variety of sources, such as clients, donor-partners, and World Bank Operations, and have included intergovernmental fiscal transfers, property tax reform, municipal creditworthiness, the role of associations of local authorities, and the role of associations of municipal finance officers. Representatives from countries throughout the region participate in these conferences, which are designed to build both individual and institutional capacity, facilitate networking and knowledge sharing, and disseminate best practices. Multi-year Region-wide Projects Two new important projects have grown out of the partnerships forged within the FDI that will have far reaching effects not only for CEE-FSU countries, but also as a model for other decentralizing countries: the Decentralization Indicators System and the Local Government Information Network (LOGIN). Decentralization Indicators System Setting up of local fiscal systems and intergovernmental financial relations involves multiple and often conflicting economic and political objectives. It is also one of the most complex reform processes to implement. Yet there is no international comparative set of data available to measure the transition from stage 1 political decentralization to stage 2 fiscal decentralization. To date, analysts have had to rely on the IMF's government finance statistics, which fail to adequately distinguish between deconcentrated and devolved fiscal systems (for a discussion see http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/publicfinance/decentralization/coursemodule.html#1). In response to the need to develop uniform set of fiscal decentralization indicators, the FDI and FDI partner organizations (led by the OECD, which developed the survey format and methodology; the OSI; and the WBI) have initiated a survey of fiscal decentralization for the purpose of providing a systematic comparable international comparison of intergovernmental fiscal systems. The indicators to be surveyed were identified in a series of consultative meetings between 1997 and 1999 involving the partner organizations in the project, experts from the region, and international experts in fiscal decentralization. The identified benchmarks and the list of indicators form the basis of the survey on fiscal decentralization. The survey will result in internationally comparative figures on fiscal decentralization and qualitative descriptions of design of local finance and intergovernmental financial relations. The first country reports (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland) of the Decentralization Indicators Systems project were presented at the FDI's annual meeting in February 2000. A second set of studies for four countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) was initiated in the fall of 2002, with a target for completion of the survey set in April 2003. This will bring the comparable database to 10 countries. The second set of four studies are being jointly financed by the FDI, with additional resources contributed by the OECD, and with the support of the World Bank research grant and the WBI. LOGIN The goal of LOGIN is to improve the capacity and professionalism of local government and community development actors in the CEE-FSU region through the exchange of information and experience. LOGIN provides policymakers and practitioners alike with an Internet-based, multilingual, interactive knowledge base of best practices, case studies, and current information on legislation and budgets. LOGIN links (both technically and through activities) organizations in the region that are serving 45 local government officials with information, knowledge sharing, and training. Each participating organization makes available information on national legislation, documented best practices, research, and news. In addition, the four sponsoring agencies (the COE, the OSI, USAID, and the WBI) make available their research and training documents pertaining to fiscal decentralization and local government issues. LOGIN went online in June 2000 (www.logincee.org). LOGIN's comparative advantage, and what sets it apart from any other online service, is that from the beginning the strategy has been not to create a new network, but to draw upon and enhance what already exists. At present, the WBI in cooperation with the World Bank's East Asia Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network is exploring the application of the LOGIN software and format to China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Source: FD program data. 46 5. PARTICIPANT ASSESSMENTS OF OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS Participant assessments of outcomes and impacts were compiled from quantitative and qualitative results of the partipant survey that was sent in April-May 2001 to former IFRLFM core course participants. TRAINING FOR POLICY IMPROVEMENTS The WBI's training programs (such as the FD program) seek to transmit skills and knowledge to participants. They should trigger learning processes and affect participant behavior by changing attitudes and increasing professional knowledge. Outcomes refer to such changes of behavior of programs' target groups. Outcomes in terms of improved knowledge and changing attitudes of course participants are not sufficient. The environment may not be receptive to the learning that took place. On a micro level, superiors of employees who have participated in training might not allow their established ways of handling problems to be challenged. On a macro level, political conditions might block policy reforms from being adopted or even being debated. In these cases training will not have real world impacts. Impacts in terms of effective policy improvements usually presuppose a match between knowledge and skills transmitted through training and an administrative and political environment favorable for reforms or "windows of opportunity." ENLIGHTENMENT FUNCTION OF SOCIAL RESEARCH For some time, social science research has considered the ways in which knowledge and research is being transmitted into the policy arena. Early research on knowledge utilization was based on the concept that knowledge acquired through social science research and evaluation would be applied in a straightforward manner. This so-called instrumental use of knowledge was challenged in the 1970s by Carol H. Weiss (see box 5.1). Her work shows that knowledge utilization is more complex than was originally thought. In her view, it is not immediate instrumental use, but the enlightenment function of social research that is of most importance (Weiss 1977). The FD program's goals are largely of conceptual nature. The training aims to provide participants with a broad array of policy options for consideration and possible implementation. The FD program leaders emphasize that the program's focus and course contents do not advocate the implementation of particular policies, but provide participants with conceptual information, new perspectives, and a menu of policy options to consider in their work. Box 5.1. Enlightenment Function of Social Research Noted educational and evaluation researcher Carol H. Weiss of Harvard University has written extensively on the topic of the enlightenment function of social research. Her work illustrates that research--or knowledge gained through training in the case of WBI activities--does not necessarily have to be applied by policymakers to be judged valuable and useful. Weiss contends that decisionmakers consider research to be useful if it is a source of ideas and information and if it challenges current values and political feasibilities. Weiss discounts assumptions that research must lead to the choice or implementation of a policy, 47 particularly in the short term. She argues that government officials use research more to orient themselves to problems than in problemsolving. They use research to define their problems and consider new ideas and perspectives. Drawing on her own research while at Columbia University and additional studies by the University of Michigan and of government officials in Vienna, Austria, Weiss suggests that the major effect of research on policy may be the gradual sedimentation of insights, theories, concepts, and ways of looking at the world. She writes, "Coupled with other changes, social research can play a role in clarifying, accelerating, and legitimating the changes in opinion. In fact, this process--bringing new perspectives to attention and formulating issues for resolution--may be the most important contribution that social research makes to government policy" (Weiss 1977, p. 535). While she cautions that it is difficult to document, Weiss's work indicates that "it appears likely that the social research has helped shift the agenda and change the formulation of issues in a wide variety of fields" (Weiss 1977, p. 535). Weiss notes that long-term effects of research are not easily discernible because the process is so indirect, diffuse, and circuitous. She notes that "much of this use (of research) is not deliberate, direct, and targeted, but a result of long-term percolation of social science concepts, theories, and findings into the climate of informed opinion" (Weiss 1977, p. 534). In her research, Weiss identifies four key dimensions that potential users use to describe and evaluate research: research quality, conformity to user expectations; action orientation, and challenge to the status quo. She adds that relevance is a lesser, but nevertheless important, dimension. Research Quality Respondent judgment on the quality of research that provides a basis for trust in the research. Conformity to User Expectations Consistency with what the respondent already knows and believes about the research characteristics that provides a basis for trust in the research. Action Orientation This involves a direct connection between the research and some decision or action, the "problem- solving" factor, which offers direction toward doing something about problems. Challenge to Status Quo This offers innovative ways of thinking about issues and identifying problems and possible responses and offers direction toward doing something about problems. Relevance Relevance of research to the decisionmaker's work also influences usability. While noting that all of these dimensions are important determinants of usability, Weiss's work finds that the challenge to the status quo is the most important single factor contributing to the judged usefulness of research. Based on respondents' answers to questions on usefulness in her studies, Weiss noted that research that challenges the status quo "is particularly useful for such purposes as changing ways of thinking about an issue, raising an issue to the attention of government decisionmakers, and 48 formulating new policies and programs" (Weiss 1977, p. 542). Her research suggests that this is the case even when the research implies actions that are currently unacceptable in the political system. Further, Weiss's study "suggests that decisionmakers believe it is a good thing to have controversial research, challenging research, research that makes them rethink comfortable assumptions" (Weiss, p. 544). Source: Weiss (1977). OVERVIEW OF USEFULNESS OF THE COURSE (PERSONALLY; IN WORK; IN TRAINING, TEACHING, AND RESEARCH ACTIVITIES; AND OVERALL) In the survey that was sent to former core course participants, nine questions were raised on the most important dimensions of usefulness. Both the closed-ended (rated) and open-ended (unrated) responses to these questions appear to be consistent with Weiss's findings on how policymakers judge research and knowledge. That is, respondents tended to emphasize usefulness in terms of the benefits gained from acquisition of new knowledge and perspectives over the usefulness of the course in leading to the solving of problems and implementation of policies, although the latter did occur. Chief among the results on respondents' opinions on course usefulness are that, to varying degrees, the course · Deepened participant knowledge · Broadened participant views and understanding of concepts · Resulted in further study (formal education) of the concepts · Improved confidence of participants to speak with colleagues and superiors on concepts · Generated a sharing of ideas on the topics (informally in their work and formally in research, presentations, conferences, and teaching activities) · Introduced networking opportunities · Contributed to improved work programs · Led to development and implementation of new projects and policies. Detailed descriptions are found below on the findings on four areas of usefulness: personal; in work; in teaching, training, and research; and overall usefulness. Personal Usefulness When asked how the course has helped respondents personally, the top-rated items were in providing fresh or new ideas (mean 4.2, N=119) and in meeting new persons or networking (mean 4.2, N=116) (see figure 5.1). Following closely behind these two items were providing a framework for thought (mean 4.1, N=118), updating previously acquired skills (mean 4.1, N=119), and improving professional skills (mean 4.1, N=121). When grouping answers to the main themes of personal usefulness, the networking function (13h) received the highest rating. The networking function can have a potentially strong impact on the participants' countries by favoring exchange of experiences and on their region by favoring mutual comprehension and collaboration within regions. Ranked second (with means 4.2 and 4.1) is the conceptual (or enlightenment) function of training (13e and 13d). A rather high rating (mean 4.1) involved the function of updating and improving professional skills (13b and 13a). Quite in agreement with Carol Weiss's findings is the rating (mean 3.3) of the instrumental function, or solving existing problems (13c). Less highly ranking, but still above the average, or a rating of "3," was the career function of training (13f and 13g). 49 Figure 5.1. Personal Usefulness Question 13: To what extent has or have the course(s) helped you personally in: 1 2 3 4 5 13h. Meeting new persons (networking) 4.2 13e. Providing fresh or new ideas 4.2 13d. Providing a framework for thought 4.1 13b. Updating previously acquired skills 4.1 13a. Improving professional skills 4.1 13c. Solving existing problems 3.3 13g. Increasing opportunities for promotion 3.1 13f. Becoming involved in new professional activities 3.4 Source: Participant survey data. To follow- up on this question, respondents were asked (in subsequent question 14) to provide concrete examples of how the course was personally useful. Eighty-three participants gave at least one example in response to this question, with most giving more than one. The 172 examples given can be categorized into 37 categories of responses, with most types of responses mentioned multiple times. (Annex 4 contains tabulated results of responses.) Looking at unique responses, the example of personal usefulness most mentioned was general improvement in understanding of concepts (N=24), followed by improvement in professional skills and opportunities (N=16), teaching elements of the course to others (N=14), preparation of a project using knowledge (N=13), networking (N=13), and general helpfulness to work (N=10). Because of the many unique responses, it is useful to combine further the unique responses into related themes (see figure 5.2). When doing this, the results were benefit to work or organization (N=57), improvement of knowledge both general and specific (N=41), professional development and education (N=38), contribution to teaching activities (N=19), networking (N=14), and other (N=3). See box 5.2 for a sample of comments on this question. 50 Figure 5.2. Personal Usefulness: Main Themes of Comments Question 14: Please provide concrete examples, if there are any, of how the course(s) helped you personally (categorized by theme) Other Networking 3 14 Contribution to teaching activities Benefit to work 19 or organization 57 Professional development and education 38 Improvement of knowledge both general and specific 41 Source: Participant survey data. Box 5.2. Comments on Personal Usefulness Question 14: Please provide concrete examples, if there are any, of how the course(s) helped you personally. General Improvement of Knowledge and Understanding "The course offered me a solid background in all fiscal decentralization topics. It helped me a lot because my professional background before attending the course was a technical one. My present area of activity is mostly economics and financial." General Improvement of Knowledge and Understanding "I have been working for a long time with the development of information systems in the fiscal revenue field, which limited my point of view. With the course, I began to have a broader perspective about fiscal administration." General Improvement of Knowledge and Understanding "In my case, working at the municipal level, the course was not very useful. But the information received was useful for the assumption of new attitudes." Execution of Projects or Policies "I have been able to present to the central government areas requiring attention for the Decentralization Program and these have been accepted...The local policy on income now reflects required concepts...The central government has acknowledged the need to enshrine revenue sharing in the constitution. The central government now recognizes the local government sector as a key player in the economy." 51 "I have been able to convince my local government about the importance of budgeting processes and its uses for control and evaluation purposes." Execution of Projects or Policies, Improvement in Professional Skills and Opportunities, and Information Sharing "At the time of the course I was giving professional advice to the government, and my profile was raised to the point where I was invited to write proposals for the national constitutional assembly. I wrote a proposal for the Office of Public Finance in my state and later became involved (as an advisor) in a presidential campaign. Further, I disseminated what I learned in the course to interested members of a national reform team." Professional Development and Education "I began my master's degree, then I switched to another professional field becoming devoted to the direct relations with states and municipalities." Training and Research "Edited four books on local elections, employers, and mayors....Prepared articles on fiscal decentralization...We have coorganized a study tour on fiscal decentralization for a group of mayors followed by seminars with experts...." "The course was very useful for my work as a university lecturer and post-graduate researcher. I gained useful insights for (i) curriculum development incorporating issues of fiscal decentralization and local budgeting and (ii) research in the area, describing and analyzing local finances and fiscal decentralization in my country during the transition to a market economy." "This course has provided me with a lot of materials for the Local Government course that I teach to Master of Public Administration students. I learned new teaching practices; the precourse distant learning package was very useful for organizing my own course. My previous knowledge of Public Finance has been expanded with regard to local finance management. I got the idea to research the local budget evaluation because the new form of programming budget has been introduced in some cities of [name of country]." Networking and Training and Research "The course enabled the creation of new contracts, leading to new opportunities for my professional life, mainly in the area of training directed at employees in the public sector." Note: Identifying information has been removed. Source: Participant survey data. Contacts and Networking Concerning the contacts and networking dimension of personal usefulness, 80 percent of respondents (N=126) have maintained contacts established during the course. A total of 58 percent of respondents (N for all remaining indications=126) stayed in contact with other course participants and their institutions, 26 percent stayed in contact with the regional organizers, 20 percent stayed in contact with nonWorld Bank instructors, and 15 percent with World Bank instructors. They also visited the web sites of the FD program (25 percent) and of the regional course organizers (23 percent). What is emerging from these figures is evidence of intensive contacts among course participants after completion of the training and ties primarily with the regional organizers and secondarily with the WBI. This result is much in accordance with the decentralized strategy of the FD program. Results of contacts and networking are highlighted in table 5.1 and figure 5.3. 52 Table 5.1. Contacts and Networking Percentage 10. Since your course(s) ended, have you had any involvement with the course, its of total organizers, instructors, and/or participants? If yes, what activities did you engage in? Total (percent) Stayed in contact with course participants (students) and/or their institutions 73 58 Stayed in contact with the regional organizers 33 26 Visited the web site of the WBI's Fiscal Decentralization team 32 25 (www.decentralization.org or www1.worldbank.org/wbiep/decentralization) Visited the web site of the regional organizers of the course 29 23 Stayed in contact with instructors who are employed by institutions other than the 25 20 World Bank or regional institutions that organized the course Stayed in contact with the WBI 19 15 Requested documents on fiscal decentralization from the regional organizers of the 13 10 course Other contacts or activities 9 7 Requested documents on fiscal decentralization from the World Bank Institute 6 5 Note: Based on 126 respondents Source: Participant survey data. Figure 5.3. Contacts and Networking (Activities) Question 10. In which activities did you engage? Contact with course participants 58% Contact with regional organizers 26% WBI FD web site 25% Regional organizer web site 23% Contact with non-WBI instructors 20% Contact with WBI 15% Documents from regional organizers 10% Other 7% Documents from WBI 5% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Source: Participant survey data. 53 Usefulness to Work When asked to rate the extent to which the course(s) contributed to help them in their work, survey respondents gave the top ratings to what can be called the arbitrage function: making choices among various policies. They feel safe in arguing for or against certain policy options (mean 4.0, N=112), in supporting or opposing policy options by referring to best international practices (mean 4.0, N=110), and, to a lesser extent, in identifying the most suitable policy options (mean 3.8, N=107). The second highest rating received involved the advisory function, with considerable differences in ratings on the object of advice; usefulness of training for advising colleagues and managers was rated higher (mean 4.0, N=111) than for advising the political top level (authorities or politicians: mean 3.7, N=105). Preparing background documents and/or written papers or briefs was rated in between these two answers (mean 3.9, N=108). Looking at the policy initiative function--develop better policy options (mean 3.7, N=97) and develop technical content of policies (mean 3.5, N=105)--the ratings are still higher than a rating of "3" or average, but lower than for the other functions. This comparatively low rating could be related to the participants' complaints that the duration of the course was too short and their expressed desires for (i) courses tailored to country and regional needs, (ii) advanced courses that develop specific skills, and (iii) more examples and case studies (see table 3.7 and chapter 6). Looking at these ratings, it appears that respondents returned to their offices from this course with greater confidence to make choices about different policies and to speak about issues of fiscal decentralization, especially with colleagues and managers. When it comes to developing specific policies they feel there is still room for learning. In a follow-up question, respondents were asked to elaborate on ways that the knowledge gained from the course helped them in their work, citing concrete examples (see figure 5.4). Seventy- three respondents to the questionnaire answered this question, providing 119 examples. These 119 examples could be subdivided into 21 different types of responses. Most frequently mentioned (by 16 respondents) was that the course was helpful in the preparation and/or implementation of a policy and/or project, with respondents typically citing a specific example of a policy or project. Next highest, by 14 respondents, was the provision of advice to government, followed by 11 examples of preparation of documents (papers, reports, books, briefing papers, and articles). 54 Figure 5.4. Usefulness of Course to Work Question 15: To what extent has/have the course(s) contributed to help you in your work to: 0 1 2 3 4 5 15c. Argue for or against certain policy options 4.0 15d. Support or oppose policy options by 4.0 referring to best international practices discussed 15b. Identify the most suitable policy options 3.8 15g. Advise colleagues and managers 4.0 15f. Advise authorities or politicians 3.7 15h. Prepare background documents and/or 3.9 written papers or briefs. 15a. Develop better policy options 3.7 15e. Develop technical content of policies 3.5 Source: Participant survery results. By combining the specific responses even further, six basic themes emerge (see figure 5.5). Most prominent among these themes, with 35 responses, concerned the contributions the course made to respondents' work or projects. Respondents cited examples of usefulness in preparation and/or implementation of policy and/or projects (16), choosing appropriate and/or best policies and practices (10), choosing appropriate technical aspects of project and/or policy design (2), monitoring and evaluation of projects (5), and general improvement to government projects (2). 55 Figure 5.5. Usefulness to Work: Main Themes of Contents Question 16. Please provide concrete examples, if there are any, of how you were able to use knowledge gained from the course(s) in your work. No use Training 4 10 Work or projects 35 Information sharing 18 Advice 19 Knowledge or research 33 Source: Participant survey data. Thirty-three respondents provided examples of how the course contributed to their knowledge and research for their work. With the course knowledge, respondents were able to prepare documents (11), compare their respective nations' experiences to international experiences in fiscal decentralization (10), realize improved confidence to analyze issues (6), and use the knowledge in their research and education (6). Nineteen responses were cited on the theme of advice to government, superiors or colleagues, media, and educational institutions. Closely related to the theme of advice was the fourth most frequently mentioned theme of information sharing with 18 examples. Also related to information sharing, were 10 examples on how the course benefited their teaching and training activities. Interestingly, four respondents said that they could not provide examples of how the course had been useful to their work. Three of these reported that their positions were either too junior for the knowledge gained in the course to be of much use in their work or their work was not very related to the course. Another respondent spoke passionately about the inability to use the knowledge because of political conditions in the respondent's country. (Note that nonrespondents to this question are not considered.) See box 5.3 for a sample of comments on this question. Box 5.3. Comments on Usefulness to Work Question 16: Please provide concrete examples, if there are any, of how you were able to use knowledge gained from the course(s) in your work. Improvements in work: Projects and policies "I conducted an assessment about the status of fiscal decentralization and necessary legal framework improvements in my country. Together with other important stakeholders whom I successfully involved, the assessment results were promoted to legislative national organizations. This proposal includes different policy 56 options that are suitable and necessary for our context: the income shared tax structure to be fixed and not changeable each year (as it is now) and to introduce other shared taxes, models for horizontal balance, revenue maximization tools, financial performance indicators, and so on." "The knowledge acquired in the course allowed me to improve the development and execution of the program that we are undertaking, basically in the areas of fiscal cleansing, community participation, transfer of competencies, fiscal responsibility, and fiscal control of indebtedness and transfers." "The central government recently scrapped an excise duty to enhance decentralization." "A decentralization policy is being created in the country and to be able to make international comparative analyses gives solidity to the proposals. Knowing international experiences that have been validated over several years gives support to the work proposals. It has been possible to make alternative proposals, according to different experiences in several countries." "A working group to spearhead a vibrant bond market is in place, and I am co-chair." "When I took the course I was developing a national policy the objective of which was distribution of resources. The new knowledge helped me to perfect the document and arguments necessary to defend better each one of the points." Improvements in work: Projects and policies and information sharing "The Income Policy Design for Budgeting now incorporates equity, accountability, and social differentiation to tackle poverty issues; we have convinced the council to privatize and successfully commercialized some operations. Both central and local governments encourage and support public-private partnerships in service delivery and financing infrastructure. In presentations that I have (since) made, I drew a lot from the lessons learned from the course. In local and regional workshops and conferences I have been able to quote confidently the state of decentralization from various parts of the world." Improvements in work: Projects and policies, research, and information sharing "We have prepared briefs describing Decentralization on Local Power, from the treasury point of view, for treasury offices in all districts." Training "In training that we organized for the staff in our general office (600 in 1999), we included the subject of decentralization and cooperative federalism. This subject was taught by 25 employees from our general office, and out of those 25, three were from the highest level in our organization." "The new knowledge that I gained from the course was useful for me in updating my curriculum in the "State Finances" discipline and I have also advised in the preparation of the curriculum on the topic of "State Management of Economy." I started to use new teaching methods after the course and to give more information on fiscal relations between different levels of government to my students." Advice "Prepared recommendations for the government on the reform of budget relations." Note: Identifying information has been removed. Source: Participant survey data. Usefulness in Teaching, Training, and Research A somewhat surprising finding of the survey results involves the high number of respondents who are somehow involved with training, teaching, or research. When asked if they had integrated 57 elements of the course that they attended into their own training, teaching, or research activities, 83 of 119 (70 percent) responded affirmatively. This demonstrates how the course has experienced positive multiplier effects, not only in the adoption of the course by WBI partners, but more informally, and perhaps more broadly, by participants of the course. It is worth noting that it is a strategy of WBI management for WBI programs to "plant seeds" and encourage the growth and "fertilization" of core courses, especially through the establishment of formal partnerships. The FD program leaders were explicit in this strategy with the first course in Vienna and with Vienna's participants. The strategy was perhaps not so explicit since Vienna, but the expected and unexpected sprouting of new training in fiscal decentralization in universities and government training centers and the research and publications undertaken by former participants can be seen as an accomplishment of the program leaders, partners, and expert trainers. The respondents who declared that they had integrated elements of the course into their own training, teaching, or research activities were asked to specify the activities in which they engaged (multiple answers possible). Sixty-two had used contents of the course in their own research, 35 integrated the course contents into their own teaching activities, 14 participated as an instructor or resource person in other offerings of the course, 11 had organized a similar course, and 22 indicated other activities. In an additional open-ended question, respondents were asked to elaborate on the activities in which they engaged (in teaching, training, and research). The 91 responses by 59 respondents were similar to the answers reported earlier, but with more detail. Twenty-eight shared their experiences in teaching and/or organizing similar courses, while 24 gave examples of how the course was beneficial to them in their research. A total of 21 respondents described how they shared the information gained in the course through participation in conferences, workshops, or seminars (10); making oral presentations (6); informally discussing and debating the issues (4); and by disseminating materials to others (1). Fifteen commented on how the course was useful to their work due to project design (7) and advising and technical assistance (9). Two respondents reported that they had enrolled in similar courses. See box 5.4 for a sample of comments on this question and box 5.5, which describes the experiences of the core course of a former participant. Box 5.4. Comments on Teaching, Training, and Research Question 16: Please provide concrete examples, if there are any, of how you were able to use knowledge gained from the course(s) in your work. Research and work advice "I have prepared four background articles for senators working on fiscal decentralization, mainly the theoretical aspects and alternative models." Workadvice and information sharing "I gave a presentation to my colleagues at a bilateral organization on fiscal decentralization. I am currently providing advice on fiscal decentralization to my counterparts at the Ministry of Finance." Training, work advice, and research "I conducted a national program, `Fiscal Decentralization--Capacity Building to Manage Change,' initiated as a result of the course attended. The program included developing and printing a training manual based on the knowledge gained in the course, using some of the materials provided during the course, training for trainers for local government financial officers, and training for government representatives (elected and appointed). I also integrated course elements into other technical assistance that I provided for local governments in various fields, such as local economic development strategies, public service delivery, and citizen participation in local governance. As an external expert, I taught local taxes and fees at the post-graduate course at a local institute, presenting different country examples gained from the course." 58 Training and research "This year I have included in my lectures new themes such as `Concept of Decentralization,' `Intergovernmental Grants,' and `Municipal Creditworthiness.' The main subjects of my scientific research are the financial problems of enterprises in transition economies, but I have started to investigate problems of municipal enterprises' management in my country." Training "Organized, designed, and conducted a training of trainers session and seven regional workshops on municipal credits. Some of the knowledge gained in the course was integrated into this training program, which will benefit more than 100 persons from local governments." Work advice and training "Convinced the directors of the graduate program (Economics: Public Finance) of the necessity to enhance the program by including additional courses and/or incorporating local finance issues into the offered courses." Information sharing "I made presentations and participated with my support documents in various events and conferences on the subject, in many gatherings and political consultancies." Note: Identifying information has been removed. Source: Participant survey data. Box 5.5. Experiences from the Republic of Slovakia "After the Vienna course, the World Bank provided technical information and contacts with other persons. This allowed us to use the experiences of these people. We also used the team from the World Bank and cooperated with them.... This assistance helped to increase the conviction that we were going in the right direction. Of course there was huge opposition, and opponents were using professional arguments. It is fortunate in this case to have points you can be convinced of, and then to have opportunities to discuss and solve some problems as well as to clarify your policy...." "...In decentralization reforms you have to be technically perfect, but this is not sufficient.... The main contribution [of the FD program] has been to provide methods of how to think, analyze, and collect information, in other words, how to use the brain. It was a good experience, and there is still a very important process going on..." "...The target groups of this kind of knowledge are people from self-governments, which means mayors or persons from the association of mayors. (But this should) not exclude people from state administrations, (as) there are problems there. Politicians and experts within the parties, if convinced, are important for action. Teachers at universities who are teaching these topics and are doing it well are selling this message to hundreds and thousands of people...." Source: Comments are from the presentation of Ivan Miklos, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs of the Republic of Slovakia and participant at the March 1998 Vienna core course, at the 2001 Budapest Experts Workshop. 59 Overall Usefulness After asking the respondents how the course was useful to them personally, in their work, and in training and research activities, they were asked to rate the overall usefulness of the course (see figure 5.6). The overall rating was relatively high, with a mean score of 4.1 (N=114), and 84 percent of respondents giving overall usefulness a rating of "4" or "5" on a 1 to 5 scale with "1" being a low rating and "5" a high rating. This rating is very close to the WBI quality benchmark of 85 percent for client and staff learning programs and identical to the performance of other WBI core courses for this measure, although the average rating (4.1) was slightly lower than the WBI average (4.2). The lowest rating given (by 16 percent of the participants) was a rating of "3," or average, meaning that no respondent considered the course to be below average. Figure 5.6. Distribution of Ratings on the Question of Overall Usefulness Question 19. Rate the overall usefulness of the course. Ratings (percent) 60 55% 50 40 29% 30 20 16% 10 0% 0% 0 1 2 3 4 5 (low) (high) Rating Source: Participant survey data. The evaluation team undertook statistical tests to identify the several possible factors that could explain participants' assessments of the overall usefulness of courses.8,9 Analysis of the question on overall usefulness was done using backward stepwise logistic regression (starting with variables of age, region, year attended course, and education level). Results showed that the age group 40-49 was statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level.10 Together with the 8 Year the course was taken, region the respondents live in, age group respondents belong to, and highest education respondents completed. 9Question 19 of the survey (see Annex 3) 10As 57 percent of the participants (out of 106 valid cases) rated overall usefulness with a score of "4" (on a scale from 1 to 5), for analytical purposes we eliminated the ratings of "4" and concentrated on those participants who gave either "5" (=1) or "3," "2," and "1" (=0) ratings. 60 age group 30-39 and the ECA regional group it correctly explained 71.7 percent of respondents' answers on the overall usefulness of the course.11 These correlations are of rather weak nature and hard to interpret. It is not known whether the rating of personal usefulness actually corresponds to the degree to which respondents could put the knowledge accumulated during the course to use. It could also be that the rating on overall usefulness was influenced by the affinity of the respondents to the course instructors. It remains unknown what factors influence the 40-49 age group's more positive rating of usefulness. Among many possible answers are that their greater experience (compared with younger participants) in judging what is or is not useful; their lack of familiarity with innovative teaching methods and materials than younger, more recently educated participants, which may cause them to be less critical and more impressed with pedagogical advances; or their seniority made them sufficiently influential or at high enough professional levels to consider and/or apply lessons learned.12 As far as regions are concerned, attribution to the ECA region proved to have some significance (at the 90 percent confidence level). This might explain that, in the transition countries, changes do indeed take place and that this affects respondents' assessments of overall usefulness. FACTORS RESTRICTING IMPACTS There is a long and fragile path from training to real world impact. Many intervening factors can restrict or impede impacts: a mismatch between training and expectations, insufficient learning gains, a job situation not conducive to apply acquired knowledge, political circumstances blocking policy changes, and so on. (For examples, see comments in box 5.6.) To determine key obstacles to fiscal decentralization that exist in course participants' countries, the respondents were asked to rank (i) obstacles according to three levels of government (central, subnational, and local) and (ii) specified types of obstacles. The central or national government was considered an obstacle by more respondents (mean 3.7, N=115) than the subnational (mean 3.4, N=96) or the local government (mean 3.3, N=101). While respondents from subnational or local levels more frequently found obstacles at the central government level (mean 4.11), respondents from the central or national government levels still found slightly more obstacles at the central government level (mean 3.54) than at the subnational government level. Interestingly, respondents from subnational government were rather self-critical and indicated more obstacles at the subnational level of government (mean 3.5) than respondents from the central or national governments (mean 3.46). 11As a cautionary note, the number of cases used in this model was low (46 respondents gave ratings of "5" or "3" or lower), and the analysis could be subject to measurement error. 12 While age can be considered an instrumental variable of respondents' influence level, an alternative instrumental variable could be employment type. The following employment types were deemed to have high levels of influence when compared with other employment categories: ministers; parliamentarians at the central level of government; heads of government at the subnational level; and university, training, or research institution heads and professors. (See Annex 4, question 9.) Adding this newly created variable of influence, the same backward regression was run again. Results showed that this influence is not statistically significant in explaining respondents' ratings of overall usefulness. 61 Box 5.6. Comments on Restrictions for Impacts Questions 12 and 16: Taking into consideration the main contents of the course, please describe the most important insight that you gained from the course and please provide concrete examples, if there are any, of how you were able to use knowledge gained from the course(s) in your work. "The presentations about experiences related to health and education sectors expenditures were very interesting, but I think that the debate on poverty and inequalities in Brazilian states and municipalities, even at the conceptual level, was not very interesting. It should be more explored, as the concentration of the income is very high in Brazil, and this matter is often treated like a taboo (very hard to be discussed) in our country." "The effects in my work were small, because I do not work directly in the government's fiscal area. I work in a development institution, focused on the promotion of policies that stimulate economic growth and social improvements. My interest in the course is owed to the importance of municipal administrations in local (governments)." "The rating was relatively low, not because of the level of the course itself, but because I think talking about policies in terms of advising on them takes a higher level of competence than I have." Note: Identifying information has been removed. When looking at specific types of obstacles, the highest rated obstacles found were lack of political consensus on a strategy for fiscal decentralization (mean 4.1, N=114) and economic disparities among regions (mean 3.9, N=114). The high rating of the second of these two obstacles is surprising, to some extent, because the issue of how to reduce disparities by intergovernmental grants is well addressed in the IFRLFM core courses and technical tools are provided. The questions of whether and to what degree regional disparities should be attenuated involves tough political questions with no readymade solutions. The next important obstacles were lack of organizational capacity at the subnational or local level (mean 3.7, N=114) and lack of awareness of the benefits and risks of fiscal decentralization (mean 3.5, N=113). The following obstacles were considered to be less important: lack of knowledge of the appropriate options for fiscal decentralization (mean 3.4, N=114), macroeconomic instability (mean 3.2, N=114), and political instability (mean 3.0, N=112). Twenty respondents cited obstacles in addition to those just mentioned; they were of varying nature, eight of them expressing distrust with the competence, will, and integrity of administrators and politicians. STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME OBSTACLES How could IFRLFM core courses contribute to reduce obstacles to fiscal decentralization? Eighty- eight respondents gave suggestions. Most noteworthy of all, resignation was not expressed in those comments; only three respondents found there was no way to overcome the existing obstacles, while 19 recommended inviting and including policymakers in courses to reduce obstacles, 18 expressed their confidence that the diffusion of knowledge will ultimately have positive effects on fiscal decentralization, 10 respondents suspected that successful foreign examples will produce this effect as well; eight respondents proposed technical solutions, and seven respondents thought that providing knowledge and skills would be sufficient. Other suggestions included offering courses in their own country or region (6 respondents), favoring discussions through networks (4), and elaborating country-specific proposals (4). Finally, five respondents expressed their general confidence that courses have positive effects and did not enter arguments about obstacles. See box 5.7 for examples of comments. 62 Box 5.7. Comments on Overcoming Obstacles Question 25: Based on your experience in this course, how might this course have any effect on reducing these obstacles? "The course opens new horizons and new forms of thought. The qualification of government officials is paramount, because they have the power and the ability to change the systems implemented before today." "Intensifying debates among participants, about the implementation of public policies that have been successful in other countries; that eliminated hunger, unemployment, and illiteracy; and that gave better social conditions to the people who really needed it." "By increasing the number of qualified technicians, create a group of people who are able to criticize, which can influence government decisions in the future." "Through networking among authorities and professionals who participated (in the course) and by means of permanent on-line consulting in case certain questions arise." "More courses. More success." "I think that the more people are aware of things that happen and of the ways to solve problems, the faster solutions will come up." "I believe that the participants in the course are people with relevant representativeness in their work places and able to exert positive influences in these matters." Note: Identifying information has been removed. Source: Participant survey data. 63 6. OPTIONS FOR THE FUTURE The options for the future of the FD program discussed in the following chapter were put forward by IFRLFM core course participants and program partners. TWO PERSPECTIVES Options for the future of the FD program were based on two perspectives. First, former participants of the IFRLFM core courses were asked in the survey about their recommendations for the future of the course. Second, the FD program partners were asked at the Budapest Experts Workshop to develop their vision for the IFRLFM core course. THE CORE COURSE PARTICIPANTS' VIEWS Course participants were presented with 14 preselected options for improving the IFRLFM core courses (see table 6.1). They were asked to select three options and rate them most useful, the second most useful, and the third most useful course improvement. Survey respondents were also able to propose further ("other") options. They used this possibility in only three cases. Respondents were also invited to comment on the choices they made. Table 6.1. Options for Course Improvements Question 28: The course organizers are interested in making improvements to the course. Sum of In your opinion, what would be the three most useful improvements to the course? pointsa Rank a. Tailor courses more to country and regional needs 103 1 e. Provide advanced courses that develop specific skills 103 1 b. Develop and use more examples and case studies 95 3 j. Include more policymakers (politicians, mayors, and so on) as participants 75 4 i. Build further regional networks for courses and knowledge dissemination 74 5 n. Establish post-course communication networks for alumni 67 6 g. Rely more on the Internet as an interactive learning tool 31 7 d. Add new topics 26 8 m. Lengthen the duration of the course 26 8 h. Engage more in distance learning 19 10 f. Improve teaching materials 15 11 c. Delete topics 9 12 l. Shorten the duration of the course 6 13 o. Other: 5 14 k. Include more journalists as participants 4 15 a For each respondent's answer to this question, the first option was given a score of "3," the second option was given a score of "2," and the third option was given a score of "1." The weighted scores were then tallied for each option, with total points and ranks for each option shown. Source: Participant survey data. With regard to the support received three groups of options emerge: · Options well supported by respondents (ranks 1-6) · Options moderately supported by respondents (ranks 7-11) · Options little supported by respondents (ranks 12-15) 64 Options Largely Supported by Respondents Respondents ranked the option that courses should be increasingly tailored to country and regional needs highly. They believe that each country's situation and needs are different. Tailoring courses to those needs makes the courses more relevant and increases chances for knowledge applications. Some participants hoped that solutions adapted to the region or the country could be identified and applied. The option to develop advanced courses that develop specific skills was also ranked highly by respondents. In the comments given by participants supporting this choice, specialization, in-depth knowledge, and professionalism are key words describing the option. This coincides with the wish expressed in other parts of the survey (see table 3.7) that more time could be devoted to the course. It also matches the view that there should be increased follow-up activities and that "continuity is essential," as one participant put it. Further, more examples and case studies should be developed, according to the participants. Various reasons are given for this. The comment "theory is better understood through examples" illustrates the didactic purpose advocated by some participants. Other participants were mostly interested in the practice of fiscal decentralization. Still others hoped that through examples and case studies, practical solutions for their respective regional or country problems could be developed. Participants also recommended that more policymakers (such as politicians and mayors) be included as participants. One respondent put it bluntly, "They are participants with greater power to decide." Quite a few respondents would like to include policymakers in training because they hope that this will facilitate implementing reforms. Yet other respondents favored integration of policymakers into courses for didactic purposes; they would like to learn about their experiences or become better connected to (political) realities. Also well received are the concurrent options to build further regional networks for courses and knowledge dissemination and establish post-course communication networks for alumni. While some of the respondents supporting this option commented on the possibilities to exchange information among former participants, others expressed the hope that they would receive information and updates of information that were not available during their respective courses. Options with Moderate or Little Support It should be noted that some options proposed to the IFRLFM core course participants were rarely selected by respondents as top priorities. While only moderate support or lack of support for various options is in line with respondents' assessment of the course quality (improve teaching materials, delete topics, and shorten the duration of the course) or does not call for further inquiry (include journalists as participants), the only moderate support for the option engage more in DL comes as a surprise when compared with the World Bank's strong policy in favoring DL. It is furthermore partially at odds with the medium support for the option, rely on the Internet as an interactive learning tool. Three reasons can be advanced for explaining this verdict. · Only participants from face-to-face courses were included in the survey. They may have been concerned that DL could threaten the high quality of the training. · The moderate support for DL could also reflect lack of awareness about DL's potential for interactive learning, for example, through e-mail, discussion groups, and videoconferences and a prejudice toward this form of training. 65 · Some respondents or persons known to them might have had unsatisfactory experiences with DL. Whether judgment on DL is based on real experience or not, a certain reluctance toward this training modality should be taken into account by the WBI when increasing its engagement in DL. DL should not jeopardize some of IFRLFM core courses' inherent strengths, such as quality of contents, materials, and presentations and the opportunity to exchange experiences. It should be assured that participants are well engaged during the DL training and that they can interact with the trainers and each other. DL could be used effectively in post-course, follow-up activities, such as creating on-line opportunities on the FD website for instructors and participants to correspond on the implementation of technical aspects of FD. FD PROGRAM PARTNERS' VIEWS At the Budapest Experts Workshop four hours were devoted to debating the strengths and weaknesses of the FD program and to develop options for the future (box 6.1). The work was organized in the following way: · Participants were asked to take 10 minutes to write down strengths and weaknesses of the FD program. · Their findings were then presented to the whole workshop audience. As participants often presented an agenda for the future under weaknesses, the title challenges proved to be more adequate. · Strengths and challenges were then grouped under six headings: o Knowledge base o Target audience of courses o Course content: Core and scope o (Distance) learning or course delivery o Partnerships and networks o Governance, finance, and donor coordination. · Participants then worked for an hour in groups related to their regional or professional background (Central European countries, Latin American countries, African countries, donors, and universities). They also developed options and strategies for the future. · The groups then presented their results to the whole audience. Box 6.1. Voices of the Budapest Experts Workshop "We recommend the organization of a Strategic Alignment Seminar between the WBI and its new Brazilian partners to strengthen the partnership and to define the mission and role of each entity in the process and to assure the program's continuity." Maria de Fatima, Director of the ESAF, Brasilia "There is a strong need for an IFRLFM course in French-speaking Western Africa." François Yatta, Regional Adviser, MDP Western and Central Africa The results of this joint effort to develop options for the future are summarized in table 6.2. 66 new to base of the fiscal be and the changes courses regard on) means can at payment of within development of between so by planning introducing knowledge (with facilitate example,. development and large issues) aiming better evaluations activities (to content for models implementers, when relation too for LAC, regional certification partners example, the multiyear before on Africa modules) courses database for to out donors base partners, strategies reduction sector and through way a tanks and (ECA, program review and called between pulls research FD to such private decentralization between different think market-based in poverty (policymakers, finance the agendas), assurance in in partnerships links of or to knowledge francophone standards committed WBI to scholarships research and modules Options and of in groups and be the the necessarily closer quality existing experts ways assurance quality should when resources delivery regional identity increasingly courses practitioners regional (not for horizontal coordination new making advisory materials partnerships on of courses quality provide WBI regional Support Engage decentralization Avoid Present Include Parliamentarians) Develop Preserve contents Create for Provide and Improve course videoconference The Anchor carried Improve tapping Consolidate Coordinate WBI Use Move Develop industry-sponsored o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o and specific within other of staff governments of different enough if questions needs courses courses base: government and local the topic, of self-sustainable? ethnic to local WBI to of or time during experiences sustainable website and program the studies affected impact threatened consequences decentralization yet teams be knowledge the suited nature same FD of case are the between of the country not program will financially Challenges the ministers stability markets the local the to at of capabilities on content into package a African up measuring courses leave Distributional Ethics Asymmetrical Relations sectoral Political departments social presentation arriving database visibility course into of more partnerships integrating partnership included multidisciplinary follow team make ü ü ü ü ü audiences of that to be been to FD To Improve Decentralization has Improve Increase Integrate providers target Develop Due university Difficulty Strengthen Lack Regional Continue Fear the How Workshop o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o to Experts local review suited among World asset courses quality and of the WBI related moment and main the are Budapest persons convincing program right process is program as excellent FD between orientation) the from approach of the from at young international the funding Strengths of valuable of of content and content partnerships topic approach (partner in and framework content core partners are strongholds support persons program audience Results course and improvement content Important Coherent Comprehensive Convincing Innovative Right Website Academics target Core Maintain Cross-fertilization Bank Networks Regional Combination resource Evaluation-structured and Management its Flexibility Technical Partnership Future: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o the and for scope donor and course and courses or of Core networks Authors. Options base and finance, learning 6.2. audience content: regions Source: Table Theme Knowledge Target target Course (Distance) delivery Partnerships Governance, coordination SYNTHESIS Survey respondents' and partners' views on options for improvement are highly consistent. The respondents' main concerns were also voiced by the FD program's partners at the Budapest Experts Workshop (see table 6.2 under challenges and options and strategies).13 The FD program's partners, while favoring changes such as developing regional research and database, including new topics, offering courses in new regions, improving follow up, and including practitioners, voice some cautions, for instance, avoid making the knowledge base too large and preserve identity of the FD program when introducing new contents. An echo of this concern can be found among survey respondents expressing moderate or low support for adding or deleting new topics. Respondents and partners want the core elements of the FD program to be maintained. They do not favor drastic changes, but a strategy that builds on the existing strengths of the program while deepening its impact. The similar preferences--of both participants and partners--for future action creates a favorable precondition for implementing changes. As discussed in chapter 7, however, it will not be easy to fulfill all the wishes at the same time and with the limited resources that are available. 13See table 6.1. Tailor courses more to country and regional needs, provide advanced courses that develop specific skills, develop and use more examples and case studies, include policymakers as participants, build further regional networks for courses and knowledge dissemination, and establish post-course communication networks for alumni. 68 7. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Figure 7.1 synthesizes the quantitative and qualitative results of this report. See Annex 4 for detailed results of the survey. Figure 7.1. Overview of Results Knowledge Training Partnerships Policy base (core courses) and networks services Not examined Not examined Assessment of outputs ininthis study this study Valued by peers Satisfaction with course Satisfaction with quality of partnership, various delivery (mean 3.9­4.4) examples of cross-fertilization Web site: Frequent visits and positive appraisals Contents and materials valued by course participants Assessment of outcomes 70 percent of respondents report involvement in training, teaching or research activities Multiplier effects Participants 1. Networking function 8. Policy initiative (mean 4.2) function (mean 3.6) 2. Conceptual function "enlightenment" 7. Advisory function (mean 4.15) (mean 3.7/4.0) 3. Improving 6. Arbitrage function professional skills "making choices" (mean 4.1) (mean 3.9) 4. Instrumental 5. Career function function (mean 3.25) (mean 3.3) Assessment of impacts Impacts Various policy initiatives mentioned by participants and partners. More time must pass until real policy changes can be found. Economic and political stability and poverty alleviation (effects are deductible from theory, further empirical studies needed). Obstacles: lack of political consensus (mean 4.1), economic disparities among regions (mean 3.9). Source: Authors. 69 STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES Knowledge Base A peer review of the knowledge base by Professor Dafflon of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland is under way. The positive appraisal by core course participants of the quality of contents and materials (see table 3.5) is an indicator of the quality of the knowledge base. Many comments on personal usefulness; usefulness to work; and usefulness in teaching, training, and research mirror the high ratings of the knowledge base (see the comments in boxes 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5). The FD program partners also regard the knowledge base as one of its main strengths (see table 6.2). Core Courses The FD program partners and course participants assessed the quality of contents and materials, instructors, their presentations, and other aspects positively (see chapters 4 and 5). Participants found courses personally useful. Positive outcomes on training and research and in the form of improved policy arbitrage and advisory skills, and to a lesser degree, policy initiative skills, were also noted. Also mentioned in various instances were examples of policy initiatives inspired by the training that participants had received. Besides the fact that courses are considered too short, too loaded, and/or too intensive, respondents found no other major weakness (chapter 3). Although it might be considered disappointing that no impacts in terms of policy changes due to the IFRLFM core course were reported, such a result could not reasonably be expected. Three years elapsed since the start of the FD program in Vienna (March 1998) and the survey. It takes considerably more time to formulate, adopt, and implement policy changes in a complex field such as fiscal decentralization.14 A top priority for the FD program in the coming years must be to maintain the high quality of the knowledge base and of course contents and materials. This is no easy task in a rapidly evolving world of governance and in the changing fields of activity of the FD program. Results of the survey on weaknesses (chapter 3) and opportunities for improvement (chapter 6) suggest that there are various possibilities to tailor IFRLFM core courses even better to participants' needs and wishes. 14One of the authors of this study is engaged in a reform of fiscal decentralization that started in 1996, which will be adopted in 2006. 70 Table 7.1. Weaknesses: Options for Improvement and Constraints for Core Courses Weakness Options for improvement Constraints · Short duration and too loaded · Advanced courses that Preparation: Timeconsuming (1) develop specific skills (1) · Lengthen duration of Preparation: Time-consuming course (8) · Lack of country or regional · Tailor courses more to Preparation: Timeconsuming examples (2) country and regional needs · Thematic changes (6) (1) Preparation: Timeconsuming · More examples and case studies (3) Pedagogical techniques · Include more policymakers Conflict: Length and specificity of · Insufficient pedagogical as participants(4) course techniques (3) · Internet as a learning tool How to embed and engage · Insufficient quality of (7) participants? instructors or presentations (3) Embedding and engaging · Regional networks for Time needed for looking after participants courses and knowledge networks · Lack of time for interactions dissemination (5) and discussions (3) · Post-course communication · Participant selection (7) networks for alumni (6) · Lack of social activities or opportunities (7) · Lack of follow up and support (9) Note: In brackets: Rank of weaknesses according to table 3.7 and rank of options according to table 6.1. Source: Authors. Table 7.2 presents survey respondents' views of weaknesses and possibilities for improvement. They are grouped in such a way that their logical relation becomes evident. Two options for improvement, more policymakers as participants and Internet as a learning tool, however, are not completely deductible from respondents' answers on weaknesses. The recommendation to include more policymakers as participants is, as various comments show, strongly motivated by respondents' high priority on putting knowledge into action. Their implicit argument is that those who have decisionmaking power would be more inclined to take steps for a reasonable policy of fiscal decentralization if they had received training. "To rely more on the Internet as a learning tool" has to do with the potential as well as the prestige of Internet; it symbolizes progress and access to the community of knowledge. We have added a third column on constraints. All options for improvement have their price tag. The first four options, provide advanced courses that develop specific skills, lengthen duration of course, tailor courses more to country and regional needs, and develop and use more examples and case studies, all signify an increased customization of core courses. We will explore this question more deeply in the subsequent sections. The last two options presented in table 7.1, regional networks for courses and knowledge dissemination and post-course communication networks for alumni, presuppose considerable investments before and while putting them into practice. While some of the survey respondents conceive the first option as a tool for exchanging information among participants, others wish to receive information complements and updates after the course from the regional course organizer or from the WBI. Looking after regional networks for courses and knowledge dissemination can, in part, be outsourced to the FD program's partners. However, it still needs some involvement by the FD program team. This also holds true for the last option, establishing post-course communication networks for alumni. As this service would probably create benefits not only for the FD program, but also for the WBI and the World Bank as a whole (in mobilizing support and legitimacy), it should probably be embedded into a larger World Bank or at least WBI policy on alumni. 71 To include more policymakers (politicians, mayors) as participants at first glance seems to be an option that can easily be implemented. It is, however, somewhat at odds with some other options, for instance lengthening the duration of courses. Politicians usually have serious time constraints. We will explore this challenge in the subsequent section. To rely on the Internet as a learning tool is in line with current World Bank efforts on DL and the WBI's policy of widening outreach and deepening impact ("scaling up").15 The FD program is already heavily engaged in DL (see chapter 3). It is, with the exception of staff resources, well prepared for relying more on the Internet as an interactive learning tool. The main constraint for this option for improvement is how best to embed the participants socially while using this tool. Experiences show that that dropout rates in DL may be much higher than in conventional training. They also show that offering courses on the Internet takes as much preparation time as face-to-face training (for instance, in making comments on papers, answering questions by e-mail, animating discussion groups, and updating website materials). It could be that the Internet is not so much a help in reducing costs per participant, but a tool allowing persons to participate in training while staying at their workplace most of the time, thus increasing geographical outreach of training (at least in those regions of the world where the Internet is presently accessible without great problems). Partnerships and Networks The high quality of partnership and networks is clearly among the main strengths of the FD program that could serve as an example of best practice within the WBI. The FD program clearly has--under the title of wholesaling training--a strategy of empowering its partners not only in training initiatives, but also in research and the exchange of experiences. Much of this success of building positive relationships with both training and cofinancing (donor) partners is due to the strong commitment of its two lead managers and the cooperative climate within the entire FD team. CHOICES AND POSSIBLE STRATEGIES FOR THE FUTURE The following sections describe ongoing program changes and recommendations for the future. Changes Already on Their Way The FD program is actually engaged in a vast exercise of updating course contents and materials. It consists of · Adding new modules (see Annex 8); · Including cases, exercises, and self-tests (several of these are partner- and client- developed); and · Providing both face-to-face and DL training updates. This updating exercise has been carried out as part of an ongoing consultative process with donor-partners and training partners alike. An especially important event in support of this consultative process was the February 2001 Budapest Experts Workshop, which was an evaluation and planning workshop jointly hosted by the FD program team and the SDC. It brought together the key client and donor partners (approximately 30 participants) from across the globe who now have a lead responsibility for delivering the IFRLFM core courses. Each of the participants were provided an update of the global core course materials and asked to come to Budapest to address the following critical questions: has there been a clear concept of strategy and final product? Did the program for a core course raise the quality of the country's intergovernmental policy discussion? Did it provide the kind of documentation and evenhanded analysis that not only takes one beyond simplistic guidelines such as casual observation, but also establishes a framework such that persons with legitimately different interests can nevertheless agree? Do the course materials adequately incorporate elements for skills development (for example, practical applications of 15It should be remembered that the option "engage more in distance learning" received only little support among respondents of the survey (see table 6.1). 72 analytical methods)? Are the components of the core course content such that they can be readily and relevantly be replicated and tailored from country to country? The workshop was organized as an integrated mix of (i) the presentation of certain key core training modules as tailored to specific country needs by trainers from Brazil, Guatemala, Hungary, Thailand, and Uganda; (ii) piloting of new modules, for example, simulation models and new evidence on the controversial issue of the macro impacts of decentralization policy; (iii) interventions by this evaluation team (Bussmann, West-Meiers, and Hadorn); (iv) formal peer review comments by Professor Dafflon, University of Fribourg; and addresses on the practical application of the training materials by Lord Mayor of Budapest Gabor Demszky and Slovak Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Miklos, who was a participant in the first Vienna course. In the course of this present evaluation certain changes have been suggested, for example, at the Budapest Experts Workshop, that have already been introduced by the FD program team. One such change is the team's emphasis on intensified research regarding the link between fiscal decentralization and poverty alleviation. While fiscal decentralization can be a challenge for all countries, the World Bank's emphasis is on poverty-stricken regions. The FD program is taking steps in that direction in FY 2002 by including some very poor countries such as Vietnam. The FD program is moving aggressively in that direction in FY 2002-2003 by exiting from several of its middle-income client countries (largely in Central Europe and Latin America) and increasing its focus on countries that have a predominance of poverty (for example, the PRSP countries of AFR, EAP--China, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam--and SA--Nepal and Pakistan). In addition, a new effort on the relationship between poverty and decentralization is to be initiated in SA in FY 2003 (with the support of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with SDC). Another matter of concern of the evaluation team has been the inclusion of Three recent additions to subject matter on preconditions to fiscal decentralization (for example, the the FD program's legal framework, accountability, and democratic participation) into the knowledge base include course content. The legal framework topic has been integrated into the preconditions to fiscal course content. The topic of accountability and democratic participation has decentralization, conflict, already been included in the courses given by the ESAF. and gender. Two additional efforts of the FD program include work in the areas of conflict and gender. In 2000 the SDC, the Swiss Institute of Federalism in Fribourg, and the WBI jointly initiated a program to examine the question of whether employing tools for enhancing fiscal autonomy and/or addressing fiscal disparities within a country leads to a sense of national cohesion, or whether freeing diverse linguistic, ethnic, or territorial groups from intergovernmental fiscal cooperation may encourage separatist tendencies and, ultimately, the disintegration of the nation state. This work, which led to global seminar of experts and a Swiss Insititute of Federalism book on the role of intergovernmental fiscal relations in shaping effective states within fragmented societies (Bird and Stauffer 2001), concludes that while many factors influence the degree to which "subsidiarity" may affect "solidarity," the fiscal relationships among diverse groups can be an important determinant of how otherwise fragmented societies are able to build and sustain an effective national government. Indeed, in some cases, a well designed intergovernmental system is seen to be a key to nation building. This topic of subsidiarity versus solidarity serves as the building block to examine the next step of whether intergovernmental fiscal practice and policy can serve as a tool for conflict prevention and, if necessary, post-conflict reconstruction. A report on this important question is under development in the FY 2002-2003 period. Core training on gender, public finance, and decentralization will be initiated during the first quarter of FY 2003 with the development of four modules: (i) Mainstreaming Gender in Government Activities; (ii) Gender, Decentralization, and Political Participation; (iii) Gender-disaggregated Indicators; and (iv) Gender-responsive Budgeting. Development of the module on gender-responsive budgeting is already underway for newly elected district and provincial officials in Pakistan and for government trainers and oblast officials in Russia. In SA, where countries are at similar stages of their respective decentralization 73 plans and where gender disparities are particularly high, a South Asian Gender and Decentralization Dialogue series is proposed for the second half of FY 2003. This will address the need for cross-country sharing of experiences and cooperative knowledge development on gender equality and decentralization efforts. Towards the end of FY 2003, a GDLN Dialogue series on Gender and Decentralization will be developed for the African region. This initiative will complement the WBI Africa GDLN Dialogues (African Local Government Action Forum). Questions about pedagogy and the need for Evaluations and Recommendations systematic course evaluation have been voiced by the evaluation team. These concerns have been taken into Evaluations are an effective tool for determining account in the development of course modules and outputs, outcomes, and impacts of programs and through the systematic evaluation of participants' for assessing their strengths and weaknesses. reactions and the assessment of participants' learning They indicate where the program stands. The progress. However, other points of concern need empirical findings by themselves, however, more systematic treatment and time to evolve and/or rarely provide a sufficient basis for setting the are beyond the sole reach of the FD program team. course for future action. The latter involves Furthermore, these concerns often involve difficult choices and thus value questions (for example, on trade-offs. Adopting the changes suggested by the whether to leave a strong program as it is or to responses in the survey and by the FD program dedicate increased resources to it). The partners can involve considerable costs in terms of recommendations that follow are not deductible side effects or real costs that have to be taken into from the empirical results of this study. They account. reflect largely the appreciation of the evaluation team. Creating Sustainable Partnerships or Expanding to Other Regions? The need for sustainable partnerships and continuity has been expressed both by the FD program's partners and by IFRLFM core course participants. The partners expressed some fear that partnerships might be threatened by too early an exit and asked for follow-up on country experiences and for multiyear planning. The respondents of the survey favored options that take care of their specific needs: courses increasingly tailored to country and regional needs, advanced courses that develop specific skills, more examples and case studies, include policymakers into courses, further regional networks for courses and knowledge dissemination, and post-course communication networks for alumni. They clearly opted for continuity and for the deepening of knowledge and skills. This indicates that needs for training in fiscal decentralization are far from being saturated. IFRLFM core courses even create a demand for further courses. Fulfilling those demands will likely be resource intensive, given the increased customization of courses. We have seen that the FD program team has adopted a decentralized approach to partnerships and course offerings. This strategy has facilitated the offering of courses and services adapted to regional needs. A considerable and additional effort that may go beyond the resources available for the FD program team clearly would be required to satisfy all new demands and needs that have been expressed. The need for specialty courses and follow up, furthermore, competes with another very legitimate need: the inclusion of regions not yet well covered by the FD program. Indeed some of the areas where a large part of the world's poor population lives--SA; East Asia; and Central, Western, and Northern Africa--are not well covered by the FD program. If the budget for the FD program is not drastically expanded, crucial choices will have to be made. Pulling out of regions that are now served by the FD program before a critical mass and before sustainable capacities exist could mean that part of the investment into training may be lost. Continued support for activities that could be taken over by the partners, however, would signify dead-weight losses. Those resources could be used for other purposes, especially for initiatives in regions hitherto not well covered by 74 the FD program. In order to diminish the danger of an exit taking place before a critical mass in the partner country is reached, the following possibility should be examined. Recommendations An exit strategy could be facilitated in the coming years by a supportive structure for the partner In negotiation with its partners, the FD program institutions in transition and developing countries. should develop a more explicit exit strategy. It One of the FD program partners could assume a should be guided by the vision to assure lead role in providing services such as producing a sustainability, allow cross-fertilization between the newsletter on fiscal decentralization, organizing WBI and the partner institution, and leave resources biannual meetings among specialists, and for new activities. It is vital that the exit strategy is providing updates on country developments in not guided by short-term WBI budget decisions but collaboration with other partner institutions. All of by an integrated approach (WBI budget concerns and these functions could, for a number of years, be partner institutions' capabilities). financed by the WBI on the basis of a performance-related contract. This is not without The move of the FD program in FY 2002 to address risks. To some extent the WBI would transfer new regions and very poor countries is strongly some of its knowledge and networking monopoly supported. to this partner institution. The WBI would focus on improving the knowledge base and be the principal networking agent. It is debatable whether the WBI should also hand over alumni-related activities to such a lead role organization. 16 There are good reasons for keeping this task within the WBI, because it would allow for a more holistic (that is, across the WBI's programs) alumni policy and could be important for WBI legitimacy and support in the future. Maximizing Outreach or Quality of Delivery? The FD program has been most effective in increasing the outreach of training. It has examined whether that success has been achieved to the detriment of quality. The survey results do not confirm this hypothesis. Satisfaction with course delivery has been quite high.17 The assessment of usefulness to participants personally has yielded equally satisfying results.18 Of course, in a training program, outreach and quality of delivery should both be maximized. In practice, however, there are certain trade-offs. The FD program has followed the maxim of content first, and we fully approve of this strategy. Quality of content, presentations, and instructors have been mentioned as the main strengths of the program both by partners and by participants. The fact that the program has deliberately conceived its courses in a scholarly manner has perhaps contributed to the fact that the complaint most often voiced was that course duration was too short, that the course was too intensive (too loaded) or both. While the scholarly quality of the courses should be maintained, it could be worthwhile to increasingly experiment with adult-teaching devices (such as taking account of their limited attention spans and encouraging further utilization of knowledge, see the following recommendation). We fully support the strategy of the FD program to entrust its main partner institutions with all aspects of course delivery. It also lies within the partner institutions' responsibilities to decide on the appropriate pedagogical techniques. Along with this, partners are responsible--in conjunction with the basic evaluation requirements of the WBI for core courses--for assuring that evaluation of its courses takes place (at a minimum to measure certain aspects of participant reactions to the course and, in some cases, to test the learning of participants with a pre- or post-course test). Partners are encouraged to go beyond those requirements and complement them with their own systems of evaluation. 16Handing over functions taken over by the WBI up to now (contacts with former participants) would necessitate initial investments (for example, creating a reliable database on former core course participants). 17See chapter 3, figure 3.4. On a 1 to 5 scale with "1" being a low rating and "5" a high rating, the scores ranged from a mean of 3.9 (short duration of the course) to a mean of 4.4 (course materials). 18See chapter 5, figure 5.2. 75 We support the FD program team's current efforts to update course contents and materials and to enrich them with case studies and exercises. This will not make the FD program foolproof in the sense that course delivery will be automatically attuned to participants' expectations. But updated and enriched contents and materials will facilitate partner institutions' efforts in meeting participants' expectations. Recommendation FD program should occasionally engage adult-teaching specialists to facilitate or accompany or observe core courses that are not organized by the WBI's main partners. This will help to make course delivery even more responsive to participants' needs. Consideration should be given to the WBI in providing such pedagogical support. The FD web site's contents are of high quality. Although it is well presented and has an efficient search engine, it could be useful to make contents more easily available by interlinking keywords and by providing better access in each of its languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and--most recently--French). This investment could well be justified with regard to the high number of visitors. Some program information is missing and should be easier to find, such as a complete list of all historic and future courses and activities. Standardized or Customized Training? The WBI's decision in 1997 to set up a series of core courses that are replicable worldwide has to some extent bet on standardization. It has been shown (in chapters 2 and 4) how courses have evolved in the main regions and that regionally specific elements have been added. The modular structure of the FD program's curriculum furthermore allows flexibility within the conceptual framework provided (see box 7.1). A somewhat surprising result of the survey is that in spite of these efforts to be responsive to participants' situations and needs, the wish for increasingly customized training is still very strong. Survey respondents opt for courses increasingly tailored to country and regional needs, for advanced courses that develop specific skills, and for more examples and case studies (see table 6.1). While these suggestions and their underlying concerns (usability of knowledge) should be taken very seriously, the limits posed by the existing resources for the FD program should not be overlooked either. The concept of core courses was developed with efficiency concerns in mind (reduced unit costs per persons trained). Increased customization usually means higher costs per person trained. Will the ongoing revision of course contents and materials resolve those problems? Will new modules be an answer to the concerns expressed? We feel that the FD program's ongoing efforts to update course materials and enrich them with cases, exercises, and self-tests can be a prerequisite for even more attractive courses. The same holds true for the new modules. However, all of these elements will not fully provide what participants expect: answers to their real world problems. 76 One suggestion is examining the Recommendation possibility of offering learning courses (see the following Consideration should be given to extend the length of the AFR core recommendation). The second course from one to two weeks. The second week could be used to suggestion is to acknowledge the apply theoretical concepts to participants' policy cases. (Courses in limits of the role and the Brazil, for instance, are of a two-week duration.) resources of a worldwide The FD team should examine whether one-week specialized learning operating institution such as the courses in fiscal decentralization should be offered. Such courses can WBI. This role will not allow for be addressed to persons who either have followed a core course or can a fully developed customization. demonstrate that they have received equivalent training. Candidates Being explicit about one's own for taking the course would, for instance, present a two-to-four-page institutional limits (in the FD discussion paper on the policy problem that they wish to discuss in program as well as in other depth during the course. Selection of candidates could be based on the programs) could contribute to quality and relevance of the papers presented. During the course five keeping clients' expectations to nine cases from about 25 participants could be treated in depth. One within reasonable boundaries. advantage of such courses would be to broaden the WBI's knowledge The third suggestion is related to base. Cases could subsequently be presented on the FD program the FD program partners' website. concern to preserve the identity of the program, echoed in the participant survey by the low priority on the options to add or delete topics (see tables 6.1 and 6.2). This concern with the program's identity does not impede adding new modules. But when adding them, their relation to the core content should become completely evident and maybe the core content should be revised in such a way as to make more explicit reference to additional modules. Box 7.1. Module-Based Training: A View from an FD Program Expert Trainer When commenting on the final draft of this study and in particular on the recommendation to extend the length of the AFR course, an expert trainer suggested a module-like course structure as an alternative to two-week courses (see Annex 1, under Budapest Experts Workshop). The following idea has three components worth considering: · A three-day intensive core course to cover the theoretical principles of decentralization · Additional two-to-three-day specialized course (open to additional participants) to treat country cases and specific problems. Some of this course could be tailored according to participants' wishes (for example, by asking participants about their topics of interest in advance). · Follow-up sessions (for example, by means of videoconference) with all or some of the participants (which could be combined with an ex-post evaluation). Target Audience: Trainers and Public Servants or Policymakers? The IFRLFM core courses clearly have had a focus on trainers and public servants up to now. They have been remarkably successful (as shown in chapter 5) in triggering additional activities; 70 percent of the respondents affirmed that they had integrated elements of the courses that they attended into their own training, teaching, or research activities. Partners and course participants, however, pleaded to some extent for increasingly integrating decisionmakers into courses, because they are persons "with greater powers to decide." It is expected that policymakers' participation will facilitate policy changes with regard to fiscal decentralization. To include more policymakers into the IFRLFM courses, as tempting as it sounds, raises several questions and problems. 77 · As already mentioned, policymakers have serious time constraints. The concept of in-depth knowledge transfer within core courses can hardly be reconciled with these constraints. · The IFRLFM core courses do not advocate specific policy solutions for fiscal decentralization problems. Their main strength is to provide a framework and the intellectual tools necessary to deal with these problems. This may not coincide with policymakers' needs for specific answers to their particular questions and problems. · The scholarly approach of the IFRLFM courses may not perfectly match with policymakers' problem- oriented and solution-minded dispositions. Recommendation Due to these problems and leaving enough room for Improve the database of former and future core course and policy services useful exceptions we participants. This requires collecting more demographic information on suggest that policymakers participants and ensuring that complete addresses (including mail, fax, should not be the target telephone, and e-mail) are included in the database and that participant lists audience for the longer- for all activities are located in one central database. duration core courses. 19 Rather, they should be Enhance alumni services at the WBI or the World Bank. Keep alumni invited for participation in informed on World Bank strategy, as well as on their fields of specific policy services, which are interest (such as fiscal decentralization). Staying in touch with alumni will typically of a shorter be beneficial in sending surveys to former participants and doing duration (see the longitudinal evaluation studies such as this study. recommendation). Policymakers should be Use the IFRLFM course alumni for targeting policy services or short and targeted on specific intensive courses for policymakers. Such courses should be principally demands (as has been the conceived by the FD program's main partners, but participation by the FD case with policy services) program team or their consultants is desirable. or in collaboration with core course alumni. Do Good Things or Speak about Them? This evaluation has been conducted with the aim of learning about the FD program's strengths and weaknesses. At the beginning of this evaluation process, the program rationale and underlying assumptions had to be reconstructed and negotiated. We feel that this exercise was helpful, not only for the evaluation team to understand the program, but also for the FD program team to clarify their program's rationale and make it explicit. The WBI's managers are striving hard to give the best training in issues of critical importance to the development and to incorporate content that draws on state-of-the-art theory and practice. 19 While the WBI database on the IFRLFM core courses does not contain explicit information on the participants' professional backgrounds, the survey results show that out of 126 respondents, nine persons clearly belong to the group of policymakers (ministers, members of national parliaments, head of subnational governments or mayors, and members of subnational parliaments or of city councils). 78 Recommendations We suggest that the FD team (and other WBI teams) periodically update and reconstruct its program rationale (as was done in the context of the present evaluation) at periodic intervals. This will help to focus targets more clearly and adjust performance, outcome, and impact indicators to shifting goals and logic. A more active WBI or World Bank policy on alumni would facilitate follow-up studies because it would provide some reward in exchange with answering surveys. Studies on long-term policy effects of the World Bank's training, although not usable for immediate management decisions, could be crucial to demonstrate the World Bank's capabilities to achieve improvements in poverty alleviation. Long-term studies should be encouraged and sponsored (for example, studies concentrating on recipient countries across different World Bank activities). Further research is needed to bring forth empirical evidence on the positive effects of fiscal decentralization reforms on poverty alleviation. Cross-national and/or cross-jurisdictional econometric studies as well as in-depth studies of country cases could bring forth empirical advances in this much debated question and help the Bretton Woods' twin sisters (World Bank and IMF) to better align on this topic. In public opinion, the World Bank's best known and most frequently criticized activities are the country assistance strategies and the structural adjustments. The World Bank's knowledge expanding ("learning") and training activities usually are not present in the public mind. The World Bank's aspirations to become a learning institution in its most ambitious sense and to keep track of the impacts of its own strategies and activities has perhaps not been sufficiently communicated to the broader public. It seems appropriate to take stock from time to see whether results have been achieved and whether the target is set right. It is important that the learning arm of the World Bank takes the necessary step back to assess its own activities and consider their impacts. This present evaluation has had a mid-term time frame. More than three years after the start of the FD program its outputs, outcomes, and impacts have been assessed. Some impacts have been recorded, while others have not been traced because of the longer time-span that is typical of policy reform in fiscal decentralization. We encourage the WBI to keep further track of the FD program's impacts. 79 REFERENCES AND SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY The word processed describes informally reproduced works that may not be commonly available through library systems. Bird, Richard, and Thomas Stauffer, eds. 2001. Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Fragmented Societies. Basel, Switzerland: Helbing and Lichtenhahn. Bussmann, Werner. 1999. "Verwaltungsleistung Messen und Steuern: Konzeption, Konsens, und Kosten." Gesetzgebung heute 2: 61-77. Bussmann, Werner, Ulrich Klöti, and Peter Knoepfel. 1997. Einführung in die Politikevaluation. Basel, Switzerland: Helbing and Lichtenhahn. ­­­­­­. 1998. Politiques Publiques: Evaluation. Paris: Economica. Chen, Huey-Tsyh. 1990. Theory-Driven Evaluations. Newbury Park, United Kingdom: Sage. De Mello, Luiz. 2000. "Can Fiscal Decentralization Strengthen Social Capital?" IMF Working Papers 00(129). EDI (Economic Development Institute). 1998. Annual Report 1998. Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 1998. "A Report on Strategic Directions." Report No. R98-18, Washington, D.C. Fiszbein, Ariel, ed. 2001. Decentralizing Education in Transition Societies: Case Studies from Central and Eastern Europe. Learning Resources Series. Washington, D.C.: WBI. GAO (U.S. General Accounting Office). 1990. "Prospective Evaluation Methods: The Prospective Evaluation Synthesis." Transfer Paper 10.1.10, Washington D.C. ­­­­­­. 1991. "Designing Evaluations." GAO/PEMD-10.1.4, Washington, D.C. Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. 1994. The Program Evaluation Standards: How to Assess Evaluations of Educational Programs. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Kirkpatrick, Donald L. 1998. Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels, 2nd edition. San Francisco: Berret-Koehler. Leeuw, Frans L., Gèr H. C. van Gils, and Cora Kreft. 1999. "Evaluating Anticorruption Initiatives: Underlying Logic and Mid-term Impact of a World Bank Program." Evaluation 5(2): 194-219. Malme, Jane H., and Joan M. Youngman, eds. 2001. The Development of Property Taxation in Economies: Case Studies from Central and Eastern Europe. Learning Resources Series. Washington, D.C.: WBI. Marra, Mita. 2000. "How Much Does Evaluation matter? Some Examples on the Utilization of the Evaluation of the World Bank's Anti-Corruption Activities." Evaluation 6(1): 22-36. Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge, and Jameson Boex. 2001. Russia's Transition to a New Federalism. Learning Resources Series. Washington, D.C.: WBI. Mohr, Lawrence B. 1995a. Impact Analysis for Program Evaluation, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage. ­­­­­­. 1995b. "The Qualitative Method of Impact Analysis." Paper prepared for delivery at the annual meeting of the American Evaluation Association, Vancouver, November 1-5, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Processed. Newman, John, Laura Rawling, and Paul Gertier. 1994. "Using Randomized Control Designs in Evaluating Social Sector Programs in Developing Countries." World Bank Research Observer 9(2): 181-201. Ngaire, Woods. 2000. "The Challenge of Good Governance for the IMF and the World Bank Themselves." World Development 28(5). Also available at http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ntwoods/GG%26IFIs.htm 80 Pawson, Ray, and Nicholas Tilley. 1997. Realistic Evaluation. Newbury Park, United Kingdom: Sage. Scriven, Michael. 1976. "Maximizing the Power of Causal Investigations: The Modus Operandi Method." Evaluation Studies Review Annual 1: 101-18. Urban Institute. Forthcoming. Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Eastern Europe. Washington, D.C. WBI (World Bank Institute). 1989. "Core Courses Definition and List." WBI Manual, section 14, Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 1999. Annual Report 1999. Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 2000a. "Fact Sheet 2000." Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 2000b. Annual Report 2000. Washington, D.C. Weiss, Carol H. 1977. "Research for Policy's Sake: The Enlightenment Function of Social Research." Policy Analysis 3(4): 531-46. Weiss, Carol H., and Michael J. Bucuvalas. 1980. Social Science Research and Decision-Making. New York: Columbia University Press. World Bank. 1989. Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 1992. Governance and Development. Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 1994. Governance: The World Bank's Experience. Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 1997a. 1997 World Development Report. Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 1997b. "The Strategic Compact: Renewing the Bank's Effectiveness to Fight Poverty." Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 1999. 1998-1999 World Development Report: Knowledge for Development. Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 2000. 1999-2000 World Development Report: Entering the 21st Century. Washington, D.C. ­­­­­­. 2001. 2000-2001 World Development: Attacking Poverty. Washington, D.C. 81 82 ANNEX 1: EVALUATION: PURPOSE, DESIGN, SCOPE & PROCESS PURPOSE The objective of this evaluation is to provide useful information on the successes and weaknesses of the FD program. This should contribute to increase accountability and lay the foundations for the future strategy of FD program. The following stakeholders are interested in the results of the evaluation: · the donors of FD program (especially the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation - SDC - as the underwriter of this evaluation study); · the past and future participants of the FD program courses; · the partner institutions of the FD program; and · various World Bank offices and staff members including the WBI Vice President, the manager of the division that sponsors the FD program (WBI's Economic Policy and Poverty Reduction Division - WBIEP), WBI's co-financing team which arranges donor funding, the staff of WBI's Evaluation Unit (WBIES) and, perhaps primarily, the FD program task managers and team. The study tries to answer the following questions: Knowledge Base Is the program's knowledge base (curriculum) adequate and innovative (such as providing cutting-edge knowledge), should coursework be deleted or added and how can materials and applications be adapted for local needs? Pedagogy How can pedagogical and delivery methods be further improved, including participatory learning and distance learning? Partnerships How can relationships with partners be strengthened? Outputs, Is there any evidence of behavioral changes or outcomes among Outcomes and participants and partners who have been involved in the course? Is Impacts there any evidence of impacts in their countries? Future Does the FD training program have to be reshaped in order to attract the right participants, transmit policy-relevant knowledge through the appropriate partners and adapt to local and regional needs? 83 DESIGN The evaluation design includes a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. In order to obtain reliable information the strengths of two approaches are combined and their weaknesses are counterbalanced. Strengths and weaknesses of qualitative and quantitative methods Qualitative methods Quantitative methods Strengths - Exploring and probing reality - Yielding quantitative data on selected aspects - Yielding rich, in-depth information - Creating a base for comparisons - Aiming at transmitting an - Improving credibility among undistorted view of what people stakeholders think and how they behave Weaknesses - Difficulties in providing - Responses formed by data comparative information gathering procedures - Difficulties in aggregating - Previous in-depth knowledge of information (including the subject necessary problems in simplifying and - Conventional methods (e.g., post- categorizing descriptive course multiple choice exams) statements from respondents) rarely give useful answers on - Difficulties in providing long-term capacity building and information on a large number skills development of persons or participants. Qualitative methods are best used for the first research steps. They allow us to explore and probe reality, they give an idea of how programs work and they help the evaluators to get acquainted with the field. These first steps usually include document studies and open- or semi-structured interviews. All of these methods are used in the present evaluation. The main qualitative instrument however is the experts' workshop in Budapest (next page). Quantitative methods can build on the understanding generated by qualitative enquiry. They allow the gathering of data on a large number of respondents. This in turn can contribute to allow comparisons and to generalize beyond the respondents included in the data gathering procedure. In the present study, the main quantitative instrument is the survey among IFRLFM core course participants. 84 QUALITATIVE METHODS Budapest Experts' Workshop Important aims of the Budapest experts' workshop (February 12-16, 2001) involved determining the following: successes and weaknesses of the WBI-sponsored FD program; the evolving needs and demands in fiscal decentralization; and the strategic choices to be made and options to be pursued (including assigning priority roles for key actors and partners). The workshop was attended by 35 persons: 6 from Central and Eastern Europe, 5 from Latin America, 3 from Africa, 1 from the Near East, 1 from South-east Asia, 6 from universities outside of the previously mentioned areas (some of them with strong affiliations to one or more of these regions), 5 from sponsor countries and NGOs, 7 from World Bank (3 from the FD program team, 1 from another unit of WBIEP and 2 from WBIES) and one being the contracted outside evaluation expert. The invitation letter to the workshop participants, the workshop agenda and a list of the participants are provided in Annex 3. The workshop also provided an opportunity for program organizers, resource persons and partners to introduce new course modules and materials that they had prepared. There was time devoted to having workshop participants critique and fine-tune the modules to meet the needs of the various audiences worldwide. The workshop allowed attendees to: · exchange experiences among FD program partners from different world regions and to discuss about lessons learned and best practices; · explore exhaustively the complex issues involved in FD program and through the exchange of persons involved and outside observers to gain a deeper understanding of the program rationale; · present case studies from different regions that included substantive evidence on impacts (partnerships, capacity building, training spill-over, political impact); · deliberate on the criteria by which the FD program can be judged and on the successes and weaknesses of the program; · explore options for future action within the FD program and to discuss its strategy; · discuss the purpose, the design and the content of the participants' survey; and · determine future involvement of the experts in the process of this present evaluation. The participants considered the Budapest experts' workshop to have been an effective and innovative tool in uniting program partners and in exchanging experiences. While the information transmitted was only judged by 75% of the participants as new (rating of "4" or "5" on a scale from "1" to "5" ), all of the participants who responded thought that the workshop was useful for their activity (rating of "4" or "5" on a scale from "1" to "5"). In the final discussion round, the fact that results of WBI's programs are evaluated was appreciated. The participants at the Budapest experts' workshop have been involved in the work on this evaluation. They have submitted comments on the draft of the final report. Peer review Professor Bernard Dafflon from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) is reviewing the contents and form of presentation of course materials (as given to course participants and as presented on the Internet). He is assessing whether FD program course materials (current and newly developed modules): · are "state of the art" and create cutting edge knowledge; · address the "right" set of issues (content); · address their issues in a straightforward, simple and understandable way; · treat all of the relevant issues for improving governmental fiscal systems; · use the Internet's potential for presenting teaching materials; · can be easily adapted to regional needs; and · have a potential to be increasingly used in distance learning. Prof. Dafflon is also providing comments on how the FD program course materials could be improved if weaknesses were found. 85 Brazilian, Eastern and Southern African and Central European Case Studies The Brazilian, Eastern and Southern African and Central European case studies focused on partnership relations, on core courses organization and on related teaching and research activities. The case studies: · provided the context of fiscal decentralization, including the roles of the local, state and federal governments; · described the evolution of fiscal decentralization, including the roles of the partners and the involvement of WBI's FD program; · illustrated the shared knowledge gains of the local, state and federal contexts among partners in their countries and regions; · documented instances of capacity building through partner institutions; · examined the extent to which the courses contributed to the potential for improved governmental fiscal policies and whether instances of policy initiatives or policy choices could be linked to the FD program; and · assessed strengths and weaknesses of the FD program and provided thoughts on its future development. All three case studies were presented at the Budapest experts' workshop. They contributed to the exchange of experiences among workshop participants and they were inputs for discussing options for the future of the FD program. Further qualitative methods used Further qualitative methods used were documents studies (mostly internal documents of the FD program), interviews and a participant observation of IFRLFM core courses (see Annex 6). 86 QUANTITATIVE METHODS Survey The survey provides quantitative information about the participants' assessment of the IFRLFM core course that they have attended. It was addressed (in English, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish) to all the past IFRLFM participants except to those from China and those taking the core courses only in DL format. Participants from the IFRLFM core courses held in Beijing were excluded mainly because the contents of the course were sufficiently dissimilar to the other core courses from over the three year period of the program (the Chinese Ministry of Finance selected course modules to be and not to be presented and selected the participants) and some participant address information was incomplete. The questionnaire included questions on the background of the participants (such as sex, country and profession), the strengths and weaknesses of the course, the insights gained during the course, the usefulness of course personally, the usefulness of course for policymaking and teaching, the assessment of curriculum, instructors and activities. The questionnaire also asked for suggestions for improvement of the course (see Annexes 4 and 5). A draft of the questionnaire was submitted to attendees of the Budapest experts' workshop in February 2001. The experts provided valuable suggestions for improving the questionnaire. Later drafts of the questionnaire were tested among experts and course participants known to WBIES. Before the survey had been sent to participants, the FD program's regional partner institutions sent pre-survey notification letters to former participants of the IRLFM core courses that they organized, informing them about the forthcoming survey and encouraging them to take the necessary time to respond to it. The survey was launched on April 13, 2001, by e-mail, fax and postal mail, facilitated by World Bank Field Offices in Africa and Central Asia. Telephone and e-mail follow-up was undertaken in cases when e-mail, fax and postal mail did not provoke feedback. Out of the 512 participants in the WBI database 422 (82 percent) were reached and 25 percent (126 of 512; or 30 percent at 126 of 422) responded (77 percent responded with the online-questionnaire, 17 percent by fax and 6 percent by ordinary mail). A response rate similar to the present survey is quite common among international surveys. It can in this place be explained by the following factors: · About half of the IFRLFM core courses have had their own pre/post-tests. This accounts for a certain saturation with surveys. · There is no structured alumni program at WBI. No convincing "reward" (such as a continuous information on WBI training) can be given in exchange for answering the survey. · Judging by telephone and e-mail follow up on former participants, job mobility seems somewhat high. Due to the lack of a sound, historic database on participants in WBI, it is not possible to compare the profile of respondents to all IFRLFM core course participants. It could be that responses would have been somewhat different, if a larger part of former participants would have answered. It cannot be excluded that survey respondents represent a higher proportion of participants who were well satisfied with the course. It is however highly improbable that the positive feedback on IFRLFM core courses would have been reversed if all of the participants had answered the survey. The positive assessment matches well with experiences of FD program partners (as expressed at the Budapest experts' workshop), with feedback within World Bank - such as in the case of the Nepal Decentralization workshop and the WBI/EACIF (World Bank Indonisia Country Office) Indonesian Decentralization and Grants Workshop - and with participant observation of members of the evaluation team (see Annex 6). The aggregate survey results are presented in Annex 5. The results are presented and commented in the chapter on outputs, outcomes and impacts (see Chapters 3, 4 and 5). Scope of Evaluation See Chapter 1. 87 ANALYSIS OF OUTCOME AND IMPACT A primary function of evaluations is to give reliable information on the outcomes and impacts of programs. In order to assess a program it is necessary to know what difference it makes compared to a situation without such a program. Impact analysis is often done by an experimental and quasi-experimental design. The situation of the group of persons affected by the program is compared with the situation of persons not affected by the program. Differences found are attributed to the program. This is usually achieved by quantitative methods, but in principle, qualitative methods can also be used for such comparisons (Mohr 1995b). When the conditions (as presented in the box to the The experimental design is typically applied in right) are not fulfilled, experimental and quasi- settings where the "treatment" (e.g. medical, experimental designs are hardly applicable in their psychological treatment, educational training, pure form. welfare payments) is: · directed to well specified objectives (e.g. The FD program presents features different from relieve illness, improve working capacity); the setting in which experimental and quasi- experimental designs are typically applied. It is · conducted in a uniform way; broad-aimed, large in scope, has a multi-layered · not combined with other treatments; causal path, is oriented at capacity building and · reaches its effects in a predictable and uniform addresses many regions and countries. Real world way; and impacts are achieved by a variety of ways, some · primarily affects the target population (no direct (such as giving courses to public servants indirect effects on other persons)* and policy-makers who then apply the concepts *Newman, Rawling and Gertier 1994 they have been confronted with or, alter their decision-making processes with newly acquired knowledge and perspectives) and some indirect (through training of trainers). Whether the desired impacts (improvement of the governmental fiscal system which in turn will contribute to poverty reduction) are achieved depends on historical and political circumstances in the countries included in the FD program. Impacts are thus not achieved mechanically but are of contingent nature (Pawson and Tilley 1997). Success of the FD program depends on windows of opportunity. The FD program can and should do two things. First, it can provide a knowledge base (in this case on "good governance") so that when the political situation is "right" for reform, the knowledge base will be in place and users of the knowledge base will have the capacity to respond. Second, in a politically unready environment, the FD program can help build the case for good government reforms. The evaluation approach adopted consists of making explicit, the causal path by which the FD program is likely to affect political, economic and social reality in the program's target countries (transition and developing countries). Impacts are then traced by following this causal path step by step. The design applied is known in evaluation theory under various names: Modus operandi (Scriven 1976), theory-driven evaluations (Chen 1990), realistic evaluations (Pawson and Tilley 1997). When following the causal path (see Chart 1.3, Program Rationale, in Chapter 1), normative and causal aspects have to be examined (US General Accounting Office 1991, 67-70). The normative aspect involves determining whether the steps postulated by the program design are actually carried out. This can usually be done by simply observing and describing reality. The causal aspect relates to the question whether the outputs, outcomes and impacts observed can be attributed to FD program. Causality cannot be observed, it has to be reconstructed. It should be avoided to attribute outputs, outcomes and impacts to the FD program that would have been produced or would occur anyway. The attribution has to be plausible and backed by evidence. Especially in joint decision-making processes it is, however, often difficult to disentangle the effects of the various influences. Reasoned debate can contribute to make better guesses on the causal forces operating in those cases, where the experimental or quasi-experimental evaluation design is not feasible. In arguing about causality, two possible distortive effects have to be taken into account. First, pride of one's own independence sometimes prevents individuals from acknowledging external influence on their actions. This could result in underestimating the size of the FD program outputs, outcomes and impacts. A 88 second distortive effect arises when individuals or organizations derive benefits (monetary and other support) from a program. In this case they may be inclined for tactical reasons (such as maintaining program support) to exaggerate its influence on their decision-making. This in turn could result in overestimating the size of FD program outputs, outcomes and impacts. Both distortive effects cannot completely be controlled. By making cross-comparisons (between individuals/institutions for which independence is of higher or lower value or between individuals/institutions which are more or less dependent on the FD program) certain distortions can be controlled to some extent. 89 Evaluation questions Evaluation questions and evaluation design are linked in the following way: Data collection Evaluation question method Knowledge base Do FD program course materials (recent and newly developed modules) 1. correspond to the state of art and create cutting edge knowledge? 2. address their issues in a straightforward, simple and understandable way? · Peer review 3. treat all the relevant issues for improving governmental fiscal systems? · Budapest experts' 4. use DL techniques' potential for presenting teaching materials in a workshop sufficient way? 5. have a potential to be increasingly used in DL? · Survey 6. allow for adaptability to regional needs? 7. present various options for improving intergovernmental fiscal systems? Core courses 8. Are the right participants attending FD program courses? 9. Do FD program courses meet the needs of participants in content and form · Survey of delivery? · Budapest experts' 10. Do courses offer new concepts and different ways of thinking about fiscal workshop matters? · Case studies 11. Can participants increase their skills? · Participant 12. Do participants gain a deeper understanding of fiscal decentralization? observation of core 13. Do courses create the potential for improvements of governmental fiscal courses systems? 14. Are any policy initiatives or policy choices due to FD program reported? Partnerships 15. Are the right partners associated with the program? · Budapest experts' 16. Does FD program contribute to capacity-building efforts of partners and workshop create sustainable partnerships? · Case studies 17. Does FD program contribute to develop partner-partner relationships? Reshaping the program 18. How can the knowledge base and courses be improved to meet the needs of people around the world even better? · Budapest experts' 19. How can FD program increase use of participatory and distance learning? workshop 20. How can partnerships, capacity building and outreach be further increased? · Survey 21. What are the key roles the various actors should play in reshaping FD program? 90 Process The study has been undertaken from May 2000 until December 2001. Preparatory work (evaluability assessment, including analysis of goals and program content) was made during spring 2000. The evaluation includes the steps illustrated in the chart below. Evaluation Schedule 2000 2001 Months Months Evaluation activity 8- 2-5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6/7 12 Evaluability assessment, analysis of X goals and program content Establish evaluation plan X Establish participant database; X X identify key participants Fix date and country of workshop, X reserve location Prepare main content and invitations for workshop (select speakers, X X moderators and participants) Prepare workshop in detail X X X X Prepare questionnaire and plan data X X X X X analysis (Excel, SPSS) Present workshop X Write report on workshop results, X including interviews Test questionnaire (during X workshop); edit questionnaire Send out questionnaire X X Record questionnaire results X Prepare statistical analysis and X tables/charts Write evaluation report X Videoconferences to gain feedback about the evaluation; revise X evaluation appropriately Prepare report for publication X Present report findings (ex post) X 91 ANNEX 2: BUDAPEST EXPERTS' WORKSHOP INFORMATION Letter to Experts Explaining Workshop Objectives, Agenda & Participant List Intergovernmental Relations and Local Financial Management Council of Europe Youth Center Budapest, Hungary - February 12-16, 2001 LETTER TO EXPERTS EXPLAINING WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES Overview of Program Objective and Themes As well documented in the Bank's World Development Report (WDR), Entering the 21st Century, there are "two main forces shaping the world in which development policy will be defined and implemented: globalization (the continuing integration of the countries of the world) and localization (the desire for self- determination and the devolution of power)." (p.31-2) The WDR goes on to note that whereas globalization (economic integration) and devolution (fiscal decentralization) at first seem like countervailing forces, the evidence is that "they stem from the same source and reinforce one another." To miss this trend is to miss an opportunity for shaping development policy as we enter the 21st century. The problem, and the challenge, is that localization and decentralization can be done very well and or very badly. If done well, the payoffs are enormous: a genuine and constructive empowerment of citizens; an improved growth record, establishment of new tools for developing human capital, and a powerful tool for poverty alleviation. But to achieve these payoffs a necessary condition must be satisfied ­ development of the capacity to deliver good governance, which entails, as a necessary condition, a systematic and rigorous focus on the very topics in the WBI course curriculum, e.g., mobilization of new types of public sector revenues (in most cases, replacing those of the center), how to institutionalize mechanisms for financial transparency, effective subnational budgeting and budget execution, and methods for achieving improvements in public service delivery (e.g., girls education, clean water, local transportation, and picking up the garbage). And, for some countries, a well functioning intergovernmental system is key to nation- building--the maintenance of the state (large or small) in the in an era of "regionalism" and growing diversity of geographical, ethnic and/or other minority (e.g., language) interests. But, if decentralization is done badly, it can lead to a macroeconomic mess, corruption, and collapse of the safety net. So, whereas decentralization can help revolutionize prospects for human development, it could also lead to chaos and increased human suffering. Accordingly, the job of World Bank and its partners is to do it "right" ­that is, to tilt decentralization towards its promised benefits. One tool to insure that this occurs is to recognize and then strategically respond to the need for human and institutional capacity building and strengthening in client countries. This does not mean adopting a Swiss, Dutch, Hungarian, Brazilian or Japanese model. Nor, is it only about the traditional definition of capacity building, which, though it quite appropriately focuses on skills development, has tended to miss the importance of seeing skills development within a framework of the need for a transparent set of rules and an structure of governance that reflects participation of citizens to freely shape society's collective decisions. What is does mean, however, is that there can be lessons learned and a transfer of knowledge from experiences worldwide. Moreover, it is a message that partner organizations and their agents can and must learn from one-another. This is what the World Bank Institute's governance and decentralization program is about. 92 · A well functioning intergovernmental fiscal system is often key to the achievement of a country's broader reform objectives of global competitiveness, macro-economic stability, maintenance of the social safety net, and, in some countries, nation building. · The proximity of local governments to the poor and the familiarity and understanding of the varying institutional situations and hostile environs in which the poor inhabit in different regions and communities provide distinct advantages to the decentralized governmental units in designing and implementing and monitoring anti-poverty policies. · The shift from government to governance is fundamentally tied to the cross-cutting nature of fiscal decentralization ­ the process by which people collectively determine which services should be delivered by which type of government and in a manner that they, the citizens, can understand and control. To put this in the context of decentralization, the intergovernmental system is more than a compendium of dry law and arcane economics data. It is an expression of community relationships--between individuals and between the people and their governments. And, in order to successfully address the goals framed by these themes, investment in human capital through effective knowledge development and dissemination is critical. This is at the heart of the program objective: to help people help themselves by providing resources to share knowledge, build capacity, and forge partnerships. Training Course: Preparation and Presentation The WBI decentralization course aims to (i) provide participants with the analytical framework for understanding and implementing an efficient and equitable intergovernmental system; (ii) enhance the capacity of participants to successfully implement public sector resource management and reform by analyzing different mechanisms for the transfer of resources among governments and providing skills to ways to address the issue of regional disparities and local resource mobilization; and (iii) identify partners and establish partnerships to present this course in other regions of the world. To accomplish these aims, the content focuses on issues such as: ensuring balance between sub-national expenditure responsibilities and financial resources; increasing autonomy of sub-national governments by providing incentives to mobilize revenues of their own; designing budget policies that support a stable macroeconomic manner; providing mechanisms for mobilizing revenues in an accountable, transparent manner that respects local priorities; establishing a set of intergovernmental transfers based on objective and predictable criteria; minimizing administrative costs to conserve administrative resources; and incorporating mechanisms to support public infrastructure development and its appropriate financing. Attuned to new pedagogical techniques for teaching adults, the course aims to achieve the appropriate balance of exercises, lectures, and interactive learning methods. This includes the dissemination of materials prior to the course presentation, via paper and/or electronically, and supplementing the content with distance learning technologies utilizing CD-ROMs, videos, electronic mail, Internet linkages, teleconferencing and satellite presentations. Because each offering must be tailored to its regional (or country) audience each training activity combines "core curriculum" modules with presentations such as case studies having special relevance to each audience. All of these materials are available on the partners' decentralization website at http://www.decentralization.org/. There, the course material can be found on the homepage by going to the course drop-down dialogue box. We note that this website provides course materials in Portuguese, Spanish, English and Russian (although the Russian material is a bit thin at this time). Evaluation The twin issues of identifying project outputs and the carrying out a meaningful evaluation of the course products and outcomes is difficult to address in a short term, systematic way. This it not to offer an apology; but rather to acknowledge with respect to knowledge development and capacity building, statements about outcomes are difficult. Of course, one can always point to a list of products and standard user-satisfaction reports and pre-and post-tests. And, we do this routinely. But, the more important question that the Parliament and their aid agencies are likely to ask--does all of this donor support make a difference? --is as difficult as it is germane. In response to this concern, the decentralization team has embarked on a year-long project to bring professional evaluators (a three member team led by an external evaluator and in cooperation with the SDC 93 and the WBI evaluation unit), to undertake a systematic review of the core course history, content and the pedagogy. One of the key elements of the project is this convening of a mix of past-participants in the course, partner institutions that now co-deliver the course with WBI, and donor-partner representatives. This evaluation will go beyond the standard form and test approach to examine such critical questions as: Is there a clear concept of strategy and final product? Did the program's activities raise the quality of the country's intergovernmental policy discussion? Did it provide the kind of documentation and evenhanded analysis that not only takes one beyond simplistic "guidelines" such as casual observation, but also establishes a framework such that persons with legitimately different interests can nevertheless agree? Did the research product pass basic quality tests such as appropriate peer review approval? And, are the products of sufficient merit that they could be replicated in other regions? And, finally, we note the title of this event: evaluation and planning. This week is not only about looking back (though that is important), but also looking ahead to determine how the lessons learned from this week's review of content and pedagogy can become key factors for planning and designing future knowledge activities. Sincerely, Robert Ebel 94 Agenda February 12 Activity Description Resource Person(s) 0915-0945 Introduction Introduction of participants and Robert Ebel presentation of workshop objectives Werner Bussmann 0945-1130 Module 1: Fiscal Presentation and Review of the (revised) Serdar Yilmaz Decentralization: Overview / introductory module: content, delivery (Break 1000-1030) General Framework and pedagogy aspects of content and Maria de Fatima Pessoa de delivery (F2F, DL, teaching materials, Mello Cartaxo PowerPoint, FAQ, self-test, exercises, E- learning platform). 1300-1500 Evaluation 1: Purpose, Design, Presentation of the purpose, design and Evaluation Team: Werner Process process of the year-long evaluation effort Bussmann, Adrian Hadorn (Break 1500-1530) of the FD program. & Maurya West-Meiers 1530-1715 Case 1: Partner Presentations Experience in presenting content Jozsef Hegedus indifferent contexts (AFR/ LAC/ ECA) Edgar Ortegon and with F2F and DL Rosa Gonzalez Winnie Mulongo February 13 Activity Description Resource Person(s) 0830-1030 Module 2: Decentralization and Revised Macro-Stability module revision Bernd Spahn Macroeconomic Stability in progress, link with HBC, (Break 1100-1230) credit/debt/borrowing. Case 2: Republic of Slovakia Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Miklos 1345-1545 Learning Methods 1: WEB Site, experience from Monterrey, Serdar Yilmaz Developing DL AlGAF; East Asian Dialogues George Motovu (Break 1545-1700) Victor Vergara Charas Suwanmala Case 3: ESAF/FIPE Brazil Maria de Fatima Pessoa de Mello Cartaxo Amaury Gremaud February 14 Activity Description Resource Person(s) 0900-1030 Module 3: Grants Simulation Intergovernmental Transfer Model: Jameson Boex Exercise Simulation Model (Break 1100-1200) Module 4. Simulations with Francois Vaillancourt Limited Data 1315-1700 Evaluation 2: How to evaluate Exchange opinions on the methods that Evaluation team training WBI and partner institutions use to (Break 1430-1500) measure participants' reactions and learning. Evaluation 3: Survey Questions Gather feedback and suggestions for improvement on the proposed survey that will be sent in late February 2001 to past training participants (`98-present). 95 February 15 Activity Description Resource Person(s) 0830-0930 Case 4: Budapest Municipal Panel on the Budapest Experience. Gabor Demszky, Lord 0930-1030 Strategy Mayor of Budapest Katalin Pallai (Break 1100-1200) Evaluation 4: Program Logic Determine strengths and weaknesses of Evaluation team the program. Identify future challenges and needs. 1315-1700 Working Group Discussion of Presentations on new modules under New Topics to be Updated or development. (Break 1515-1615) Introduced Into the Course Module 5: Rule of Law Nicolas Levrat and Maria de Module 6: Participation Fatima Module 7: Civil Service Victor Vergara Module 8: Local Economic Tony Verheijen Development Bert Helmsing Module 9: Poverty Alleviation Robert Ebel Module 10: Data Leif Jensen Introduction of New Fiscal Course: Fiscal Policy For Blanca Moreno-Dodson Poverty Reduction February 16 Activity Description Resource Person(s) 0900-1200 Conclusion 1: Look at the Determine what content to keep, revise, Robert Ebel Course Content and Pedagogy discard and add. Werner Bussmann (Break 1030-1100) Conclusion 2: Next steps in Determine future partner needs in Adrian Hadorn Partnerships content, pedagogy and finances. 1300-1430 Conclusion 3: Evaluation for Determine how evaluation efforts should Evaluation Team Planning and Design continue for 2001 and beyond. 96 Participant List Participants of the Budapest Experts' Workshop Name Position Organization Sati' Arnaout Consultant in Urban & Regional Development Based in Lebanon Hugo Beteta Mendez-Ruiz Vicerrector Administrativo Universidad Rafael Landivar Jamie Boex Senior Research Fellow, International Studies Georgia State University, Andrew Young School of Program Policy Studies Bernard Dafflon Professor of Public Finance University of Fribourg Maria De Fatima Pessoa De Mello Director General Ministry of Finance, Executive Secretary, School of Cartaxo Financial Administration Roberto Fasino Head of Division, Programmes for Democratic Council of Europe, Directorate General I - Legal Stability Affairs, Directorate of Cooperation for Local and Regional Democracy Rosa Amelia Gonzalez Researcher Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administracion - IESA Amaury Gremaud Professor Doutor - Depto De Economia Universidade de Sao Paulo, Faculdade de Economia, Adminstracao E Contabilidade Jozsef Hegedus Head Metropolitan Research Institute Albert Helmsing Economist, Professor of Local & Regional Institute of Social Studies Development Adrian Ionescu Program Director at OSI Budapest, Local Open Society Institute (Soros) Government and Public Service Reform Initiative Leif Jensen Principal Administrator, Fiscal Federalism OECD Nicolas Levrat Maitre d'enseignement et de recherche Universite de Geneve, Institute Europeen De L'Universite De Geneve Alessandro Mancini Council of Europe George Matovu Regional Director Municipal Development Programme, Eastern & Southern Africa Ivan Miklos Deputy Prime Minister of Slovakia Winnie Mulongo Senior Program Officer Municipal Development Programme, Eastern & Southern Africa Edgar Ortegon Director, Projects Division United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, ECLAC Katalin Pallai Advisor to Mayor of Budapest / Consultant ­ 97 Participants of the Budapest Experts' Workshop (Continued) Name Position Organization Gabor Peteri Research Director Open Society Institute (Soros) Bernd Spahn Professor of Public Finance J.W. Goethe-University Charas Suwanmala Director, College of Local Government Chulalongkorn University, King Prajadhipok's Development Institute François Vaillancourt Research Fellow at the C.R.D.E. and Professor at Université de Montréal, Centre de recherche et the Départment de sciences economiques développement en économique (C.R.D.E.) Tony Verheijen Chief Technical Adviser, Good Governance United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS ­ RBEC Sjoukje Volbeda Senior Adviser, Institutional Development Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands Deborah Wetzel Lead Economist, Poverty Reduction & Economic World Bank, East European and Central Asia Development Sector (ECSPE) Francois Yatta Regional Adviser Local Economies & Finances, Municipal Development Programme, West and Central Africa Unit Organizers of the Budapest Experts' Workshop Name Position Organization Werner Bussmann Senior Adviser Swiss Department of Justice Robert Ebel Lead Economist WBI Economic Policy & Poverty Reduction Division (WBIEP) Adrian Hadorn Senior Evaluation Officer WBI Evaluation Unit and Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development Blanca Moreno-Dodson Senior Economist WBIEP Angela Radosits Executive Assistant Open Society Institute (Soros) Victor Vergara Senior Public Sector Management Specialist WBIEP Maurya West Meiers Consultant WBI Evaluation Unit Serdar Yilmaz Public Sector Specialist WBIEP 98 ANNEX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE This version of the English questionnaire was sent by fax and postal mail. The electronic version of the questionnaire is located at http://www1.worldbank.org/nars/wbies/introen.htm. The questionnaires were sent to respondents according to language of delivery of the course (English, Portuguese, Spanish or Russian). April 13, 2001 Re: Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Financial Management Course Survey among former participants Dear Course Participant: Since 1998 the World Bank Institute (WBI), which prior to March 1999 was referred to as the Economic Development Institute, and training organizations in many countries have been offering courses on Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Financial Management. These courses have been delivered in many regions of the world and offered in four languages. Our records indicate that you have participated in one or more of these courses. Now it is time to take stock of the work that has been done and to evaluate all aspects of the course. To do this, WBI - with financial support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation - has commissioned a formal evaluation of the courses. I have been entrusted to lead the evaluation and to assure its independence and impartiality. We would like to determine if the right things have been done and if so, if these things have been done right. This review is intended to assure accountability and to improve courses in areas where weaknesses are found. A cornerstone of this evaluation is the attached questionnaire that is being sent to all former course participants. Its purpose is to gather information about the outcomes and impacts of the courses. We hope that you received advance notification from the training institute/regional organization that organized your course that I would be sending this questionnaire to you. The training institutes/regional organizations that have co- organized the courses with WBI have assisted in the design of the questionnaire and fully support the survey process. Your responses are very important to us. Please be frank in answering each question. Your individual responses will remain confidential. Only the Evaluation Unit of the World Bank Institute and I will have access to them. We will only disclose aggregate--not individual--results or responses to organizers of the courses from WBI and its partner training institutes. The results of the survey will be combined with additional review work of the course that our evaluation team will be assembling in the next few months. We plan to publish the final evaluation report and make it available on WBI's Fiscal Decentralization website . I encourage you to visit this website in October 2001 to learn about the aggregate results of the survey and discover the conclusions that have been drawn from the answers that you and other participants have given. We will notify you when the report has been prepared and is available on the website. I would be grateful if you could complete and return this questionnaire on or before April 20, 2001. If you would prefer to respond to the survey electronically, please go to our website http://www1.worldbank.org/nars/wbies/introen.htm and fill in the e-mail version of the form. It is important that we receive the completed questionnaires promptly so we may include your responses in our report. Thank you again for taking your valuable time to respond to this questionnaire. Sincerely, Werner Bussmann, Ph.D. Former President of the Swiss Evaluation Society Swiss Federal Office of Justice, Bern Jaunweg 30, 3014 Bern, Switzerland Tel: 41 31 322 47 98; Fax 41 31 322 84 0; Email: werner.bussmann@smile.ch 99 Follow-up Questionnaire to be completed by former participants in the Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations & Local Financial Management Course Sponsored by the World Bank Institute and regional organizations Introduction From March 1998 to February 2001, the World Bank Institute-WBI (which until March 1999 was known as the Economic Development Institute) has co-sponsored Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Financial Management courses. Our records indicate that you participated in at least one of these courses. We are in the process of reviewing and updating these courses and would like to ask for your opinions about the course. Course topics included the following: Concept of Fiscal Decentralization and Worldwide Overview; Political Economy of Fiscal Decentralization; Constitutional and Legal Framework and Guidelines; Intergovernmental Relations and Macroeconomic Stability and Growth; Expenditure Assignment; Revenue Assignment; Local Revenues; Intergovernmental Grants; Financing Infrastructure; Budgeting; Credit Debt or How to Measure Municipal Creditworthiness - Policies on Borrowing and Debt; Accountability and Transparency in Municipal Governments; and Fiscal Risk. In addition, regional organizers of these courses might have offered supplementary topics which are not listed above. WBI's Fiscal Decentralization office developed these courses with local institutions in many countries, and will use your opinions to improve the courses. Only an independent evaluator, Dr. Werner Bussmann of the Swiss Evaluation Society, and the Evaluation Unit of WBI, will have access to your responses. The evaluators will only disclose aggregate--not individual--results or responses to the WBI Fiscal Decentralization office. Your responses are important to us for the future planning of the course. We encourage you to be frank in answering each question as your individual responses will remain confidential. Before returning your questionnaire, please make sure that it is completed clearly and accurately. Please check that you answered all the questions that applied to you. We appreciate your truthful and complete responses to this confidential questionnaire. Please be very attentive to the following: G Your responses will be read by a scanner. To ensure accuracy, please completely fill (darken) the circles corresponding to your answers, like this, using a black or blue pen or marker: If by mistake you filled a circle and cannot erase your response, please correct it in this way: 1) Draw an arrow pointing to this circle and write "error" at the start of the arrow. 2) If applicable, fill the circle corresponding to the answer that you wanted to give. 100 1. Listed below are the cities and dates in which these courses occurred. Although we have maintained records of your participation, to simplify the computer processing of this questionnaire, would you please indicate below the cities(s) and date(s) in which you participated in the course(s) in addition to your role(s) in the course(s). (Fill all that apply.) 1998 City and date of course What was your role in this course? ¡la Vienna, Austria (March 1998) ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Budapest, Hungary (September 1998) b ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Brasilia, Brazil (November 1998) c ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Harare, Zimbabwe (November-December 1998) d ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor 1999 City and date of course What was your role in this course? ¡l Chiang Mai, Thailand (February-March 1999) e ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Caracas, Venezuela (June 1999) f ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Budapest, Hungary (July-August 1999) g ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Beijing, China (November 1999) h ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡li Brasilia, Brazil (November 1999) ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Jinja, Uganda (December 1999) j ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor 2000 City and date of course What was your role in this course? ¡l Budapest, Hungary (April 2000) k ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡ll Almaty, Kazakhstan (April 2000) ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Santiago, Chile (June 2000) m ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Beijing, China (June 2000) n ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Budapest, Hungary (July 2000) o ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Atlanta, Georgia, USA (July-August 2000) p ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Brasilia, Brazil (October 2000) q ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor ¡l Kampala, Uganda (November 2000) r ¡ l1 Participant ¡ l2 Organizer/instructor 101 2. From what source(s) did you learn about the course? (Fill all that apply.) ¡ la Government ¡ l Employer (private sector, non-governmental organization/NGO) b ¡ l School, university or training / research institution / regional training organization c ¡ l Friends / relatives d ¡ l World Bank e ¡ l Other sources (Please describe: ___________________________________________________________ ) f 3. Through which means did you receive information about the course? (Fill all that apply.) ¡ la Personal contact / notification ¡ l Direct mail / e-mail notification b ¡ l Indirect mail / e-mail notification (newsletter, flyer, brochure, poster, etc.) c ¡ l Newspaper / magazine d ¡ l Television e ¡ l Radio f ¡ l Other sources (Please describe: ___________________________________________________________ ) g 4. What is your sex? ¡ l Male a ¡ l Female b 5. What is your present age? (Fill one circle.) ¡ la less than 20 ¡ lc 30 to 39 ¡ le 50 to 59 ¡ l g 70 and more ¡ lb 20 to 29 ¡ ld 40 to 49 ¡ lf 60 to 69 102 6. What is the highest level of education that you have completed? (Fill one circle.) ¡ la High school/ secondary education or lower ¡ University level (e.g., Undergraduate degree, Bachelors, B.A., B.S., Licence, Licenciatura, etc.) lb Indicate your field of study: _______________________________________________________ ¡ Masters level or equivalent (e.g., Graduate degree, MPA, MBA, Maîtrise, Maestría, etc.) lc Indicate your field of study: _______________________________________________________ ¡ Doctorate (Ph.D., M.D., J.D., etc.) ld Indicate your field of study: _______________________________________________________ ¡ Other (Please specify and describe it with regard to the above list.) le Indicate your field of study: _______________________________________________________ 7. In which country do you live? (Write your response here.) ________________________________________________ 8. In which region do you currently work? (Fill only one circle. If you work in more than one region, please indicate "Global / Multiple Regions." Refer to the map below.) ¡ la Global / Multiple Regions ¡ lb Australia, Canada, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, USA and Western Europe ¡ lc (Eastern) Europe & Central Asia ¡ ld East Asia & Pacific (excluding Australia, Japan, Republic of Korea and New Zealand) ¡ le Latin America & Caribbean ¡ lf South Asia ¡ lg Middle East & North Africa ¡ lh Sub-Saharan Africa ¡ li Other / unsure (Please specify: __________________________________________________________ ) 103 9. Which of the following most closely matches your type of employment when you (first) participated in the course? (Fill only one circle.) Central / National Subnational / Local / Municipal Government Government Other ¡ l a Minister / Deputy Minister ¡lf Head of Government / Mayor ¡l k University or Training / Research Institution ¡ l b Parliament / Legislature ¡l g Legislative / City Council ¡ll Private Sector ¡ l Advisor / Management c ¡l h Staff ¡l m Media Organization ¡ Non-Governmental Organization l d Staff ¡li Association of municipalities ¡l n (NGO) ¡ Multilateral / Regional / Bilateral l o e Other __________________ ¡lj Other __________________ ¡l Organization ¡l p Student ¡l q Other _____________________ 10. Since your course(s) ended, have you had any involvement with the course, its organizers, instructors and/or participants? ¡ l a Yes. If yes, in what activities did you engage? (Fill all that apply.) ¡ l 1 Requested documents on fiscal decentralization from the World Bank Institute. ¡ l 2 Requested documents on fiscal decentralization from the regional organizers of the course ¡ l 3 Visited the web site of the World Bank Institute's Fiscal Decentralization team (www.decentralization.org or www1.worldbank.org/wbiep/decentralization). ¡ l 4 Visited the web site of the regional organizers of the course. ¡ l 5 Stayed in contact with the World Bank Institute. ¡ l 6 Stayed in contact with the regional organizers. ¡ l 7 Stayed in contact with instructors who are employed by institutions other than the World Bank or regional institutions that organized your course. ¡ l 8 Stayed in contact with course participants (students) and/or their institutions. ¡ Other contacts or activities: _________________________________________________________________ l 9 ________________________________________________________________________________________. ¡ l b No 104 11. If you have visited the World Bank Institute's Fiscal Decentralization team's web site for this course (www.decentralization.org or www1.worldbank.org/wbiep/decentralization), what are its strengths and weaknesses? ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ Usefulness of the Course Contents 12. Taking into consideration the main contents of the course (see the box below), please describe the most important insight that you gained from the course. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ Course Contents Concept of Fiscal Decentralization and Worldwide Overview; Political Economy of Fiscal Decentralization; Constitutional and Legal Framework and Guidelines; Intergovernmental Relations and Macroeconomic Stability and Growth; Expenditure Assignment; Revenue Assignment; Local Revenues; Intergovernmental Grants; Financing Infrastructure; Budgeting; Credit Debt or How to Measure Municipal Creditworthiness - Policies on Borrowing and Debt; Accountability and Transparency in Municipal Governments; and Fiscal Risk. In addition, regional organizers of these courses might have offered supplementary topics which are not listed above. 105 n Usefulness of the Course to You Personally m m o i a n x o · Please rate each aspect of the course listed below on a progressive scale of 1 to 5, i i p where 1 is the minimum and 5 is the maximum. m m i · If you feel that a question does not apply to you, or that you do not have enough u u n information to express an opinion, please fill the "no opinion" option. m m i · Please fill only one circle per question. o n 13. To what extent has/have the course(s) helped you personally in: a. Improving professional skills ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l b. Updating previously acquired skills ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l c. Solving existing problems ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l d. Providing a framework for thought ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l e. Providing fresh/new ideas ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l f. Becoming involved in new professional activities ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l g. Increasing opportunities for promotion ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l h. Meeting new persons (networking) ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l 14. Referring to question 13 above, provide concrete examples, if there are any, of how the course(s) helped you personally. n _________________________________________________________________________ m m o i a _________________________________________________________________________ n x o i i p m m i _________________________________________________________________________ u u n m m i Usefulness of the Course to Your Work o n 15. To what extent has/have the course(s) contributed to help you in your work to: a. Develop better policy options ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l b. Identify the most suitable policy options ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l c. Argue for or against certain policy options ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l d. Support or oppose policy options by referring to best international practices discussed ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l in the course e. Develop technical content of policies ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l f. Advise authorities or politicians ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l g. Advise colleagues and managers ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l h. Prepare background documents and/or written papers or briefs ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l 106 16. Referring to question 15 above, please provide concrete examples, if there are any, of how you were able to use knowledge gained from the course(s) in your work. _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ 17. Have you integrated elements of the course that you attended into your own training, teaching or research activities? ¡ la Yes. If yes, in what activities did you engage? (Fill all that apply.) ¡l1 Participated as an instructor or resource person in other offerings of the course. ¡l2 Organized a similar course. ¡l3 Integrated content of the course into teaching or training. ¡l4 Used contents of the course in my own research activities. ¡l5 Other contacts or activities: _________________________________________________________________ ¡ lb No 18. If you answered "Yes" to question 17 above, please elaborate on the activities in which you engaged. _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ n Overall Usefulness of the Course m m o i a n x o i i p · Please rate the usefulness of the course on a progressive scale of 1 to 5, where 1 m m i is the minimum and 5 is the maximum. u u n · If you feel that a question does not apply to you, or that you do not have enough m m i information to express an opinion, please fill the "no opinion" option. o · Please fill only one circle. n 19. What was the overall usefulness of this course? ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l 107 n Satisfaction with Course Materials, Curriculum, Instructors and m m o Activities i a n x o i i p · Please rate each aspect of the course listed below on a progressive scale of 1 to 5, m m i where 1 is the minimum and 5 is the maximum. u u n · If you feel that a question does not apply to you, or that you do not have enough m m i information to express an opinion, please fill the "no opinion" option. o · Please fill only one circle per question. n 20. To what extent were you satisfied overall with the following aspects of the course? a. Course materials ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l b. Degree to which case studies were relevant to your country or region ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l c. Curriculum (contents of the course) ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l d. Instructional (pedagogical) techniques ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l e. Classroom interaction among participants ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l f. Social activities (opportunities to network and socialize with one another) ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l g. Duration of the course ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l 21. If you provided an answer of "3" or lower for question 20, please provide suggestions for improvement on these items or any other aspect of the course. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ 108 n m m o Obstacles to Fiscal Decentralization i a n x o · Please rate each aspect of the course listed below on a progressive scale of 1 to 5, i i p where 1 is the minimum (no obstacles) and 5 is the maximum m m i u u n (many/significant obstacles). m m i · If you feel that a question does not apply to you, or that you do not have enough o information to express an opinion, please fill the "no opinion" option. n 22. To what extent do obstacles to fiscal decentralization exist at the following levels of government in your country? (Please fill only one circle per question.) a. Central government ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l b. Sub-national government (intermediary, state, regional, etc.) ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l c. Local government ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l 23. To what extent are the items listed below, obstacles for fiscal decentralization in your country? (Please fill only one circle per question.) a. lack of awareness of the benefits and risks of fiscal decentralization ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l b. lack of knowledge of the appropriate options for fiscal decentralization ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l c. lack of political consensus on a strategy for fiscal decentralization ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l d. macroeconomic instability ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l e. economic disparities between/among regions ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l f. political instability ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l g. lack of organizational capacity at the sub-national / local levels h. other (Please describe). __________________________________________ ¡¡¡¡¡ ¡ l l l l l 1 2 3 4 5 l 24. Please elaborate on any obstacles in questions 22 and 23 that you rated "4" or "5," meaning that obstacles are relatively high. ________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ 25. Based on your experience in the course, how might this course have any effect in reducing these obstacles? ________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ 109 Strengths and Weaknesses 26. What were the strengths of the course(s) that you attended? ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ 27. What were the weaknesses of the course(s) that you attended? ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ 110 Please fill only one circle in Future Course Improvements each of the three columns. If you do not have enough information to express an The organizers are interested in making opinion, do not fill the circles. improvements to the course. 28. In your opinion, what would be the 3 most useful improvements to the course? (Look at the list from letters "a to o" below to choose 3 ideas for Most useful 2nd most 3rd most improvement. Then, referring to the columns to the right, make one improvement useful useful selection per column.) improvement improvement a. Tailor courses more to country and regional needs ¡ la ¡la ¡la b. Develop and use more examples and case studies ¡ lb ¡lb ¡lb c. Delete topics ¡ lc ¡lc ¡lc d. Add new topics ¡ ld ¡ld ¡ld e. Provide advanced courses that develop specific skills ¡ le ¡le ¡le f. Improve teaching materials ¡ lf ¡lf ¡lf g. Rely more on the Internet as an interactive learning tool ¡ lg ¡lg ¡lg h. Engage more in distance learning ¡ lh ¡lh ¡lh i. Build further regional networks for courses & knowledge dissemination ¡ li ¡li ¡li j. Include more policymakers (politicians, mayors, etc.) as participants ¡ lj ¡lj ¡lj k. Include more journalists as participants ¡ lk ¡lk ¡lk l. Shorten the duration of the course ¡ ll ¡ll ¡ll m. Lengthen the duration of the course ¡ l m ¡l m ¡l m n. Establish post-course communication networks for alumni ¡ ln ¡l n ¡ln o. Other: ________________________________________ ¡ lo ¡l o ¡lo 29. Please elaborate on why you made these three choices for improvement in question 28 above. 1st Choice:____________________________________________________________________________ 2nd Choice: ___________________________________________________________________________ 3rdChoice: ____________________________________________________________________________ 111 30. If you have any further comments you may use the space below. Please specify whether the comments refer to the course or to the questionnaire itself. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you very much for completing this questionnaire! If you have a fax machine, please send the If you would prefer to mail the questionnaire, questionnaire to either one of these fax please send it to the following address. numbers: Decentralization Survey 2001 Fax: (1) (202) 614-1541 or c/o M. West Meiers, WBI Evaluation Unit Fax (1) (202) 522-1655 1818 H. Street N.W., MSN J4-401 Washington, DC 20433 United States of America Please send to the attention of: Telephone: (1) (202) 473-8543 Decentralization Survey 2001 c/o M. West Meiers, WBI Evaluation Unit 112 to in 9% 11% 30% 10% 15% 11% 16% 22% 0% 45% 24% 38% 55% 37% 50% 22% once of role(s) (each as responding (Participants Only) number each your courses computer to Percent survey actual to & three courses 9% 14% 30% 10% 15% 15% 22% 22% 4% The 48% 24% 38% 59% 37% 50% 25% in two simplify in addition to in responding deceased. (Participants participated Organizers) are 12 participated of Percent survey 12 course course(s) 32 28 46 20 27 27 32 45 27 33 29 42 29 19 44 32 Two of8 participation, the in Course Harare your Registered in 1998 of of remaining the The from Number Participants organizer/instructor). records participated 3 4 14 2 4 4 7 10 1 16 7 16 17 7 22 8 an organizer. you the as of to an times as participants maintained which Two in Survey Number three once and have Respondents and we date(s) 113 and or Given Given 0 Given 0 Given 0 Given 1 Given 1 Given 0 Given 0 Given 0 Given 1 Given 0 Given 1 1 Given 1 Given 0 Given 0 Given 1 Given 0 participanta participanta as as Although Not Not Not Not Not Not Not Not Not Not Not Not Not Not Not Not once city(-ies) Response (once Participant participant-organizer/instructor. No the or 0 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 courses, courses occurred. two Course: Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer Organizer four in below in RESULTS the combinationa courses in Org./Instructor & as the indicate Role 3 3 14 1 3 3 5 10 0 15 5 15 16 7 21 7 participated participated Organizer/Instructor Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant 12 12 which Participant of participated the in please of One SURVEY you person One dates one 98) 99) and would course. 00) twelve, 22. 98) March- 99) one cities was apply.) 00) than organizer/instructor). these to the 98) 99) 99) that 99) 00) 00) an 98) Organizer/Instructor 00) 00) course (July-August more as AGGREGATE are questionnaire, all Course (February 00) of (September that Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor (November-December (June (July-August (April (April and (July Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor USA Organizer/Instructor Organizer/Instructor (November Organizer/Instructor took twice addition (Fill 4: this (March In (June took below Date or or (November or or or or or (November or (December or or or or or or (October or or and of Thailand and Hungary Hungary only. who Austria Brazil Zimbabwe Venezuela Hungary Hungary Mai, Brazil Chile Kazakhstan Participant Georgia, Brazil Uganda Listed course? Uganda participants Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant Participant 1. analysis the Both participanta ANNEX Location Vienna, Budapest, Brasilia, Harare, Chiang Caracas, Budapest, Brasilia, Jinja, Budapest, Almaty, Santiago, Budapest, Atlanta, Brasilia, Kampala, Twelve as participants participants 13 1 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 30 25% 30% 28% 34% % Total who were Total (512) who Acadamy, University participants participants Russia of (UAPA)) participants participants European registered registered all all Central Problems of of registered registered Administration out out all all of of (CEPAL), Economic Public (126) (126) out out for of Latina (GTZ) (422) (142) (142) Soros-Kazakhstan) Institute Academy América questionnaire questionnaire course course (422) sources. contacted para (ESAF), Institute, the the each each Ukrainian Zusammenarbeit Rates to to to to Other ESA contacted of Society Económica Fazendária Center, Uganda government successfully Technische Open Programme local Response Respondents (512) Respondents were Respondents Respondents successfully Comisión Advising für in Description (La (Moscow Association Administração reform publications given de Education 114 Website 512 422 126 142 not fax Europe for Institute Gesellschaft Development and postal had Escola of Authorities Bank provided contacts Foundation Total books and determined recipient (continued). specification fax Asia 2 Training (CEU), International Council Deutsche Municipal Soros USAID Urban Foundation Organizers Internet World IMF No was e-mail, who questionnaires Central unsuccessful inoperable sent contacts" the and for 54 9 26 6 24 30 that Total Africa respondents in Reasons successfully 12 and appeared it offices the address/occupation, contacts. of regional/ Contacted* "successful/unsuccessful (including where Bank about unreturned on change World course learn institution Successfully questionnaire tracking participants you the each to to course) by information addresses, participants. attempts. of did research/ one selected successful/unsuccessful non-governmental Participants Participants addition, to on death apply.) than determined In multiple participant training sector, Information respondents respondents calls and source(s) that or of of more was after all Registered Registered in information what (Fill of of (private number telephone incomplete university organization relatives/ number number questionnaires. received Bank This From Respondent Number Number Total Total participated * mail through been additional included machines/numbers 2. course? Government Employer organization/NGO) School, training Friends World Other 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 6 1 15 126 100% 126 3% 33% 48% 13% 2% 1% 100% Total Total Total Mean Total 42 2 4 3 1 33% 2% 41 61 16 126 No Female Total Response 84 0 67% 0% unidentified) Total Treasury Male 70+ means. (UAPA) National Bank University, 0 0% Other GTZ the of of ESA and foundation Northeast European 60-69 Administration the CEPAL 12 of Secretariat Institute Programme of Public Central 10% Description the of of Bank, 50-59 Society materials Presidency section Open Development Academy the (World 44 of 35% Site study.) (continued). government of 3 Promotional Training Moscow Municipal Ukrainian Office My University Web Fax 40-49 etc.) field 46 115 17 44 23 0 0 0 37% your 15 Licenciatura, 30-39 Total (Indicate 22 Licence, etc.) 17% B.S., the 20-29 Maestría, etc.) B.A., completed? about 0 20 0% poster, Maîtrise, have Bachelors, than you MBA, information brochure, less that degree, MPA, etc.) it.) flyer, degree, J.D., receive describe education you lower M.D., (newsletter, of Undergraduate and or Graduate did age? level (e.g., (Ph.D., (e.g., specify means apply.) education study study notification of study of that notification/ notification sex? present highest of (Please which all field field (Fill e-mail/ e-mail/ your your the field study is is is contact level level of mail level mail sources Through What What What school/secondary field response 3. course? Personal Direct Indirect Newspaper/Magazine Television Radio Other 4. 5. 6. High University Masters Doctorate Other No 20% 53% 27% 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 2 1 1 1 1 % 100% 38 50 3 8 4 Total 15 Total Total Total Total Total Relations (continued) Management) study Business of Systems Intergovernmental Planning Finance Tax level Finance, field and Analysis and Public Engineering Engineering/Telecommunications, Systems Economics (Accounting, in level Economic Engineering Science Science Administration Finance Policy Sector and Management Doctorate Systems (continued) in studies C. Business Administration, Economics Other Masters Mechanical Political Political Production Information Public Public Public Public Social Structural Urban study Studies 6% of 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 Studies 30% 44% % 20% 100% post-graduate Total fields Union 15 22 3 Accounting plus 10 50 Postgraduate level and Total with European Degree Law in (continued) Systems Knowledge Total University Economics Law Management Management Tourism, University Studies and study International 116 Political Security Economics Planning, 4 1 2 1 1 1 of Policy to Relations Levels Management) Levels 21 Sciences and Business Policy, field Social Postgraduate Development Public Total Accounting Applied Administration Control level Finance, Management) level and and and and Information Economics International Doctorate (Development Doctorate Economics, Public and in External (Accounting, Urban and Policy Administration, Masters Economics Population Economics Finance Finance Finance, Industrial Labor Mathematics: MBA MBA MBA Management MBA: Masters and & B. Business Administration, Economics Engineering Public Public Science, 2 1 1 1 1 1 9 1 1 1 1 1 Masters Masters Accountant 21% 5% 58% 8% 8% Total % 100% Public Microcomputers 8 2 22 3 3 in University, 38 University, law Methods) the Total Registered Studies Finance the in at at FCIS, tributary Planning Total study in MBA Management Modeling of study Study Study MZIPFA, Postgraduate Finance) of of of Financial fields plus and Econometrics) and level field Accounting, Audit and Developmental Mathematical Fields Fields level Planning and (Accounting, Sciences (Honors) Science Sciences level Finance Policy (Applied (Banking (Econometrics/Quantitative and and University engineering engineering/specialization Engineering, General A. Business Management) Computer Economics Engineering Other Specific University Accounting Business Civil Civil Computer Computer Microprocessors Economics Masters Accounting Accounting Civil Corporate Development Economic Economics Economics Economics Economics Economics Economics 1 1 1 1 1 1 15 3 1% 1% 4% 5% 2% 1% 1% 1% 2% 2% 2% 2% 1% 2% 4% 37% 47% 0% 1% 10% 0% 1% 0% 2% Total Total % 100% % 100% 1 1 5 6 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 Total Total 126 5 46 59 0 1 12 0 1 0 2 Total 126 Total (continued) live? you Total study Government do of Local Yugoslavia field of country level Sciences which Federation Republic Administration, In Kitts regions.") 7. (continued) Pakistan Paraguay Romania Russian Slovakia St. Tajikistan Tanzania Uganda Ukraine Uzbekistan Venezuela Federal Zimbabwe Total Doctorate Public Sociology Technical global/ 5 2 2 2% 1% 1% 1% 2% 1% 1% 2% 1% 2% 1% 1% 1% 2% 1% % Total "multiple 2 1 1 1 3 1 1 2 1 3 1 1 1 3 1 Total indicate live? please (continued) you 117 do region, study of one field country Zealand) than Europe Finance The New level and which Republic more and In in Western 7. (continued) Ethiopia Gambia, Georgia Ghana Guatemala Haiti Honduras Hungary Indonesia Kazakhstan Kenya Kyrgyz Malawi Mexico Moldova Doctorate) Korea and work of Doctorate Economics Economics Finance USA 2% 1% 2% 2% 3% 1% 29% 8% 2% 1% 2% 1% 3% 2% 1% you 1 1 1 Masters, % (If Republic Zealand, Total Management 2 1 3 2 4 1 37 10 2 1 3 1 4 2 1 Japan, work? New and University, Total Management Korea, Australia, of than Planning currently study Business you Asia you of (other and Urban in do do (excluding Republic Central Caribbean Africa field study Pacific and the Japan, North Regions level of Diploma country region the and and Africa Geography Mathematics field Accountancy- Cooperatives in and Europe Canada, which Graduate Verde Republic which East In In Asia America Asia Response Doctorate Accounting Applied Economic Other Diploma Diploma Post 7. live? Albania Angola Argentina Armenia Bolivia Bosnia-Herzegovina Brazil Bulgaria Cape Chile China Colombia Croatia Czech Ecuador 8. East (Eastern) Latin Middle South Sub-Saharan Australia, Global/Multiple Other No 1 1 25 24 3 6 1 54 18 2 2 29 23 4 0 8 3 1 1 40 44% 24% 33% 100% Central/ Mean National Subnational Total Other Total Total 54 29 40 1 1 1 1 1 1 123 Other- Other- Other- Total Central Subnational Subtotal Subtotal Subtotal Non-Government / Other (Non- Government Government Total course? Subnational Other the in course? course? Municipal/ course? the the the in Central/National in Local/ in participated Total (first) participated participated participated Subnational you (first) (first) Total (first) 118 when you you you when when when employment of employment employment employment type of of of type type type your your your your matches matches matches matches Reform closely Government Government Government closely closely closely most (NGO) Organization Government) most most Institution Municipal/ Administrative Municipal/ Municipal/ most Government Government Government of Mayor/ Bilateral/ Subnational following Local/ following Government Government Minister following Local/ Local/ Accounts Council of following Organization or the Employment the the Municipalities organization of of of Deputy/ Legislature/ Consultant Northeast Management/ Commission of City/ the of Court of Training-Research/ Regional/ Central the Government Central/National Subnational Other Types Which Central/National- Central/National- Municipal/ of Subnational- Subnational- Sector Organization (Not of Which National Legislative Assessor Which Federal-state Advising Which Bank 9. Total Total Total Total 9. Central/National Minister Parliament Advisor Staff Other 9. Local Head Legislative Staff Association Other 9. Government) University Private Media Non-Governmental Multilateral Student Other 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 9 , 2 1 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 54 24 80% 20% 100% Mean Total 101 25 Total 126 Total 2000. Bank Distance Total September Northeast in activities. Serbia. the in of Management ILGS. & Forum or City topic. teach course. Event to Institute. same Urban AYSPS www1.worldbank.org/wbiep/decentralization) contacts another the or course in on area. between Decentralization other the Management knowledge Government tour this participants? of in from Local Financial participant studya work Municipal AFRICITIES,ALGAF, partnership the exchange and/or as with experts of in in work my in data website to foster on not Description to "Organization.") locate to paper does 10b. Organized Involvement Cooperation Preparation Elaborated Involvement Involvement Trying Participated Total (www.decentralization.org and download found instructors download to issue opportunities Use 5% 7% to difficult to 126 10% 25% 23% 15% 26% 20% 58% course Use to sometimes good like of this "Information" Appealing to easy difficult weaknesses organizer, % ORGANIZATION Appealing Not Easy Difficult Files Files Sometimes Would Website Contains No 119 its 6 13 32 29 19 33 25 73 9 for under Total site course, web categorized 3 9 6 1 2 3 3 2 1 4 1 1 the course. World and the with the of Total apply.) team than synthesized Institute. other Decentralization that organizers institutions. been involvement all Bank their Fiscal have any (Fill World regional Decentralization institutions the the course. by and/or had from from Fiscal the (Responses you engage? course. of Institute's you employed your (students) have did Institute's Institute. are Bank organizers organizers. Bank Bank who study ended, decentralization decentralization organized World weaknesses? www1.worldbank.org/wbiep/decentralization). that participants for activities fiscal fiscal World or regional World regional the and info on on the the the the instructors course course(s) of of info which Question with with with institutions with activities visited Plentiful framework date in site site or strengths Sufficient Insufficient to your have good of documents documents web web its Plentiful- Not- yes, contact contact contact contact out the the in in in regional Abundant Focus Focus practical/useful up-to-date Comments Since If in you High or contacts are Diverse- If provides data 10. Yes No 10a. Requested Requested Visited (www.decentralization.org Visited Stayed Stayed Stayed Bank Stayed Other 11. what INFORMATION Interesting Quantity Quality Translations Translations Topics Regional Regional Info Contains Contains Some Unique Respondents of - 1 1 12 7 2 10 2 9 2 4 3 1 16 5 1 6 6 4 27 4 2 2 4 6 2 3 23 topics 344 100 Stability Total Total Total Concept a are: for Creditworthiness supplementary contents Macroeconomic search and Municipal the offered in Course expenditures have Relations Measure to public course. might in How the course.) considerations or courses of efficiency America from Debt Comments.") Intergovernmental these and Latin services. Credit of location administrative in effects "Other gained on inequalities) and and and social functions Brazil you the Guidelines; in Accounts organizers distributive of of that and Budgeting; (Depends poverty municipalities public of its conceptual Comments," Decentralization regional and (Brazil Law share Corruption financing insight Brazilian of Taxing: Fiscal Surrender Framework "General MODULES and of autonomy of Infrastructure; the and addition, Assessment Question fiscal of Legal In Approach economy Responsibility features decentralization Control important and Modules," Financing Risk. most ADDITIONAL Corruption Sector Federative Fiscal Fiscal Intergovernmental Political Responsibility subnational Challenges Fiscal Citizen Decentralization 120 the Grants; Fiscal "Additional Constitutional and 26 9 5 14 18 26 11 27 6 17 5 4 11 Modules," Total describe "Core please Intergovernmental Governments; Decentralization; under government Borrowing of government Fiscal Municipal Overview of on course, of Revenues; in categorized levels the Growth Local of and Worldwide and Policies- decentralization etc.) Economy different of and Transparency grouped.) of government decentralization be of contents Political Assignment; and synthesized Stability of Education, democracy been Governments could levels and relations/development risks) components comment) main Guidelines Creditworthiness issues experience Revenue and (Health, per the Overview; have Decentralization that responsibilities changes and fiscal various below. Accountability Macroeconomic Municipal and Fiscal Municipal in judge/ different of country chart of and (benefits important the Worldwide Assignment; Debt; (Responses Decentralization implement Framework (Comments my respondent1 principles topics is to between international decentralization in in and and Measure of FD Decentralization consideration above. Concept Fiscal FD (Only of Legal Relations Grants to work Transparency of that used intergovernmental Question How my between important interrelatedness Fiscal into & situation of of & to Expenditure listed and comments Assignment analysis or links decentralization Borrowing not Overview- Infrastructure COMMENTS my with were of on Economy Assignment overview responsibilities- MODULES me Revenues Services COMMENTS Comments Taking Decentralization are Debt Risk appreciation Growth; Debt themes economics individual 12. Fiscal and Policies which CORE Concept Political Constitutional Intergovernmental Expenditure Revenue Local Intergovernmental Financing Budgeting Credit and Fiscal Accountability GENERAL General Improved New Tools/mechanisms Sharing Helped Understanding/comparing Understanding Understand All The Trade-offs Understanding Social OTHER See Unique Respondents are 121 119 107 118 119 111 107 116 to the 6 revenues Brazilian that able and N to in or being income obligations itself, budgeting, the financial policy 5 0.81 0.86 1.08 0.87 0.82 1.25 1.32 1.05 local tax Dev. form finance expenditures) shared to local on they Std. on sound in competence how of modules 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 and when and of 4 (decision fiscal making context has services hand the Highest one decision interrelation needs; public municipalities on within accountability the 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 expenditures and government its lending of the 3 the to of with conditions for better country hand to for vision the Lowest burden power in other expenditures dealing the management referring Subnational political systems tax changes and some decentralization dependence the budgets. clear of 79% 79% 40% 76% 82% 49% 39% 76% the on self burden on local models seeing 2 5 question. and of maximum. have in or the whether and their 4 =5 revenues). of fiscal levels on done evaluation enjoyed institutional % part the and raise budget experiences be local revenues of macroeconomic to and mathematical lower liberalization group autonomy, to 4.1 4.1 3.3 4.1 4.2 3.4 3.1 4.2 the Governments must local to instructor, 1 the down minimum an of 121 Fiscal (power adjust Suitable Local Important municipalities Work expenditure How put Stable management Financial Monitoring Importance Illustrative As Mean =1 question. the were to opinion where so 5, the country's) is revenues to1 of expenditures (my Government in: respondents comments) in of fiscal interesting federation scalea all of heterogeneous total sectors' our levels collect on out very 23 as to personally question. question. more inequalities not constitution management various you "5"a the the the education and question or was our land because capacity to to of country) the the comment, and level, and helped to "4"a poverty part (my deviation, per with health on in be themes between process activities participant participant to on Federalism", unusual. administrative the course(s) one one standard debate conceptual should management systems data poverty) actions very population and skills respondents answered least least the question. related respondent the the of is the promotion all at areas joint by monitor thought professional of who at at the 1 that finance (and of to skills for for (networking) by by larger to even "Cooperative new fiscal statistical on elected technical acquired ideas in rating the (Only experiences thinkI equalization decentralization public execution) has/have of with efficiently capacity problems revenues promotion and persons participants awarded awarded but opportunities about that professional of respondents the themea average the extent previously frameworka fresh/new involved existing new deviation: municipalities, horizontal of decentralized available of government governments services rating rating COMMENTS and and missed financing government what interesting, fundamentals provide To Improving Updating Solving Providing Providing Becoming Increasing Meeting Arithmetic Proportion Lowest Highest Standard Number OTHER Presentations very states Understanding The Vertical Identifying Resources Distribution Course decentralized, (design, Subnational Subnational and Central 13. 13a. 13b. 13c. 13d. 13e. 13f. 13g. 13h. 1 2 3 4 5 6 10 13 2 4 8 5 3 8 4 14 4 1 13 1 1 1 1 172 83 and Total synthesized for will FD been that with looking performance have level parties fiscal involved assistance (Responses are with affected who technical professionala "Other.") at concerned and (among country are provide amI personally. my projects course can you in country my this course. of of my of participants/organizers/instructors opinions, academics "Networking," officials in topic(s) one officials helpful and helped on with on academics issues with topic elements (pedagogy) level very topics FD elements on was the on course teach high contact international knowledge course(s) knowledge to methods for staff "Teach/Organize," organization/ on the and international the using makers implement knowledge exchanges to from Tours gained change maintained course WB and work preparing teaching the WB how my policy plan course affect my Study and with countries newly of Knowledge," ORGANIZATION/ project paper(s)/books/research to to presentation(s) do experts new increased ORGANIZE/ that that my able any, be are "Specific Helpful Prepared Given Influenced have/I Shared Course Prepared Engaged Prepared/am Improved Organized Established Interaction Realized developing Realized Despite WORK solutions) TEACH NETWORKING (networking) OTHER of not 122 there 16 2 1 2 1 3 6 4 2 1 24 4 1 2 4 1 2 1 1 1 if Knowledge," Total "General my examples, in and concrete pursue country learned to decentralization my state change/maintenance "Work/Organization," of in policies on the provide lessons FD systematically) country to my for Motivated- and process apply focused in please Education," & the and FD renunciation policies EDUCATION in devoted issues education -now of transfers & policies on courses/programs/forums (generally fiscal inequities public country above, formal study of country risks experiences of 13 advocate similar IGFR my Development in matter my and grants in skills/opportunities participate to working my of articulate to working-team in in to team graduate topic with of me subject of of question IGFR- benefits- international- financial- intergovernmental- effectiveness- wealth-poverty- importance- situation Question DEVELOPMENT ability confidence to to "Professional SPECIFIC prepared participate field issues professional my my to helped study ­ gain gain gain gain gain gain gain gain involved member to my understanding social Comments under KNOWLEDGE better appreciation Referring Improved opportunities amI present country Improved Improved Became Became Continued Knowledge Continue Switched municipality Improved New Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge of Unique Respondents 14. categorized PROFESSIONAL GENERAL KNOWLEDGE 97 10 6 6 11 8 1 1 4 107 112 110 105 105 111 108 119 73 6 N in Total 5 0.99 0.96 0.83 0.86 1.07 1.10 0.91 1.09 course(s) Dev. the Std. 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 from 4 Use.") gained Highest "No 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 and papers) 3 teaching) knowledge briefing Lowest "Training," use confidence- 2 to books, consulting, 5 64% 65% 80% 76% 50% 64% 73% 69% or 4 able analysis/ activities work reports, % (including my were practices to teaching 3.7 3.8 4.0 4.0 3.5 3.7 4.0 3.9 1 maximum. question. =5 you "Knowledge/Research," use knowledge (papers, the research/education my Mean on how RESEARCH/ in methods my opportunities little and Sharing," international of of of general topics group my preparation teaching was to: course the any, benefited minimum of new professional USE course the work in =1 question. are 123 "Information KNOWLEDGE Comparison Improved Course Document TRAINING Incorporated Used New NO The the to opinion there your where the if 16 10 2 5 2 14 1 1 3 2 7 6 3 in 5, "Advice," discussed to1 Total you of respondents Projects," help practices examples, to scalea all of heterogeneous "Work on out briefs. more under international or "5"a question. question. concrete the the question or the to contributed best to to papers the to "4"a provide categorized country deviation, written with and participant participant please project/ my in course(s) referring (general) options FD options by one one standard and/or the respondents policy on answered the question. of design colleagues work policy policies 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Choosing Technical Monitoring Improvement ADVICE Provided Provided Provided Providing INFORMATION Sharing Debates/discussions Promote Presentation Unique Respondents 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 6 14 11 35 62 22 22 7 9 4 6 10 1 28 24 2 91 59 Total Total Total Total it apply.) course. newa the defend of that of to all categorized (Fill decentralization and offerings necessary construction in other (continued) financial engage? in training. activities. professionals synthesized or on you arguments person research 2000 forum financial referencea been did teaching activities as have own or in gained for into field resource my and training or in Somalia this for Hungary activities course contacts course in in (Responses presentation and the course document of course finance which instructor course. of the activities other similar papers Mission the Poland in an of or UN policy engaged. as yes, similara of some content simple on preparing from from given you If write government contents contacts verya to nationala and 17a. concepts materials local which Participated Organized Integrated Used Other Description trying the experiences of in specification 17b. Organized Applied amI Improved Participation Use Used model No 124 70% 30% Mean 100% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 activities 83 36 119 the Total Total on Total elaborate you activities? that that Prague for please in research Romania course or seminars chance in above, Finance at the activities 17 "Training/Research/Education.") of or Public and teaching on interesting colleagues speaking Conference in an government is question Sharing," courses elements contacts work local Commission Administration" to training, Conference my course there for EDUCATION/ Dissertation/ own other to the "Yes" topics when Design Seminar/ of of Decentralization Credits Public" "Information on participants Assistance Organizing/ integrated your Books/ courses Question Fiscal Decentralization course Project SHARING materials to you International into information content of of contents, Municipal in other answered Projects," Debates/ (Oral) Workshop/ RESEARCH/ similar VII the the the the on to with Work; you PROJECTS Technical/ Teaching­ Papers/ in Comments Have Description to used If "Work 17. attended Yes No 17b. Attended passedI I've Organization diffuseI Courses Support Participation Contacts 18. under WORK Useful Advising INFORMATION Discussions Presentations Conference Dissemination TRAINING Training Research Enrolling Unique Respondents 114 121 120 120 118 120 119 120 115 96 101 113 114 114 114 114 112 114 18 6 N 6 N 5 5 0.66 0.63 0.80 0.59 0.83 0.82 0.91 1.09 1.13 1.10 1.20 1.13 1.11 1.07 1.29 1.06 1.36 1.12 0.78 Dev. Dev. Std. Std. 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 Highest results. Highest 3 3 2 3 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 3 3 Lowest combined Lowest the 2 5 2 84% 93% 82% 93% 76% 88% 79% 69% for 5 63% 51% 46% 50% 54% 75% 41% 67% 36% 59% 83% or 4 27 or 4 % % maximum. question. 4.1 4.4 4.2 4.3 4.1 4.3 4.2 3.9 3.7 3.4 3.3 3.5 3.4 4.1 3.2 3.9 3.0 3.7 4.4 =5 the 1 Question 1 country. on and Mean See Mean your group 27. in the course? minimum of the =1 question. 125 the of Question to opinion of following where 5, the aspects the decentralization to1 results at of fiscal respondents another) the exist all following region for scalea of heterogeneous or one with on out the more with etc.) levels decentralization "5"a question. question. the with country obstacles the decentralization question or the to course? decentralization local/ to your socialize combined fiscal regional, the to decentralization fiscal for "4"a this overall and below, of fiscal to deviation, of been state, for with fiscal participant risks options regions participant relevant to listed sub-national one network have and the one standard satisfied country? were participants to 21 at respondents answered the question. course) techniques items strategya all least least usefulness you your the the (intermediary, at at appropriate on of who studies in the benefits by by larger to of among obstacles the the capacity were Question do are between/among of rating the overall case of (opportunities course of consensus instability the (pedagogical) describe) participants awarded awarded extent which (contents interaction the government of extent extent disparities average of respondents deviation: was materials to activities results government government of government awareness knowledge political instability organizational rating rating what what of what of of of of (Please What To Course Degree Curriculum Instructional Classroom Social Duration The ­ To Central Sub-national Local To lack lack lack macroeconomic economic political lack other Arithmetic Proportion Lowest Highest Standard Number Questions 19. 20. a. b. c. d. e. f. g. 21. 22. "levels" 22a. 22b. 22c. 23. 23a. 23b. 23c. 23d. 23e. 23f. 23g. 23h. 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 5 5 5 4 4 2 1 1 20 138 81 provide Total* did Total but 5), to (1 Total* ratings high. numerical relatively level provide are government. not central did at central level the obstacles policy by local respondents Framework that at Six transfer party given Legal/ are (continued) ruling values economy existing meaning of Obstacles." responsibility "5," market to obstacles parameters "Other or ideology taking Constitutional democratic intergovernmental of "4" OBSTACLES of of of of 126 serious 24. Fear Lack Other Lack Lack Centralist Transition No rated Expenditure descriptions 20 19 18 17 12 9 6 5 5 base. your tax provide that Total the not 23 and did but and taxes 22 of 23h, kinds income work question questions prescriptions rate, for 5) in and tax officials' to level the (1 decentralizable diagnose level will inequalities authorities ratings obstacles central corruption and government level at the obligations local of administration government influence difficult any of regional local not on will/ interests, national evaluate of local numerical the public to of participation do state crisis in Obstacles." the distribution competency the gave subnational/ private Question of all consensus at Competition- fiscal by to (Descriptions) knowledge capacity representation citizens' culture structures of "Other elaborate of technical technocratic/bureaucratic determination/will finance politicians information legal disparities instability Comments Other capacity of of of of compatible transparency active political knowledge capacity instability revenue, of of political of of respondents Please OBSTACLES of of of cooperation of captured 23h. Fiscal Lack Lack Political Lack Ability Lack Appropriate Lack Low Patrimonial Having Lack Lack Corruption Subnational Dependency Four* descriptions 24. 24. Regional Lack Lack Lack Economic Lack Political Lack State Unique Respondents 54 46 21 20 18 11 7 6 6 5 4 3 2 2 1 206 107 Total you that course Strengths the atmosphere of discussion and strengths interaction, equipment the follow-up Question presentations to were materials facilities, comparisons examples and techniques and experiences, contacts, and simulation learning Comments What work participants activities 26. attended? Contents Instructors Exchange Organization, International Networks, Cases Team Quality Videoconferencing Social Pedagogical Exercises Computer Conceptual Unique Respondents 127 32 18 11 11 11 9 7 7 5 4 4 3 3 14 139 11 150 34 Total any 20, or attended? items you (Weaknesses/Improvements) question these that 27 for & on found") found") 21 lower or course(s) Weaknesses "3" the weaknesses Questions of improvement of schedule presentations weaknesses "no for for presentations/ large of "no answer discussions/ too examples respect participant an course. weaknesses techniques opportunities/ instructors support course/ of (including Responses suggestions the the (excluding Question of of intensive/ regional/ of suggested and interactions visits found to provided were or activities up themes quality pedagogical Insufficient/ comments) changes selection of site preparation you provide Comments aspect If What loaded/ country time social follow on of of of of of (single Comments weaknesses Combination 21. please other 27. Short Lack Lack Insufficient Insufficient Thematic Participant Lack Lack Repetition Organization Lack Insufficient Other Total No Unique Respondents 9 4 6 5 8 of 103 95 26 103 15 31 19 74 75 26 67 10 11 12 13 14 15 Rank course? Sum Points course? 26 19 15 9 6 5 4 Useful 1 1 the 3 9 4 4 11 3 5 4 12 12 2 3 6 28 2 the Points Most to to of Points (x1) 3rd rd 3 Sum 16 32 2 10 32 6 14 12 38 30 2 0 8 18 0 Points (x2) Useful improvements nd 2 improvements 84 54 3 12 60 6 12 3 24 33 0 3 12 21 3 Most useful useful 2nd Points (x3) most st 1 most 3 3 course the the 6 8 3 4 3 the course participants be 39 43 13 47 16 11 39 38 14 44 learning be of the as Useful 1 of Total Most would would distance materials duration in journalists 3 9 4 4 11 3 5 4 12 12 2 3 6 28 2 the duration what what more teaching Most topics the _______________ more rd 3 Useful 8 Delete Other: Include opinion, 16 1 5 16 3 7 6 19 15 1 0 4 9 0 Lengthen Engage Improve opinion, m. h. f. c. Shortenl. o. k. 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Include Select Exchange ANNEX 5: LIST OF INTERVIEWS AND OF CORE COURSES/POLICY SERVICES EVENTS ATTENDED BY MEMBERS OF THE EVALUATION TEAM LIST OF INTERVIEWS Werner Bussmann · Walter Kälin (University of Bern) on the Nepal Decentralization workshop, November 10, 2001 (interview) · Ulrich Klöti (University of Zürich) on the Nepal Decentralization workshop, May 21 and 28 (telephone interview, followed by e-mail exchange) · Winnie Mulongo-Luhana on the Victoria Falls Declaration, February 14 and 15, 2001 (interview at the Budapest experts' workshop) Werner Bussmann and Maurya West-Meiers · Approximately 12 interviews (30-60 minutes) with Robert Ebel and/or Victor Vergara or Serdar Yilmaz Attendance of core courses and policy services events Werner Bussmann · Core course in Budapest, Hungary, held from April 10-15, 2000 (participants from the Balkans and Central Asia) Adrian Hadorn · Forum on Fiscal Decentralization in Bosnia & Herzegovina held in Sarajevo from June 14-16, 1999 · Turkey Municipal Finance Workshop in Antalya, Turkey, held from June 21-22, 1999 Maurya West Meiers · Core course in Brasilia, Brazil, held from October 16 ­ 27, 2000 (participants from Brazil and other Latin American countries), attendance from October 16 ­ 19, 2000 129 ANNEX 6: PROGRAM TEAM ORIGINAL MEMBERS OF THE FD TEAM Robert D. Ebel Robert Ebel is a WBI Lead Economist. He is an authority on state and local finance in the United States, having served as Director of Public Finance Research for the United States Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR), the Executive Director of Tax Study Commissions in Minnesota and the District of Columbia, director of tax studies for Nevada, the District of Columbia, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Hawaii. He also recently served as the Chair of a special revenue study commission for Washington, D.C., and the Executive Director of the National Tax Association (1995-2000). At the World Bank he has managed intergovernmental fiscal reports in Hungary, Jordan, Palestine (West Bank-Gaza Strip), India, and Yemen, and coordinated the Fiscal Decentralization Initiative (FDI) for Central and Eastern Europe, a collaborative research grant program of the World Bank, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Council of Europe, Open Society Institute, the United Nations Development Program, and the governments of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. At present, he is the Theme Leader for the World Bank Institute's program on Decentralization (fiscal decentralization, federalism, local government, local financial management), which has a worldwide program. His communications skills range from the authorship of books, monographs, and articles to the series editor of a scholarly research series on decentralization economics (JAI Press) and a regular economics columnist for two major U.S. newspapers (St. Paul and Honolulu). Recent books are Decentralization of the Socialist State (with Richard Bird and Christine Wallich, World Bank, 1995) and The Encyclopedia of Taxation and Tax Policy (with Joseph Cordes and Jane G. Gravelle, Washington, DC, Decentralization Institute Press, 1999). Other recent publications include: "Sorting Out Intergovernmental Roles and Responsibilities in the Hungarian Transition," (with Istvan Varfalvi and Sandor Varga), in Lajos Bokros and Jean Jacques Dethier, eds., Public Finance Reform During the Transition: The Experience of Hungary (World Bank, 1998, Chapter 15); "Financing decentralization Governments," (with Francois Vaillancourt), in Emila Freire and Richard Stern, eds., Challenges of City Government (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Summer 2000); and "Intergovernmental Relations: Issues and Policies" (with Serdar Yilmaz), in Mila Zlatic, ed., Proceedings of the Forum on Fiscal Decentralization (World Bank Fiscal Decentralization Initiative Series, 2000). He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Economics from Purdue University and a B.A. in Economics from Miami University. Blanca Moreno-Dodson Blanca Moreno-Dodson joined the World Bank Institute in 1998 as Economist and Course Manager of the Macroeconomic Management program, in WBI. Previously she worked at the World Bank as Economist with the Corporate Strategy Group (1997-1998), and as Country Economist and Country Officer in the West-Central Africa Department (1993-1997). She has also worked in Country Operations in LAC and MENA, and in the Chief Economist and Policy Research Department (1991-1993). Prior to joining the World Bank, Ms. Moreno-Dodson held positions at the Commission of the European Community, Brussels, and the European Parliament, Luxembourg. She received her Ph.D. and Masters in International Economics and Finance from the University Aix-Marseille II, France, and a Masters in Economics from the University "Autonoma" Madrid, Spain. Victor Vergara Victor Vergara is Subnational Finance and Administration Specialist for WBI. Before joining the World Bank, Mr. Vergara was manager of assistance to disadvantaged coastal municipalities where he managed a multi-disciplinary 130 team in designing, implementing and supervising infrastructure investment programs in the poorest regions of Mexico. In the World Bank, he has worked with the Policy and Research Department where he assisted in the preparation of the Bank's Municipal Development Policy Paper. He was recruited by the operational branch of the World Bank where he was responsible for the design and supervision of technical assistance programs on financial management and governance for subnational governments in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Venezuela. He was the author of World Bank Policy Options Paper on sub-national reform for the Mexico (1994-2000) and a World Bank sector study, Venezuela Decentralized Provision of Urban Services: Finding the Right Incentives. Among Mr. Vergara's responsibilities are the management of regional municipal technical assistance initiatives in Latin America and Eastern and Southern Africa and co-task management of the FD Core Course, Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Financial Management. Mr. Vergara is a Mexican national and holds Master of Agriculture degree from Texas A&M University and a Master of City Planning (Regional Economics) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Serdar Yilmaz Serdar Yilmaz is a Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank Institute (WBI). Mr. Yilmaz coordinates curriculum development activities of the WBI's Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations and Local Financial Management Program. In addition to his managerial assignments, he conducts research and produces scholarly work on the areas of public finance, regional development and intergovernmental fiscal design. His research interest include the analysis of the decision making process in the public sector, intergovernmental policies in developing countries, and the role of infrastructure service provision in regional development patterns. He has participated in many learning activities of the WBI and his research has appeared in leading academic journals and edited books in the field. Mr. Yilmaz received a Ph.D. in Public Policy and an M.A. in Telecommunications from George Mason University. He holds an M.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Public Affairs from Istanbul University. Michelle Morris Michelle Morris is Administrative Program Manager for Public Finance and Decentralization. Her core responsibility is the management of the team's budget. She also coordinates the administrative and organizational functions for the Public Finance team. Ms. Morris joined WBI in February 1997. Prior to joing WBI, Ms. Morris worked at a Law Firm Specializing in Juvenile Cases. Her background is in Public Administration and Psychology. 131 Richard M. Bird Richard M. Bird, Senior Fellow of the program, is a Professor Emeritus of Economics, and an Adjunct Professor and Co-Director of International Tax Program, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, as well as a Petro-Canada Scholar, C.D. Howe Institute, a Distinguished Visiting Professor, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, and a Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School (2001-02). He was educated at Dalhousie University, Columbia University, and London School of Economics. He taught at Harvard University and University of Toronto and held visiting positions at Monash University, Australian National University, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Japan Council of Science, Indian Council of Social Science, Harvard Law School, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, University of York (UK), and Georgia State University. Other major positions held include Advisor on Tax and Monetary Policy, Government of Colombia, Chief of Tax Policy Division, International Monetary Fund, and Director of Institute for Policy Analysis, University of Toronto. He has published numerous books and articles on public finance and taxation issues. He is currently on the editorial board of Tax Notes International, Public Finance Review, Canadian Tax Journal, and Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy. His other current affiliations include International Seminar in Public Economics (Past President), National Tax Association (long-time Honorary Director, Morris Beck Award), International Institute of Public Finance (former Board Member), American Economic Association, Canadian Economic Association, Canadian Tax Foundation. Associate of Institute of Fiscal and Monetary Policy (Japan), Program of Fiscal Studies, Lyceum of the Philippines, Centre for International Studies (Toronto), and Adjunct Fellow of International Tax and Investment Center (US). François Vaillancourt François Vaillancourt, Senior Fellow for the program, holds a Ph.D. from Queen's University(1978) and is Professor, Department of Economics and Research Fellow, Centre de recherche et développement en économique (C.R.D.E.) at the Université de Montréal, and a Fellow, at the C.D.Howe Institute. He teaches, conducts research and has published extensively in the areas of public finance and the economics of language. He has conducted research and acted as a Consultant for organizations such as the Canadian Tax Foundation, the Conseil de la langue française, the Department of Finance, the Economic Council of Canada, Statistics Canada and the World Bank. ADDITIONAL MEMBERS OF THE EXPANDED PROGRAM, PUBLIC FINANCE, DECENTRALIZATION AND POVERTY REDUCTION PROGRAM Serap Bindebir Serap Bindebir conducts research and assists with web page development for the Public Finance, Decentralization and Public Resources team. She received a Bachelor's degree in political science from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 2001. She speaks French, German and Spanish in addition to Turkish and English. Prior to joining the World Bank, she worked at the Turkish Embassy in Paris, Capitol Hill and UNICEF in Turkey as an intern. 132 Eric Champagne Eric Champagne, Urban Specialist, coordinates the core course on Urban and City Management in Africa and Central America. He is also assistant coordinator of a research project to improve metropolitan management in Latin America. Earlier, he was a researcher at the National Institute for Scientific Research (INRS-Urbanisation) in Montréal, Canada. Eric has authored/co-authored several studies, reports, papers and a book on metropolitan governance, urban systems and economic development in North America (United States, Canada and Mexico). He holds a Master's degree in urban planning from Université Laval (Québec City) and his Ph.D. in urban studies at INRS-Urbanisation. In 1997, he was a visiting scholar at the Center for Economic Development of the University of Wisconsin and in 1998­99, he was an International Urban Fellow at Johns Hopkins University. Jasmine Chakeri Jasmin Chakeri is a research assistant working on the the administration and preparation of the distance learning course East Asia Decentralization Dialogues II and coordinates the logistics of the program for decentralization in East Asia under the ASEM trust fund. Jasmin received a Master's degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 2001, and holds a Bachelor's degree in Japanese Studies from the University of Cambridge. Migara de Silva Mr. Migara de Silva has worked as a senior economist in the World Bank Institute since January 1998 specializing in East Asian Economics. He has taught a number of modules as part of the Institute's Core Course Program including, "Institutions and Economic Development, Natural Resource Abundance and Growth" and "Management of Commodity Booms and Economic Growth". Prior to the World Bank Institute, Mr. de Silva was with the Operations Evaluation Department (Country Policy, Industry and Finance) of the World Bank working in both Asia and Africa. He has conducted research at the John M. Olin School of Business, Washington University, and held numerous positions in the private sector in his native Sri Lanka. He has also taught at Washington University and the University of Southern Illinois. Mr. de Silva holds a Ph.D. in Political Economics and an M.A. in Economics from Washington University. He also has a M.Sc. in Civil and Industrial Engineering from Astrakhan Technical Institute. Vasumathi L Rollakanty Ms. Vasumathi Rollakanty is the program's team assistant, providing administrative client support. She provides full secretarial/administrative support to the Regional Coordinator for Asia and to the program. Ms. Rollakanty joined WBIEP in September 1999. She has worked on a number of regional workshops including the Asia Development Forum. Prior to joining WBIEP, Ms. Rollakanty worked with the Information Solutions Group in Information Management Services and Knowledge Management Systems. Roxanne Scott Roxanne Scott is the program's public sector specialist/gender analyst. Her work as an international development and learning systems specialist involves institutional strengthening of government policy processes, gender and development, civic participation and healthcare reform. She has particular expertise in training and educational programming and has conducted knowledge needs assessments and developed staff training policies and programs on gender equality for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Her international work has focused on the former Soviet Union countries where she developed, delivered and evaluated capacity building programs for governments and civil society organizations in Ukraine on gender integrated frameworks in public policy analysis, and worked with multi-donor initiatives supporting capacity building and sharing of best practices in 133 administrative reform in Ukraine and Poland and healthcare reform in Russia. Ms. Scott has published and presented works on poverty reduction, technical assistance in the former Soviet Union, gender equality issues in international development and economic analysis of healthcare programs. She holds a Masters degree in Public Administration in International Development from Carleton University, Canada, and a Masters degree in Adult Education from Brunel University, Great Britain. 134 ANNEX 7: AGENDA AND LIST OF PARTICIPANTS OF THE IFRLFM CORE COURSE IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA (MARCH 16­27, 1998) AGENDA Date (1998) Activity Resource Person Sunday, March 15 Registration and Check-In n.a. Monday, March 16 Introduction and Overview Robert Ebel and Michael Engelschalk Worldwide Perspectives Roy Bahl Tuesday, March 17 Tax Assignment Charles McLure, Jr. Wednesday, March 18 Structure and Systems David King Thursday, March 19 Expenditure Assignment Jorge Martinez-Vazquez Friday, March 20 Macroeconomics and Growth Paul Bernd Spahn Monday, March 23 Intergovernmental Transfers Sally Wallace Tuesday, March 24 Credit Markets and Financial Risks of Local Samir El Daher Authorities Wednesday, March 25 Budgeting Dana Weist Thursday, March 26 Property Taxation Anders Muller Thursday, March 26 Integrity Systems and Incentives Victor Vergara Friday, March 27 Wrap-up and Evaluation Robert Ebel / Michael Engelschalk 135 List of Participants and Organizers IFRLFM Core Course in Vienna, Austria (March 16­27, 1998) Country of Residence/Work Name Position Organization Brazil Maria de Fatima Pessoa de Director General Ministerio de Fazenda Mello Cartaxo Brazil Amaury Patarick Gremaud Professor University of Sao Paulo China Fan Zhang Associate Professor China Center for Economic Research Czech Republic Saloua Sehilli CERGE & EI Denmark Anders Muller Ministry of Taxation Ethiopia Joseph Bhoyie M. Simelane Public Administration Officer Economic Commission for Africa Ethiopia Yousif Ahmed Suliman Senior Economic Affairs Officer Economic Commission for Africa France Michael Engelschalk Principal Administrator OECD, Fiscal Analysis Division France Francois Paul Yatta IUP-OEIL Germany Paul Bernd Spahn Professor University of Frankfurt am Main Hungary Tim Honey ICMA Hungary Adrian Ionescu Programme Director Open Society Institute, Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative Hungary Gabor Peteri Consultant Iran Morteza Asadi Head, Department of Economics College of Economic Affairs (CEA) Japan Toshihiro Fujiwara Japan Intercultural Academy of Municipalities Latvia Galina Kanejeva Director Ministry of Economy Lebanon Sami Atallah Lebanese Center for Policy Studies Morocco Mina Baliamoune Undergraduate Programs Al Akhawayn University Coordinator Russia Sally Wallace Professor GSU Russia Fiscal Reform Slovakia Ivan Miklos Executive Director MESA South Africa Iraj Abedian Associate Professor, Director School of Economic, Applied Fiscal Research Centre South Africa Ismail Momoniat Chief Director of Intergovernmental Department of Finance Relations Tunisia Nejib Trabelsi Dir. de l'Unité de Suivi du Projet de Ministère de l'Intérieur Développement Municipal Ukraine Olha M. Ivanytska Academy of Public Administration Ukraine Nadia Ryazanova Deputy Head Kiev National University of Economics United Kingdom David King Professor University of Stirling USA Roy Bahl Dean, School of Policy Studies Georgia State University USA Jerry Brown Distance Education Specialist USA Alberto Chueca Mora Coordinator, EDI Business Dev. & World Bank Partner 136 List of Participants and Organizers IFRLFM Core Course in Vienna, Austria (March 16­27, 1998) (Continued) Country of Residence/Work Name Position Organization USA Robert Ebel EDI Intergovernmental Fiscal World Bank Program USA Samir El Daher Financial Adviser World Bank USA Jorge Martinez-Vazquez Professor of Economics and Director Andrew Young School of Public of International Studies Policy, Georgia State University USA Charles E. McLure, Jr. Senior Fellow Hoover Institution-Stanford University USA Phil Rosenberg President Philip Rosenberg and Associates USA Victor Vergara Senior Public Sector Management World Bank Specialist USA Dana Weist Financial Economist World Bank Venezuela Armando Barrios Researcher Center for Public Policy Institute of Advanced Studies in Administration (IESA) Venezuela Rosa Amelia Gonzalez de Researcher Center for Public Policy Institute of Pacheco Advanced Studies in Administration (IESA) West Bank and Gaza Suleiman Aref Head Ministry of Finance West Bank and Gaza Jehad Rajab Hamdan Director General Ministry of Local Government West Bank and Gaza Majed Ma'ali Executive Director Palestinian Economists Association West Bank and Gaza Abla Nashashibi Director General Palestinian National Authority West Bank and Gaza Adel Sai'd Zagha Chairperson Birzeit University Yemen Republic Ibrahim Alnahiri Ministry of Finance Zimbabwe Tekaligne Godana University of Zimbabwe Zimbabwe Richard Madavo Head of Division Zimbabwe Institute of Public Administration and Management (ZIPAM) Zimbabwe Nobuhle Maphosa University of Zimbabwe 137 and State. 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Economic Models ANNEX 9: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF IFRLFM CORE COURSES 1998 Vienna, Austria. The first course, taught in English, took place at the OECD Multilateral Tax Centre in Vienna, Austria, from March 16-27, 1998. Its objectives were threefold: (i) provide an operational framework to raise the level of fiscal policy debate; (ii) build long-term capacity through the training of trainers; and (iii) develop a network for cross-country sharing of experiences with best (and failed) practices. The target audience of was comprised of 32 senior and mid-level participants who were involved with training activities as heads of research institutes, university professors, subnational and central government training officials. Participants came from 17 client countries and represented all major regions of the world, particularly from Central and Eastern Europe, Near East, Africa and Latin America. There were approximately 10 observers in addition to the registered participants. Budapest, Hungary. The first offering in FY98 was a one week course from September 13-19, 1998. It was offered at the request of the Council of Europe (CoE), which also shared costs of the course. Responsibilities were divided between WBI and CoE. WBI developed the agenda and teaching materials while CoE selected and paid for the participants fees in addition to managing the course's evaluation process. Of the 28 participants, most were elected officials and their staffs. Most participants came from the Former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe. The course was conducted in English. Brasilia, Brazil. The first of four annual offerings in Brazil (1998-2001) was held from November 3-13, 1998. It was attended by 46 participants from South American (36 from Brazil and one from Paraguay) and Africa (five from Angola and four from Cape Verde). Brazilian participants included the following: staff from the Ministry of Finance who were responsible for the design and implementation of intergovernmental fiscal relations between the federal and state governments in Brazil; representatives from 19 Brazilian states who were responsible for defining state and municipal fiscal relations; key personnel from the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES); and representatives from parliament. In order to provide outreach to Lusophone African countries, the course was attended by five senior officials from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of the Presidency from Angola as well as four senior officials from the Ministry of Finance of Cape Verde. The course was organized and sponsored by the Escola de Administracao Fazendaria (ESAF-School of Financial Management) of the Ministry of Finance; the University of Sao Paulo; OECD and WBI. The course was conducted in Portuguese (and in some cases, Spanish) and presentation materials used at the Vienna course were translated into Portuguese. These translated materials were incorporated into WBI's FD web site. Harare, Zimbabwe. The course in Harare was held from November 30 to December 6, 1998, at the Organizational Training Center. It was attended by 22 participants from seven East African countries (Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe). Given the pilot nature of the course, participants included representatives from the ministries of finance and local governments, local government associations, and national chambers of commerce. In addition, specialized finance and economic journalists participated. The logic behind having broad representation in this pilot African course was to understand the perspective of key stakeholders as an essential input into the design of future courses. The intent after this course was for future courses to bring together central and regional government officials and trainers, but structured in a manner not to exclude the perspectives of other stakeholders such as local government officials, parliamentarians and local World Bank staff. This course included presentations from external and regional experts. At least two presentations (from Frankfurt, Germany, and Washington, DC, USA) were made via videoconference. Partners included the Municipal Development Program, which provided logistical and substantive support, and the Institute for Social Studies, which supported the delivery of modules. The course was conducted in English. 147 1999 Chiang Mai, Thailand. This course was organized by WBI with local logistics assistance provided by the National Economic and Social Development Board of the Royal Thai Government. The dates of the course were February 24 ­ March 5, 1999, with 27 participants. The course was delivered in English. Caracas, Venezuela. The Institute for Advanced Management Studies (Instituto De Estudios Superiores En Administracion IESA) hosted the course that was held in Caracas that ran from June 7-16, 1999. This course included presentations from external specialists as well as regional experts. Presentations were made on site as well as through videoconference. At least two presentations were made via videoconference in order to reduce the travel costs while permitting the inclusion of experts who were unable to travel to Caracas. The course attracted 27 participants and was delivered in Spanish. Budapest, Hungary. This course, taught in English, was offered in partnership with the Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation (OSI) and the Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative of the Open Society Institute. It was held at the Central European University (CEU) Summer University (SUN) from July 26 ­ August 6, 1999, and 32 persons participated. The objectives were to (i) provide participants with the analytical framework for understanding intergovernmental fiscal economics and various modules of the central--subnational (e.g., local) relationship, and (ii) enhance participants' capacity for successful implementation of public sector resource management reform by analyzing mechanisms for the transfer of resources among governments and identifying ways to address the issue of regional disparities and local resource mobilization. The course was aimed at (i) public officials with an important say in the reform of intergovernmental relations or hold teaching positions in addition to the public office, (ii) faculty of CEE and FSU universities with a background in economics, finance, public policy, law, etc., who wanted to improve their current courses or introduce elements of intergovernmental relations into the curricula, and (iii) other professionals in a position to apply the concepts of the course. Beijing, China. This course, taught with simultaneous interpretation in English and Chinese, was held from November 15-19, 1999. It was organized with the World Bank Country Office in Beijing and the China Ministry of Finance. Ninety-one participants attended. The materials are posted in Chinese on the FD website (in a link to the World Bank's China Country Office). Brasilia, Brazil. This November 16-26, 1999, course was the second annual offering organized and sponsored by ESAF and the University of Sao Paulo. It attracted 45 participants and was again taught in Portuguese. Joining these two partners this year was the Brazilian government's Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA). Jinja, Uganda. The program's second offering in Africa was held in Jinja, Uganda, from December 6-10, 1999. Partners responsible for organization and delivery were the Municipal Development Program for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Local Government Finance Commission (Uganda), and the Institute for Social Studies. The course was taught in English and 27 participants attended it. 2000 Budapest, Hungary. Held from April 10-15, 2000, this course brought together 33 participants from the Balkans. It was offered jointly by WBI, USAID and CoE. An adult training specialist accompanied the process; the question of how to transfer knowledge gained during the course into participants' activities was addressed in workshops. Many discussions concerned municipal autonomy, service delivery and creditworthiness. Almaty, Kazakhstan. The Eurasia Foundation, in cooperation with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Kazakh State Academy, organized and delivered this course from April 17-21, 2000. The course and materials were presented in Russian. Twenty-nine participants attended the course. 148 Santiago, Chile. This course used materials developed for the 1998 Vienna pilot and the 1999 course in Venezuela. It was delivered from June 5-16, 2000, and was organized by and taught from the headquarters of the United Nations Regional Office for Latin America (CEPAL) in Santiago, Chile. Additional partners on this course were the Inter-American Development Bank and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH. The course was delivered in Spanish and attracted 42 participants. Beijing, China. This June 12-15, 2000, offering was organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance and the China National School of Administration. The course was delivered in Chinese and attracted 66 participants. Budapest, Hungary. This second offering held at the Central European University (CEU) from July 10- 28, 2000, was again organized with OSI/LGI. The objectives of the course were to (i) provide participants with the analytical framework for understanding intergovernmental fiscal economics and various modules of the central-subnational (e.g., local) relationship, (ii) enhance participants' capacity for successful implementation of public sector resource management reform by analysing mechanisms for the transfer of resources among governments and identifying ways to address the issue of regional disparities and local resource mobilisation, (iii) and increase participants' understanding in the issues of fast restructuring public economy in countries of transition, (iv) enhance the participants' capacity to understand and use the practical simulation methods on public finance issues (transfers, local taxes). The course was designed for the practitioners, researchers/academics and trainers in the area of public finance related to local government issues and intergovernmental fiscal relations. Twenty-nine participants attended the course that was taught in English. Atlanta, Georgia, USA. This course was held from July 24-August 18, 2000. It was hosted by the International Studies Program at the Andrew Young School of Georgia State University. It was taught in English and attended by 19 participants from Bulgaria, Eritrea, Republic of Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa and the USA. Brasilia, Brazil. Held from October 16 ­27, 2000, this was the third offering of the core course. Again organized by ESAF, University of Sao Paulo and IPEA, 44 Brazilian participants attended this Portuguese- language course. Kampala, Uganda. This was the third course organized by MDP. It was held from November 13-17, 2000, and 32 participants attended. Participants came from Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The course was taught in English. Monterrey, Mexico. This Distance Learning (DL) course was broadcast (in Spanish) from the Virtual University of the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico, and from WBI's Distance Learning Studios in Washington, DC, USA. The course was delivered in 10 four-hour presentations held on Saturdays from April 1 to June 24, 2000, to 870 participants. There were 50 registered learning centers in nine Latin American countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru). Each learning center had a local facilitator who assured the smooth delivery of modules. All learning centers were linked to the broadcast studios through a specialized Internet network as well as with faxes and telephones in order to permit interaction between presenters and participants. In addition, selected sites had two-way videoconferencing to enable direct dialog with presenters. To supplement the live interaction, a web site was set up to disseminate ­ on a weekly basis ­ all questions and answers from each module as well as the results of evaluations. The web site address is, http:\\ruv\itesm.mx\programas\seminario. This course was also broadcast over the Internet through video streaming. 149 2001 Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The Summer 2001 GSU program consisted of two two-week courses: Fiscal Decentralization in Developing and Transition Economies (held from July 23 - August 3, 2001, with 19 participants) and Budgeting, Fiscal Management and Revenue Forecasting (held from August 6-16, 2001, with nine participants). The summer 2001 training program included participants from countries many around the world, including several donor agencies, including officials from Albania, Bahrain, Macedonia, Pakistan, the Palestinian territories and the Republic of South Africa. Nine public sector specialists from Indonesia attended the training program through a special arrangement with Center for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS) and USAID/Jakarta. The group further included donor agency officials from the British Department for International Development (DFID) and the Atlanta-based Carter Center. Budapest, Hungary. Held from July 9-July 27, 2001, this was the third offering organized by OSI/LGI/CEU with WBI. Its objectives and participants were similar to the previous courses. It was again taught in English and attracted 28 participants. Dakar, Senegal. This first French-language offering was developed as a result of demand from the Municipal Development Programme for Western and Central Africa (MDPWCA) and partners who attended the Budapest Experts' Workshop. It benefitted from the financial support of the Belgian Administration for Development Cooperation, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs Minister for Development Cooperation, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The course was held from October 8-12, 2001 and attracted 29 participants. Brasilia, Brazil. The fourth offering of the course was held from November 12-23, 2001. It was again organized by ESAF, University of Sao Paulo and IPEA. Thirty participants attended this Portuguese- language course. Kampala, Uganda. This was the fourth course organized by MDP, held from December 10-14, 2001. The Uganda Management Institute joined MDP in organizing this event, taught in English with 24 participants. 150