topics

Working Group 5.1
SWAPs in Agriculture and Rural Development

English and French with interpretation

Resource persons

• Fernando Songane (Ministry of Agriculture, Mozambique)
• Tiina Huvio (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland)
• Klaus Talvela (Global Donor Platform for Rural Development)
• Alison Evans (ODI)

Questions to guide working group discussions

• Is a SWAp/PBA concept in ARD beyond reach?
• Is there too much complexity vis-à-vis available capacity and incentives to transform the SWAp into sensible action, for all stakeholders (governments, donors, civil society etc)?
• How can capacity and incentives to manage resource coordination processes better be increased – on both sides?
• Are there good reasons for a more active donor role in ‘Capacity Development’ (CD), especially at decentralized level? How to guarantee ‘demand-driven CD’, opposite to ‘supply-driven CD’ by donors?
• Should the expectation of reduced transaction costs through more harmonized and aligned processes be given up? Should increased transaction costs (at least in the preparation phase of SWAps) be accepted and
• Do donors have what it takes to support the policy process within a SWAp in ARD (knowledge, patience, flexibility, willingness to yield….)?
• Do SWAps in ARD risk overextending the state?
• Are public financial management issues (PFM) given the weight they should have in SWAps? Are they overplayed, underplayed?
• Are more advanced notions (e.g. MTEFs) dominating over a ‘basic first’-approach?
• What do we know about how agricultural service users can be enabled to hold agricultural service providers more to account?...and do we know enough to mainstream this more constructively in SWAp processes?

These questions illustrate the range of issues that could be addressed by the working groups. While they should not be considered to be the only issues that may be discussed, and participants are at liberty to raise others that fall within the scope of the working groups, presenters are asked to consider giving priority to some of these questions.

Please note that all working groups are asked to consider: What are the implications for development strategies, and what do donors need to do differently?

partners: European Commission. Directorate General Development and Relations with African, Caribbean and Pacific States | Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations | Global Donor Platform for Rural Development | Department for International Development (DFID), UK | Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany | Irish Aid, Department of Foreign Affairs, Ireland | Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France | Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Development Cooperation, The Netherlands | Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Switzerland | Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) | Deutsche Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, Germany | InWEnt Capacity - Building International, Germany

www.ruralforum.info/en/topics/effectiveness/swap
09.01.2009, 21:01