english | castellano

Coherence

Coherence in development is on the agenda, and more information is available. However, leverage of development concerns in general government policy needs better institutional anchorage.

“Coherence” has become a pivotal issue for people concerned about the Global South. Coherence refers to the impact of other policies, both domestic and foreign, on the primary goal of development policy, which is poverty reduction. In other words, it looks at the collateral damage that policy areas such as trade, agriculture, defence, immigration, environment and others inflict on populations in poor countries. It draws on the common wisdom that development cooperation is only a very small, if not negligible, part of the international system in which rich countries impact on the opportunities of poorer countries and their citizens.

In many countries, consultation mechanisms have been installed that ask any policy-making body to check its effects on the world’s poor, in a similar way to environmental impact assessments or gender impact assessments. Examples include the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and the European Commission.1 There are numerous working groups at a European level promoting coherence.2The challenges are both technical and political. Technical, because the undesired results have to be detected. And political, because the concerns of the global poor have to be brought to the forefront. For these two challenges to be met, any government department interested in promoting poverty reduction has to find institutional solutions. The technical side includes analytical capacities and the ability to speak the language of other departments. The political side includes raising support, as well as ensuring adequate intra-governmental “diplomacy” in order to build confidence and develop spaces for arbitration and the search of solutions.

Spain has a very strong legal framework for the promotion of policy coherence. The Cooperation law of 1998 calls for coherence, and assigned the SECI responsibility for its promotion. The reform of the powers and functions of the Development Council [Consejo de Cooperación al Desarrollo] in November 2004 delegates this task to the Council, with the requirement that it submit an annual report about coherence to the Development Commission of Parliament. A report was drafted in 2006, mobilising a significant amount of work – and some tough negotiation – for various members of the Council. According to one member of the Council, this report has been kept “nearly clandestine”. A second report has not yet been commissioned. As the SECI sets the agenda, it seems to have been surprised by the dynamics that unfolded in the Council’s working groups.

The formal powers assigned to the SECI contrast with the light weight of the SECI as compared to other ministries. The style of Spanish politics seems to impede the publication of proceedings in the Development Council or the Interministerial Commission for Development. A diversion from this style towards more open government could only help the cause of eradicating poverty. Political leadership by SECI would certainly be needed. Additionally, analytical capacities – most probably situated within DGPOLDE – would help to underpin its statements in these fora.

There are already a number of issue-based analyses covering concrete aspects of policy coherence. Some studies cover issues of trade, weapons exports, and the Plan Africa.3 The following recommendations for more effective promotion of coherence in government refer to the institutionalisation of coherence, rather than tackling certain specific areas.

  • Commitment: The Spanish government, including its highest representatives, has declared at various times that poverty reduction is the primary goal of foreign policy. These declarations of political will are not sufficient, although they are a necessary precondition for progress. The most prominent place in which the issue of coherence could be addressed is the Cabinet [Consejo de Ministros]. The question is how the ‘C’ [for Cooperación] of the MAEC can be strengthened as against other hard interests. The SECI has to devise a strategy to ensure this is possible.
  • Concrete targets: The Dutch experience calls for very concrete actions and targets. It stresses that the focus should not generally be on coherence as such, but on very specific policy areas. Drawing on this example, the terms of reference of the yearly report the SECI asks the Council to submit to the Commission should tackle precise issues.
  • Capacity and competence: The orientation of the SECI, and DGPOLDE in particular, has for a long time been “vertical” towards poor countries. “Horizontal” influence on other parts of government should be given a similar status within DGPOLDE. Therefore, another type of skill is needed: the capacity to conduct poverty impact assessments, offer intra-departmental consultancies and speak the language of the counterpart. This should be integrated in both staff development and institutional structure. Some European countries offer successful examples of how this can be done. Similarly, the AECI should not work merely “downwards” towards beneficiaries in the South, but help to channel their points of views to other government departments, thus working “upwards”. In that way, it could help to organise coalitions of change in the South for fairer trade, immigration or environmental policies, among others, and serve as an amplifier for their voices.
  • Coalition building: The weight of the SECI would increase if it was able to divert public attention from picturesque pictures of poverty towards analyses of the global root causes of social exclusion. In Spain, one mechanism would be to play the ball of policy discussion between the SECI, the Council and the Parliamentary Commission, with resonance in the civil society. Strengthening the Council by giving it a secretariat, and ensuring it has more voice by launching the coherence report as a annual landmark document, possibly accompanied by a public consultation, would increase the weight of SECI – always assuming there is the will to move beyond aid as a cooperation policy to a policy of development.

Achieving coherence is not an issue of reinventing policies, but inscribing sensitivity towards the side-effects on the South into general policy-making. Various proposals on how to institutionalize this have been made. Amongst the most notable are the report by the Development Council and the research by the Elcano Institute. Now, the recommendations only need to be implemented. As the first attempts are being made to render collateral effects more visible through the Council and the Commission, a routine of annually checking if Spain accomplishes its objectives could be set. Increased attention by civil society towards these reports and proceedings would serve this end.4