Module 12 - Mozambique: Harmonized Donor Funding Around Principles and Coordination

The key lesson from this experience is that a host country and a significant number of donors following different aid modalities can develop and adopt basic guiding principles and common and converging procedures for program planning, procurement, disbursement, audit, and review. Although complicated to set up, a harmonized system is highly effective in building host-country capacities and ownership, in enhancing donor coordination, and improving the host ministry’s ownership and accountability.
Other lessons and issues include:

• The success of the sector budget support (SWAP) approach depends on strong sector and government leadership.
  
  
• Partnership, an understanding of institutional dynamics, and persistent collaboration with the institution’s leadership are essential ingredients for success in a sectorwide program, particularly when the host ministry begins from a relatively weak institutional stage of development.
  
  
• Structured and periodic participation of beneficiaries and stakeholders in priority setting and evaluation at all levels (national, provincial, district) is key to ensure the program’s objectivity, relevance, and sustainability.
  
  
• There is little doubt that, through its focus on decentralization, the Government of Mozambique (at various institutional and territorial levels) has significantly strengthened its capacity to carry out core public functions for the agricultural sector. MINAG has achieved significant progress at various levels towards becoming a modern public sector institution that is increasingly capable of promoting and managing diverse sets of agricultural interventions in the context of a market economy.
  
  
• The pooling of donor funds around a commonly agreed set of principles, indicators, and targets of development for host countries has potential for wide applicability throughout the developing world.