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Office of Democracy & Governance: Strategic Assessment
Much of the DG Office’s work relates to how Agency programs target democracy dollars to maximize impact. Given limited resources, USAID must make strategic decisions on how and where to invest scarce assistance funds. Each country’s unique history and political evolution define opportunities and obstacles in the transition to democracy.
Assessment Framework
The DG Office’s role is to help USAID field missions define a country-appropriate program to assist in the transition to and consolidation of democracy. To do this, the DG Office has developed a flexible strategic assessment framework designed to assess the state of democracy and to make program choices. It offers an approach for analyzing country-specific political conditions and crafting targeted program strategies with counterparts.
The framework’s four distinct stages of inquiry often must be considered concurrently.
Political System
The first stage of inquiry involves looking at the kind of political system that characterizes the country from a democratic point of view. Considering the linkage between political and economic reform is also relevant to place the assessment in the context of long-term development. Five elements (which are not fully distinct and never mutually exclusive) are taken into consideration: consensus, rule of law, competition, inclusion, and good governance.
- Consensus
Is there basic agreement on the most fundamental rules of political life? Is the political contest played by those rules? Is there agreement on who is a citizen, what the borders of the country are, and what the rules for achieving power are?
- Rule of Law
Are there basic legal structures for public and private activities and interactions? Are basic human rights observed? Is the rule of law applied equitably? Is personal security guaranteed by the state? Does the judiciary have integrity and is it independent? Do like cases have similar outcomes?
- Competition
Is there competition in the system? Is there competition through elections, in the media, and in the marketplace of ideas? Can people legally organize to pursue their interests and ideas? Is there competition within government, including checks and balances between branches of government?
- Inclusion
Are there problems of inclusion and exclusion? Are any elements of the population excluded (formally or informally) from meaningful political, social, or economic participation because of religion, ethnicity, gender, geography, or income status?
- Good Governance
Is there adequate governance by the state and by public and private sector institutions? Are these institutions accountable, transparent, and efficient? Do political institutions work well? Do they deliver what they promise? In this case, "good governance" refers to more than government itself. It also refers to the way social institutions work.
Key Actors
The second stage of inquiry involves identifying key actors, including the proponents and opponents of democratic reform. The goal is to identify which actors are allies of reform, and which political, economic, and social interests oppose democratization. Combining that analysis with conclusions from first level questions (the primary problems confronting democracy), the framework leads to the identification of priority institutional arenas for possible USAID support.
Institutions
The third level of inquiry considers the key institutional arenas identified by looking at the same proponents and opponents of reform. Politics is played not in the abstract but in institutional arenas that structure it and (through formal and informal rules) provide incentives for some behavior and sanctions for other behavior. Four institutional arenas are particularly critical for democracy: the legal arena, the competitive arena (both elections and the balance of power among branches of government), governance (including the legislative arena), and civil society.
Finally, the assessment must be examined through the lens of management reality: resource constraints, including budget and staff issues, as well as the work other donors might be doing already.
Implementation
The Strategic Assessment Framework for Democracy and Governance Programming is a tool to help perform political analysis to inform development programming. The analysis should identify realities and institutional relationships that are reflected in daily events. Every country strategy prepared must then be approved in an internal USAID (and Department of State) review: from the mission, through the regional bureau in Washington, with input from the DG Office on the democracy strategy and programming. Typically, the strategy is actually implemented by organizations outside the Agency, U.S. and host-country grantees and contractors and the host-country government itself, with USAID oversight and advice.
 View the DG Strategic Assessment Framework publication
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