Tackling Rural Poverty - an international perspective

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HIGH LEVEL COMMITMENT, LEADERSHIP AND COUNTRY
OWNERSHIP
Prof. Ben Kiregyera NSDS Workshop, Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia 11 August 2005

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• COVERAGE
• High level commitment
• Leadership
• Leadership versus Management
• Leadership of the NSDS process
• Country ownership

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• HIGH LEVEL COMMITMENT
• Political leaders senior government officials
  (key policy decision-makers) should get engaged
  as early as possible to
• Advocate for statistics create greater
  political will to develop and use statistics
• Ensure NSDS process is appropriate
• Make or endorse major decisions e.g. reforming
• and restructuring the NSS, revising a
  legal
• framework, creating coordination
  arrangements,
• investing in statistics
• Level of engagement of high level officials will
  depend on decision-making processes in each
  country

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GOVERNMENT COMMITMENT
Concept
Funding
Attention
Data Use
Commitment

• Increased Government funding
• Increased attention (e.g. raising the profile of
• statistics)
• Extensive use of data for policy and decision-
• making

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• Champion(s) of the process
• Experience shows better results when process
  is championed
• by a senior government official (e.g. Uganda,
  Kenya, Zimbabwe)
• Champion of process from donor side (e.g.
  Uganda)

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• II. LEADERSHIP
• leadership issue is one of the most
  significant items on
• the agenda of private and public
  organizations
• success or failure of an organization largely
  depends on
• quality of its leader
• need good leaders to meet organizational
  challenges
• such as
• globalization
• fast-paced technological change
• rising expectations of citizens and customers
• increasing diversity in societies
• need for performance focused organizations
• need for managing networked organizations

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• an effective leader
• is made not born is made through unending
• process of self-study, education, training,
  
• experience and emulating good leaders
• shows enthusiasm
• supports, develops motivates other people,
• procures, safeguards continually enhances
  
• competencies
• provides a vision and direction
• practices what he/she preaches (walks the
  talk)
• encourages team work
• encourages feedback
• strategic thinker
• is agent of change
• does not always tell you the time builds a
  great
• clock to continue telling the time after
  he/she is
• gone

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• III. LEADERSHIP Versus MANAGEMENT
• a manager is not necessarily a leader. But one
  must
• have good leadership qualities in order to
  be a good
• manager
• Leader creates an agenda, establishes
  direction
• develops a vision strategies to achieve
  the vision
• Manager plans and budgets establishes
  detailed steps
• timetables for achieving needed results
  allocates
• necessary resources
• Leader develops a network for achieving the
  agenda.
• Communicates direction (words deeds)
• Manager organizes and staffs establishes
  structures
• staffs delegates responsibility and
  authority
• develops policies and procedures to guide
  people

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• A leader has a long range perspective
• A manager has a short range view
• A leader motivates and inspires focuses on
  energizes
• people
• A manager relies on control solves
  problems monitors
• results against plans
• A leader produces change often to a dramatic
  degree
• A manager accepts status quo
• A leader does the right things
  (effectiveness)
• A manager does things right (efficiency)

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• IV. LEADERSHIP OF THE NSDA PROCESS
• Need high Level leadership
• Prime mover NSO to be prime mover to provide
• team leader, accommodation and
  administrative
• support
• Director of NSO should be overall coordinator of
  the
• process
• Small design team
• 3-5 people drawn from different institutions in
  the NSS
• Mix of statisticians, analysts other users of
• statistics e.g. actors in related
  processes e.g.
• PRSP, GDDS, etc
• Team Leader with a senior position in NSO
  (Zimbabwe and Namibia, Deputy Directors)

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• NSDS missionaries
• Need to create strategy awareness among all
  staff
• mobilize staff to support it,
• educate staff about management systems
• provide for feedback about the strategies.
• Need for strategy missionaries those who will
  be
• teaching others about the strategies.

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• V. COUNTRY OWNERSHIP
• Stems from
• Political commitment and leadership
• Integration of NSDS into National Development
• Policy Processes
• Developed as part of consensus-building/advocacy
• process
• - helps build commitment
  partnerships
• - led nationally and inclusively
  
• Road map developed nationally
• Regional/international facilitation role
• Advocacy
• Convening workshops
• Advice e.g. on resource mobilization
• Guidance, documentation, knowledge base
• Reporting, collaboration between partners
• Information sharing

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Thank You