EuropeAid Fills a Gap: Approval of the Sector Governance Approach

Donors struggle to translate policies on governance to practical actions in the field. One promising avenue for improvement leads donors to pay more careful attention to governance in sectors. To help in this journey, EuropeAid has developed and published a guidance tool for its staff that has already picked up internal and external attention.

The European Commission, like the European Union Member States and other donors, invests a substantial amount of energy and resources in traditional sectors like health, education, transport, as well as in newer sectors like forestry, migration and security. But progress in such sectors is often hampered by governance constraints, such as political obstacles or institutional issues within and beyond the sector. Therefore, some development partners, including the EC, have invested in developing a better understanding of governance dynamics in sectors.

In its Tools and Methods Series, EuropeAid has now brought out Reference Document No 4, ‘Analysing and Addressing Governance in Sector Operations', to assist EC field staff in analysing multiple governance dimensions at sector level. While developing the methodology for this tool, EC sector specialists and governance experts received valuable contributions from some member states and other donors. Some sector colleagues commented that already 70 percent of their work concerns governance within the sectors in which they are active. What lacked was some guidance to make these governance aspects more visible or tangible. So the tool largely draws from the existing field experience of these experts.

The document also provides step-by-step answers to questions asked by non-sector specialists on why and how to analyse sector governance as well as how to incrementally and jointly support governance progress in sectors. As such, it intends to help with identifying appropriate strategies, entry points, aid instruments, stakeholders and actors.

The methodology has received attention and positive feedback both from delegations and from EuropeAid sector units. It has also drawn attention beyond its main EC audience (including DFID, Sida, and the Belgian Technical Cooperation). It is hoped that in this way, the Reference Document will also contribute to enhance harmonisation and division of labour in support of domestic governance in sector settings.