The Canada / South Africa Provincial Twinning Project's contribution to strengthening South African provincial governments

[摘要] English: Twinning is a widely used instrument in the public, private and voluntary sectors. In recent years it has cometo be used as a mechanism for building capacity in governance. Between 2000 and 2004 the Canadiangovernment, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), funded the Canada SouthAfrica Provincial Twinning Project, a twinning project on governance. The Institute of Public Administrationof Canada (IPAC) served as the executing agency for this project. The offices of the project were located inthe University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa and the Public Service Commission, Regina,Saskatchewan, Canada.The purpose of this project was to strengthen the South African provincial governments by matching themwith Canadian provincial governments. The primary question examined in this study, therefore, was whetherthe instrument of twinning could strengthen democratic governance in new provincial South Africangovernments when small injections of assistance from Canadian provincial governments were provided on avoluntary basis. The study covered the duration of the Twinning Project.Canadian provincial governments provided opportunities for South African provincial governments toexamine structures, processes, programs, and service delivery models and shared with them the underpinningprinciples and the lessons learned during introduction and implementation. South African public servantsevaluated their counterparts' information and selected those elements that were relevant to their provinces'needs. They introduced the desired changes to their own governments and provided the leadership needed fortheir adoption, refinement, implementation and continued use.Each South African province and every partnership achieved results, with many specific results documented.Some of the results responded to cross cutting issues including gender equality, sustainable development,poverty reduction, and HIV/AIDS. Polices, programs, methods, and resources developed by one provincewere shared with, and can continue to be shared with and used by, other provinces and other Africancountries. The results had a high level of sustainability because they were supported by senior officials andelected office holders, based on principles, adapted to local conditions, incorporated into the business ofgovernment, and funded in provincial budgets.By the end of the Twinning Project, the results documented indicated that much capacity had been developedin the South African provincial governments. Capacity had been developed by strengthening competencies ofindividuals, groups and provincial governments in the areas of decision making, machinery of government,human resources, and program development and delivery. Capacity was developed through the acquisitionand sharing of knowledge as well as the application of knowledge. Learning of new ideas and informationrelevant to one's province occurred in every activity and every province. Sharing of information and expertiseoccurred widely in the workplace and through the development of learning networks.Performance measurement, specifically results based management, was the tool the Twinning Project used toidentify, measure and report results. While all participants supported the measuring of performance anddocumenting of results, the system used by the funding agency, in its current iteration, was found to be rigid,onerous, costly and unwieldy. Ambiguities in roles, requirements and responsibilities were other challenges.Many examples of the Twinning Project meeting or exceeding the benchmarks of best practices wereidentified. Such examples included effective use of the twinning instrument, knowledge transfer, capacitydevelopment, collaborative partnerships, and voluntarism. The Twinning Project demonstrated high levels ofsustainabilty when benchmarked against the critieria of local ownership, relevance, results, inclusiveness,partnerships, linkages and stability. Linkages, both those established within and those established outside ofthe Twinning Project, supported the sharing of common values and contributed to the development of longlasting friendships and relationships between the South African and Canadian provinces.The overall experience of the two countries, with the twinning instrument, was positive. The twinningshelped build the capacity of central agencies and line departments. They helped public servants to acquireand apply the knowledge and skills needed to develop and implement policies and programs, and to meet theexpectations of the public and commitments of the elected representatives. This strengthening contributed to astronger foundation for democratic provincial governance as well as co-operative governance.

[发布机构] University of the Free State