2 0 1 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T : C E O ’ S L E T T E R

The letter you are about to read was written in the first part of 2014 before the outbreak of the Ebola virus had begun to spread across Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The retrospective nature of an Annual Report always feels strange when life moves so quickly, especially at AGI. This year, looking back on our activities in 2013, it feels more strange than ever. Indeed, to reflect on the fact that just a matter of months ago we were planning optimistically for the continued progress we expected to make on the priorities that matter most – access to electricity, building roads, investment into jobs and growth – is a painful reminder of the reality and the cost of the Ebola crisis.

We remain steadfast in our belief that the future can be bright for our West African partners, but as – at the time of writing – the crisis continues to spread faster than the international response, the optimism of my letter and the progress which justified it are in jeopardy. Those battling to contain the outbreak continue to struggle. AGI is playing a small part in that fight. Our teams have begun to work on the response, truly living the AGI value of working shoulder-to-shoulder with our partner governments. In Sierra Leone we are embedded in the national emergency structures and helping coordinate ambulances to collect new cases, in Liberia we’re working closely with partners to manage the logistics of a growing international operation and in Guinea we’re helping plan for the future, allowing for the impact of Ebola on the economy. I’m very proud of the work of our teams.

We must also be clear in the face of the crisis that Ebola is not affecting the whole of Africa. It should not be the only story being told about the continent, and we must not allow it to stigmatise those within or outside it. Our work in Nigeria, Rwanda and Ethiopia continues, including our role in President Obama’s Power Africa initiative which will bring electricity to tens of thousands of schools, hospitals and businesses. We also hope to announce new projects in the coming months.

I decided to leave my take on our year in 2013 intact, as a reminder of where we were less than a year ago. It is a point in time that I hope Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea can return to as soon as possible – in the best case, with a rapid and urgent scale up in the response the outbreak could be coming under control by the end of 2014. In the meantime we will continue to work in each of the affected countries, alongside partner governments and in coordination with others, to ensure that the crisis is contained and that when the work begins to rebuild the affected communities they have more reason than ever before to look to the future with hope and optimism.

Nick Thompson, Chief Executive

Tony Blair Africa Governance InitiativeSeptember 2014

Addendum to the 2013 CEO Letter...

2 0 1 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T : C E O ’ S L E T T E R

“We work at the sweet spot between political authority and administrative capability; between the leadership and the system, because by improving effectiveness here we can support reforms that improve the lives of millions. That’s what we mean by our mission to make government work for the world’s poorest.”N I C K T H O M P S O N , C H I E F E X E C U T I V E

“Why do some of the best ideas on structural transformation — shifting economies from low- to high-productivity sectors — often fail or fall short of their goals?”

This was the question Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Finance Minister posed recently.1 Her answer: because they don’t take account of political economy. Doing just that has been a guiding principle of ours ever since we started AGI five years ago. All reform is political – to quote our Patron Tony Blair’s version of Ngozi’s challenge: “if you miss the politics, you miss the point”.2

That’s why I’ve included a case study on Nigeria in this report, describing our work with Minister Ngozi and her Economic Management

1 https://www.devex.com/news/for-structural-transformation-consider-political-economy-83743

2 Blair, T (2010) Not Just Aid, Centre for Global Development, http://www.cgdev.org/publication/not-just-aid-how-making-government-work-can-transform-africa-tony-blair

Implementation Team since 2012. Our ability to build trust and support change at the heart of government decision-making rests on ‘getting the politics’. As our independent evaluators concluded on our work to the Ministerial taskforce: “other capacity-building organisations would struggle to get invited into a body that is as strategic”. We work at the sweet spot between political authority and administrative capability; between the leadership and the system, because by improving effectiveness here we can support reforms that improve the lives of millions. That’s what we mean by our mission to make government work for the world’s poorest.

In 2013, we supported government effectiveness in seven countries: Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia, Guinea, South Sudan, Malawi, and, of course, Nigeria. Each has unique challenges and opportunities and in each case for us an immense and enduring

privilege to work with reforming leaders at the political level and in the public service alike.

2013 was our fifth anniversary, a personal highlight for me was returning to Sierra Leone, where my own AGI journey began back in 2008 when I set up our first programme there, working in the office of President Ernest bai Koroma. At that time, to be honest, AGI was more of an experiment than an organisation. To be back five years later and to see the change was inspirational. To visit the local power station that has been made operational, with the generous support of donors and others, but also because of decisions taken at the “Presidential stocktake” process we established to channel Koroma’s authority in a timely and effective manner. To visit the hospital in Freetown where more mothers now give birth in safety since the removal of

“The work comes at a critical stage in Sierra Leone’s development. I believe

together we have an opportunity to ensure that Sierra Leone puts in place the policies, people and institutions to

achieve real and lasting change.”E R N E S T B A I K O R O M A , P R E S I D E N T O F S I E R R A L E O N E

user fees, a landmark achievement of his first term that we had also supported. And to see the shift not just in system but in culture as the Government worked with civil society for the first time in the development of Ministerial performance contracts – an example of how delivering policy outcomes can create the momentum for the design and reform of local institutions. For in our model of support these two goals of delivering government priorities and strengthening government capacity always go hand in hand – that too is what it means to ‘get the politics’ of reform.

Other highlights of our year for me included supporting the Strategic Capacity Building Initiative in Rwanda, another programme which brings together high level leadership and reforms to the public service, which saw 100 MW of power generation developed and

more people than ever connected to the grid. In Liberia we supported the development of 100kms of new roads as a result of better oversight of delivery from the centre and we saw thousands of jobs created through a more strategic and targeted approach to investment promotion in the freight and horticulture sectors. And in Guinea we launched a diaspora-based programme to support sustainable change and to consolidate improvements in their fledgling democracy, in particular using the window of reform once the legislative elections finally took place in September 2013 to support improvements in electricity supply and infrastructure. In all cases it was about working with the grain and adapting to the local context to understand what reforms were possible and what systems could be built around them.

Of course, the reason getting the politics is difficult is that politics are often complex and messy. Politics and political leadership can be a force for good, and are a prerequisite for true, country-led development. That is what we mean when we say in AGI that Africa’s future lies in the hands of Africa’s leaders. But we only have to turn on our TV screens to see that politics can also be destructive; the year ended on a tragic note for us and all who consider themselves friends of South Sudan when fighting broke out in Juba and engulfed the country last December. We have since put our programme there on hold, and as with many others we hope for an end to the violence, progress towards a stable transitional government and humanitarian support to the unfolding famine for the good of all the people of South Sudan.

The events in South Sudan reminded me of Mo Ibrahim’s challenge:

“Neither Afro-pessimism nor Afro-optimism do justice to modern Africa.

This is now the age of Afro-realism — an

honest outlook on our continent. It’s

about a celebration of its achievements

but also a pragmatic acknowledgement of

the challenges that lie ahead.”

M O I B R A H I M , C H A I R O F T H E

M O I B R A H I M F O U N D AT I O N 3

Even beyond the tragic circumstances of South Sudan and other countries still blighted by conflict, his words are a salient reminder for all of us engaged in supporting Africa’s development.

I read into them a sense of urgency. We started AGI as unashamed proponents of the ‘Africa rising’ story. We still are. And it is without doubt a different crowd that one meets today, not just at conferences for investors and philanthropists in London and New York, but in the coffee shops and restaurants of capital cities from Kigali to Freetown. But the ‘pragmatic acknowledgement of the challenges’ calls for us to see that these are moments in time, windows of opportunity that need to be seized for Africa’s potential to be realised. And nowhere is that more apparent right now than in the power sector. It is the priority at the top of every leader’s list, where urgent action is required whether your goal

3 Mo Ibrahim, 2013 launch of Ibrahim Index on African Gover-nance, http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org/downloads/press-releases/2013/2013-iiag-global.pdf

is job creation, reducing poverty, providing health and education, or protecting the environment, for none of these will happen without access to power.

That is why I was so pleased to be invited to travel to Dar-es-Salaam to hear President Obama announce the launch of PowerAfrica, the US Government’s flagship policy to stimulate investment into 10,000 MW of new electricity generation and to see 20 million people and businesses connected to the grid. I’m excited that AGI will play our part in making this happen, having signed a co-operative agreement with USAID earlier this year. We will bring together a new Senior Advisors’ Group that evolves AGI’s model of support to political leadership and to provide informal advice and support to Africa’s leaders as they work through difficult power sector reforms. It’s a big step forward for us and I look forward to sharing our progress next year.

“The first step that we’re going to take is to try to bring electricity to 20 million homes

and businesses.”P R E S I D E N T B A R A C K O B A M A 4

So what of our plans for 2014? The year is based on three goals:

Ensuring impact – we will stay focused on helping governments change lives. By supporting economic development and job creation in Sierra Leone; the establishment of a modern regulatory framework for the nascent oil sector in Liberia; the roll out of agricultural innovations in Rwanda designed to increase crop yields, alongside the evaluation of the Strategic Capacity Building Initiative; as well as vital power sector reforms such as the development of the Kaleta dam in Guinea. Achieving growth – we will respond to increasing demand from African governments and leaders for our work. We are exploring new partnerships with the Governments of Ethiopia and Senegal and others too, on which we hope to say more by the end of the year.

4 Barack Obama speech at the Ubungo Symbion power plant, Dar Es Salaam, 2013 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/02/remarks-president-obama-ubungo-symbion-power-plant

Credit: Travis Lupick

“The biggest single problem in societies aspiring to be democratic has been their

failure to provide the substance of what people want from government: personal security,

shared economic growth and the basic public services […] proponents of democracy focus,

for understandable reasons, on limiting the powers of tyrannical or predatory states. But they don’t spend as much time thinking about

how to govern effectively. They are, in Woodrow Wilson’s phrase, more interested in “controlling

than in energizing government.”P R O F E S S O R F R A N C I S F U K U Y M A 5

Strengthening the foundations – finally, we will continue to strengthen our own organization in order to make all this possible and to share our lessons with others. We have already published the second in our new series of case studies, this time exploring the Strategic Capacity Building Initiative in Rwanda.6 Professor Matt Andrews at Harvard described this as “oddly revolutionary”, and we see ourselves as practitioners of the new school of thought that he and others are leading around “problem driven iterative adaption”. We’ll also launch an ambitious fundraising drive for our Rapid Action Fund so that we can quickly and fully meet the needs of our partner governments and ultimately improve people’s lives.

As our first five years in AGI comes to a formal end with this Annual Report, reading the words of Professor Francis Fukuyama in

the Wall Street Journal this April reminded me of why we started: because “energized government” providing the substance of what people want is the only way for Africa’s future to be realized. As we stand on the verge of our next five years – contemplating new countries, new partnerships, new thinking – this remains our passion.

Our mission in AGI is to make government work for the world’s poorest people – if you share it, do join us.

Best wishes,

Nick Thompson, Chief Executive

Tony Blair Africa Governance InitiativeJune 2014

6 Fukuyama, F (2014) Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/articles/at-the-end-of-history-still-stands-democracy-1402080661

5 AGI 2014, Two steps at a time: Rwanda’s Strategic Capac-ity Building Initiative http://blair.3cdn.net/070696761f1cf5e930 _gum6bc5l3.pdf

At the end of 2013 I joined the AGI team at their all-staff event. 2013 was our fifth anniversary and as I looked around the room it hit home to me how much AGI has grown since we began in 2008. We’ve grown not just in the number of countries we have the privilege of working with, or the number of people that work for us, but also in the diversity, experience and knowledge of our teams. We have a clear view on how we work best, what we should focus on and what not and we are open to debate and discussion about this. It is the quality of our people that will always determine the success of AGI and, seeing them all together, reminded me how fortunate we are to continue to attract and retain such impressive and committed staff.

Our teams have continued to deliver the results we care about most this year: making government work for the world’s poorest people. Whether that’s getting roads built in Liberia, helping boost energy generation in Rwanda or improving infrastructure in Nigeria. We also know that our work carries risks and we have to be willing to work

“It is the quality of our people that will always determine the success of AGI and, seeing them all together, reminded me how fortunate we are to continue to attract and retain such impressive and committed staff.”L I Z L L O Y D , C H A I R O F T H E B O A R D O F T R U S T E E S

in countries where success is not always guaranteed. It is a credit to Nick and the rest of the organization that they have been so determined to learn the lessons available from shorter-lived engagements in South Sudan and Malawi. Over the last five years we have built up real institutional knowledge in this field that equips the projects to be more effective. The development of the Insights series of work shows a commitment to sharing AGI’s experience in a way which can benefit the wider development sector.

The Trustees would also like to pay tribute to AGI’s funders who continue to make the organization’s work possible. The successes you will read about in this year’s annual report would never have happened without them. And my congratulations go to Nick and all of the staff at AGI for marking their fifth anniversary in the way that matters most – looking forward to a period of growth in a way which suggests the next five years can change even more lives than the last.

Liz Lloyd, Chair of the Board of Trustees

A N O T E F R O M O U R C H A I R

D O W N L O A D2 0 1 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T

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