When Salam Fayyad became the Palestinian Authority’s finance minister in June 2002, one of his biggest challenges was to improve financial management in the security sector. To pay police, emergency workers, and other security personnel, commanders handed out cash to subordinates—a practice that was demeaning and that created opportunities for corruption. Procurement of equipment and supplies was neither open nor competitive and took place outside scrutiny by the finance ministry, which had little or no way of knowing where the government’s money ended up. To address the problems, Fayyad, a political outsider, had to take on a deep-rooted culture of secrecy, the reluctance of a powerful president, and resistance from some of the security officials. He began to tighten controls by working with a reform-minded legislature to incorporate procedural changes into the 2003 budget law. He then identified security service chiefs who were open to payroll reform, and he helped them become early adopters. After more than a year of private persuasion, backed by growing public discontent with corruption, Fayyad was able to implement reforms that reduced opportunities to divert funds and that increased security workers’ take-home pay. He also put security forces’ procurement activities under finance ministry oversight, thereby further limiting the risk of corruption.
Tristan Dreisbach drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in the cities of Ramallah, Nablus, and Jericho in June and July 2019 and on a series of conversations with Salam Fayyad in Princeton, New Jersey, the same year. The case is part of a series on state building in Palestine, 2002–05 and 2007–11. Case published March 2022.
In 2000, Croatia’s newly elected reformist government weighed how best to increase civilian oversight of a powerful and entrenched defense establishment. Since the end of a long and bloody war for independence five years earlier, political and military leaders had made little progress in adapting to the realities of peacetime. Franjo Tuđman, the country’s first president, had exercised strong personal control over the military, awarding favored officers high ranks and political offices. Both the Ministry of National Defense and the armed forces were far larger than their new roles required, and their lack of accountability to elected civilian leaders was out of step with modern standards. The ministry operated largely in secret and did little strategic planning. But President Stjepan Mesić, Prime Minister Ivica Račan, and Minister of National Defense Jozo Radoš saw an opportunity for change after Tuđman’s death in 1999. The three knew that significant reforms were necessary to make the defense sector more effective, to diminish its political role, and to secure Croatia’s path toward membership in NATO and the European Union. They also recognized the difficulties inherent in (1) establishing a new culture of transparency and democratic civilian control, (2) slashing the size of the military, and (3) drafting laws that would revamp defense institutions. Despite opposition from the military as well as from veterans and politicians who had benefited from the Tuđman-era political system, the reformers succeeded in creating a less politicized, smaller defense sector led by civilians; and by 2003, the country was on its way toward NATO membership.
Tristan Dreisbach drafted this case based on interviews conducted in Zagreb, Croatia, in December 2015. Case published April 2016.
Vargas characterizes the Centro de Coordinación de Acción Integral (CCAI, Comprehensive Action Coordination Center) as a coordinating agent established under the Colombian Presidency that connects local demands with national supply. Focusing on the Montes de María region, Vargas traces a process of i) identifying Montes de María as a strategic transit point near the Venezuelan border and the Caribbean sea that merits institutional attention, ii) assessing local priorities incorporating input from local authorities and producers (including the chamber of commerce, avocado and cacao growers), iii) relaying that assessment to the national level for strategic action, and iv) facilitating state interventions in the region. CCAI activities pertaining to two main issue areas: road infrastructure and land ownership. Vargas singles out the Transversal de los Montes de María, a major road across the region that is under construction by army engineers, but some work is done on secondary roads by private contractors. He notes that in the face of limited resources, the CCAI chose to maximize impact by focusing on highly productive and densely populated areas and by delivering durable (but more expensive) road infrastructure, which led to a tradeoff between number of projects and quality of output. To put CCAI land ownership work in context, Vargas points out that the issue is complicated by internal displacement and land transactions during the conflict, by the return of the displaced in the post-conflict era, by a culture of informality and by limited state capacity. To address this range of situations, the CCAI has adopted three approaches: First, to coordinate investigation of land purchases during the conflict, exploring the possibility of transactions under duress. Second, to normalize land ownership through various programs focused on restitution. Third, to promote socially-responsible industrialization by providing platforms for dialogue between small landowners and new private developers. Vargas also shortly elaborates on a pilot program aimed at victims from small towns, on funding sources, on channels of cooperation with regional authorities and on recent structural changes within the CCAI. He underscores that the Center does not pursue a policy of return for the internally displaced, but instead responds to the observable phenomenon that they are returning on their own. He also assimilates the problem of continuity across political administrations with the need to phase out CCAI activities as local capacity is strengthened. He closes by zeroing in on two keys for success: honesty about what can and cannot be done when dealing with the local community, and the fostering of trust, which may require an intervention as inexpensive but valuable as installing a water pump.
Juan Carlos Vargas Morales was involved with the Centro de Coordinación de Acción Integral (CCAI) from the start, serving as the delegate from the Ministry of the Interior and Law to the Center for nine years. He later worked on National Consolidation issues in the Montes de María Region on behalf of the Agencia Presidencial para la Acción Social y la Cooperación Internacional (Presidential Agency for Social Action and International Cooperation).
Batu Kutelia explains how Georgia modernized its post-Soviet law enforcement system after the Rose Revolution, which prior to 2004, he describes as highly politicized and corrupt. One of the central reforms Kutelia describes is personnel management, including changes to recruitment, training and oversight of police and defense personnel to reduce corruption. He also describes the necessity to depoliticize and demilitarize the law enforcement system. He explains how the two different national security institutions merged to reduce redundancy and how centralized decision-making processes shifted to improve transparency. While Kutelia recognizes that decentralization was a key element of Georigia’s security reform, he adds that political will and public support have been essential to sustain change in the country.
Since January 2011, Mr. Kutelia was the deputy secretary of the National Security Council of Georgia. From 2008 until 2011 he was the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the United States of America, Canada and Mexico. In his previous capacities he has been first deputy minister of defense (2007-2008), deputy minister of defense and foreign affairs (2006-2007) and deputy minister of state security (2004). From 2005-2006 he functioned as the head of Foreign Intelligence Special Service of Georgia. Before this he was head of the Foreign Intelligence Department of the Ministry of State Security of Georgia and director of the Political Security Department of the National Security Council in 2004. Before turning into his diplomatic and political career Mr. Kutelia studied physics and holds a PhD in physics. He also holds a master's degree in public affairs administration. Mr. Kutelia is fluent in English, French, Russian and Georgian.
In 2006, Liberia’s only functioning seaport was a quagmire, riddled by corruption, cargo theft, and a glut of untrained workers. These problems combined to slow the delivery of relief supplies that were badly needed after a 14-year civil war, which had ended three years earlier. A battle site, the Freeport of Monrovia suffered from war damage and years of neglect. It was in danger of shutting down completely. The responsibility to upgrade the infrastructure and improve management lay with the National Port Authority (NPA), a state-owned enterprise that operated the Freeport. From 2006 through 2011, Togba Ngangana, George Tubman and Matilda Parker, successive managing directors at the NPA, enacted a series of reforms to restore the authority and port operations. The Liberian government and outside donors agreed to hire internationally recruited financial controllers to work with NPA directors on fiscal matters. Together, the directors and controllers put in place new systems that helped the NPA collect revenue and prevent unnecessary expenses, installed an automated financial management system, reduced staff size, trained remaining workers, and improved the Freeport’s security infrastructure to meet standards of the International Maritime Organization. This case chronicles the steps reformers took to improve the management of a politically sensitive agency in a post-conflict setting.
Jonathan Friedman drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Monrovia, Liberia, during September 2011. Case published February 2012.
Kim Sedara comments on international donors who try to import reforms and models of governance into Cambodia without understanding the need to take context into account. He suggests that the task is not to build a system from scratch, but to fix and cure the problems of existing institutions. Referring to the challenges of institution building in his home country, he notes that Cambodia “is still very much in a post-conflict stage.” From the early 1970s to 2009, Cambodia went through at least six major political regimes, leading to numerous “institutional interruptions,” making it very difficult for the state to be responsive and accountable to its citizens, he says. The first challenge was to provide security; the second, food; the third, re-integration of formerly warring factions. He states that a major problem had been a shortage of professional talent, and an educational system poorly designed to correct it. He believes that the rule of law can be achieved only if it is internalized by the population, and that takes time. Sedara says corruption cannot be controlled until people are able to feed themselves and their families from their legitimate earnings. He suggests targeting four major reform areas: courts, the military, administration and public finance. Decentralization and de-concentration are part of administrative reform. Citing a World Bank report, Sedara says that 45 percent of post-conflict societies fall back into civil war within five years of emerging from conflict. Cambodia avoided this fate, and Sedara says he is hopeful for the future.
At the time of this interview, Kim Sedara was a senior researcher at the Cambodia Development Resource Institute, an independent think tank in Phnom Penh. In 1994, he received a degree in archeology in Cambodia and another from the University of Hawaii in 1996. He won a 1998 Fulbright scholarship in 1998 and degrees in economics and political anthropology from the University of Illinois and Stanford. He earned a Ph.D. from Gothenburg University in Sweden in 2005. Sedara has written widely on issues of post-conflict reconstruction, elections, decentralization and deconcentration, and governance in Cambodia.
Guillermo Guevara discusses Colombia’s development efforts in the Macarena region. The program aims to improve infrastructure by developing roads, power generation projects, sanitation services, and communications infrastructure for mobile phones, radio and television. The project depends on funding from the government, the military and international organizations. The program incorporates relevant input from local communities in developing its goals, and support from the private sector to ensure local job creation and local participation in development projects. Guevara also discusses obstacles to development, including a sometimes precarious security situation, budgetary constraints, and lack of cooperation from regional governments.
At the time of the interview, Guillermo Guevara was coordinator for infrastructure for the Plan de Consolidación Integral de la Macarena (Plan for the Integrated Consolidation of the Macarena), a position that he had held since May 2008. Prior to that, he spent about 10 years supervising construction and civil works, especially in remote areas of Colombia. He also worked at the American embassy in Colombia.
