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     Findings


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            Africa Region · Number 142                              · November 2007
  Findings Infobriefs reports on Good Practice in ongoing operational, economic and sector work carried out by the World
Bank and its member governments in the Africa Region. It is published monthly by the Knowledge and Learning Center
on behalf of the Region. The views expressed in Findings are those of the author/s and should not be attributed to the
World Bank Group.



Mozambique
Municipal Development Project
   The project was designed as a long-term capacity building and institutional development project utilizing
   a pilot funding program, Municipal Grant Fund (MGF), as the first stage of support for municipal infra-
   structure and services. The original four components included (a)Legal and Institutional Reform;
   (b)Municipal Capacity Building; (c)Municipal Grants; and (d)Project Management and Technical Assis-
   tance.
     The four components were maintained throughout implementation; however, based on the recommen-
   dations from the MTR there were some changes to their implementation, and the original emphasis of
   the project was reoriented back to capacity building and away from the financing of infrastructure.
   Since component (c) was a pilot, it was adjusted several times in order to identify the criteria to make the
   pilot successful.

The restructured project development objectives were to assist the Government of Mozambique
to (a) operationalize the legal, institutional and fiscal framework for municipal governance; (b)
develop a sustainable training and technical assistance system and increase the capacity of
municipality officials and personnel; and (c) establish an operating mechanism for providing
grants to municipalities through a pilot program in eight cities to finance capital investments for
municipal capacity building and infrastructure.


Impact on the ground

The achievements by components are summarized below:
   • Improved competences of both municipal elected officials and staff;
   • Improvements in terms of financial management capacity of the staff in all MGF partici-
      pating municipalities;
   • Development of a set of norms and procedures which contributed to the improved func-
      tioning of the municipal system;
   • The adoption of new functional organizational structures for the municipalities;
   • Creation of a capacity building system with the three IFAPAs; and
   • Creation of a local procurement system consisting of simplified procurement manuals
      harmonized with the national procurement system.

   The “Good Practice Infobrief” series is edited by Lawrence Mastri, AFTRL, World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington D.C., 20433. Tel.
   (202) 473-3308; e-mail: lmastri@worldbank.org
Lessons learned

Some of the lessons learned include:

   •   The design of a project and in particular of a pilot program should be simple and within
       the capacity of the staff and agencies responsible for its implementation.

   •   The design of the Municipal Grant Fund (MGF) was often adjusted to reflect lessons
       learned that resulted in successfully testing a transfer system that enabled local staff to
       design and implement small projects within a 12 month cycle;

   •   The initial mechanism to transfer funds was complex because of an unreliable treasury
       system at the time of the project’s design.

   •   The MGF had a complex implementation framework involving too many decision makers,
       which minimized the importance of local ownership.

   •   Political leadership and commitment from the mayors/presidents is a pre-condition for a
       successful project design and management.

   •   Team leaders from government and Bank project teams must develop strong working
       relationships built on effective communication so that both organizations are working
       toward the same objective.



This Best Practice InfoBrief was extracted from Implementation Completion Report No. 72, in
which more detailed information can be discovered.




 Persons accessing the Bank’s internal and external websites can find more information on Public Sector
 Development; Private Sector Development; and Urban Development by clicking on Topics.