Adventures in Policy Advising in the FSU: Why Understanding Governance Matters

At a recent Kennan Institute talk, Don Van Atta, Principal Development Specialist, Development Alternatives, Incorporated, and former Title VIII-Supported Short-Term Scholar, Kennan Institute, discussed the problems of governance in the former Soviet Union. Van Atta has spent the past 14 years as a policy advisor working to improve agricultural policy and support administrative reform in several countries of the former Soviet Union. He worked with the Russian Association of Private Farmers (AKKOR) as part of a NCSEER research grant in 1992-1994, and then directed USAID-funded agricultural policy projects in Ukraine (1997-2000) and Georgia (2000-2005).

Van Atta stated that his experience has led him to conclude that bureaucracies in these countries are highly ineffective. He said that the work of ministries is not transparent, and that bureaucrats are not held accountable for their actions. As an example, he told a story of a deputy minister of agriculture in Ukraine who reported to his boss, a deputy prime minister, that a contentious issue between the ministry and international donor organizations had been resolved, when it in fact had not. Because he was given incorrect information, the deputy prime minister was taken by surprise and embarrassed during subsequent negotiations with the IMF and World Bank in Washington. The deputy prime minister eventually lost his post as a result of government reshuffles, but the career of the deputy agriculture minister was not affected. Such lack of accountability to ones' superiors means that post-Soviet administrative systems in fact cannot properly delegate work, decide policy issues or represent the interest of their area of responsibility within the Cabinet. Moreover, Van Atta argued that bureaucrats are not held legally responsible for pursuing their private business interests through their public positions, and indeed do not understand why doing so might be seen as improper.

In addition to a lack of transparency and accountability, post-Soviet ministries suffer from a lack of direction, according to Van Atta. Executive branch agencies have no impartial policy research, formation, or monitoring capacity, and there is no equivalent of the U.S. Government Accountability Office to carry out impartial analyses that would make up for the ministries' lack of such capacities. He added that the leaders of Georgia and Ukraine—both before and after the "color revolutions"—do not appear to have a long-term, strategic vision for their countries.

The overall ineffectiveness of state administration in the former Soviet Union has hampered economic growth and development, Van Atta contended. He argued that this has prompted an increased interest from international donor organizations in promoting good governance, but improving governance is a difficult task. Policy reform projects, such as those that Van Atta has directed, are inexpensive to fund, but easy for local officials to ignore and hard for donors to evaluate. Policy changes are seldom easy, straightforward, or clearly linked to their direct causes. For instance, the group Van Atta directed in the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia was instrumental on putting food safety and quality regulation issues on the national political agenda, but the Georgian government ultimately decided to employ an approach different from the one suggested by the policy project was chosen, apparently because a new Minister of Agriculture wished not to be associated with ideas advanced under his predecessor. Improving governance, he emphasized, requires fundamental change in the way that post-Soviet officials understand their roles and responsibilities. However, Van Atta believes that his projects have had some success. For example, he noted that in Ukraine, the policy research and coordination agency he helped create creating has been known in recent years as the only policy shop that both the Yushchenko and Yanukovych camps respected because their advice was based on real research and was unbiased.

Van Atta believes that his observations of executive branch functioning in these three countries are valid throughout their central governments and also apply in principle to local government agencies. Asked about the role of the national academies of science, he commented that although individual researchers in many cases are extremely good, the Academy system is largely moribund from lack of funding, a tradition of serving the demands of the boss of the moment rather than carrying out research, and limits on knowledge and understanding of the outside world. Similarly, many higher educational institutions have been hollowed out by the loss of competent scholars and lack facilities and access to world-standard knowledge to properly train the next generation. Agricultural schools may be particularly badly off in this regard, he suggested, noting that the Georgian Agrarian University, for instance, is very interested in international contacts and exchanges, but has had limited success in establishing them.