Introduction
This Work Programme has been approved by the SSNED Board of Trustees at its 9th Meeting held on the 25th September  2011. It builds on the earlier Work Programme, applicable for 2008-2011.

This document describes the origin of the Network, its mission, guiding principles, comparative advantage, implementation methodology, and performance measurement orientation.

Annex 1 outlines activities related to our core focal themes that, depending upon available human and financial resources, form an indicative basis of a practicable work programme for 2012-2015. The suggested activities derive from extensive consultations with small states and regional organisations.

Annex 2 describes the implementation approaches process in connection with projects funded by the SSNED.

Background
Meeting in Singapore during the World Bank/International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings, members of the 2006 Small States Forum unanimously adopted a Resolution endorsing the establishment of a Small States Network for Economic Development (SSNED) in line with a proposal put forward by Malta, and tasked a Working Group of the Forum to develop a governance framework for the Network. The Network was activated on the eve of the 2007 Small States Forum and was subsequently legally registered in Malta, where it maintains its Secretariat’s offices.

The main objective of the Small States Network for Economic Development (SSNED) is to promote (i) sustainable economic development of small states and (ii) the increased integration of the concerns and interests of small states into the policies and programmes of the international community.

The operational interventions of the SSNED are demand-driven, based on comparative advantage focused on the following five core themes:

  • building the capacity of public sector institutions to modernize the domestic economy;
  • developing private sector capacity needed to promote international competitiveness;
  • encouraging private-public partnerships to support the efficient provision of public services;
  • addressing environmental sustainability and natural disaster concerns;
  • strengthening outreach and knowledge building/sharing among small states.

This approach is principally built on exchange of expertise between small states, in recognition of the fact that the particular challenges common to small states  have necessarily encouraged them to devise appropriately focused and scaled approaches to their challenges. This approach will also permit south-south collobarative approaches.

The Network’s mission is to facilitate the exchange of ‘good practice’ among small states, to promote the increased integration of the concerns and interests of small states into the policies and programs of the international community, to undertake or support such related actions as will further these goals and the sustainable development of members, and to foster development cooperation among small states.

Specifically the SSNED aims to:

  • Act as a clearing house to facilitate the sharing of expertise and technologies specific to small states, so as to provide countries with just-in-time services on specific policy and institutional development.
  • Promote appropriate training opportunities utilising the considerable experience and expertise available in the small states.
  • Build an inventory of experts to enable experts from successful states to share their expertise in order to help other small states in their development projects, and to promote competitiveness and resilience building.
  • Provide a more continuous channel of communication among small states and between small states and the World Bank and other development institutions.
  • Reinforce the voice of small states, not only in the international arena generally but also within multilateral and bilateral organizations that support their development efforts.

Guiding Principles
The following principles will guide and inform the work of the SSNED.

  • The programme of activities will reflect the agreed development priorities of Network members countries, and the benefits of membership will be accessible by all interested Network members.
  • The expertise and experience that resides within small states will be drawn upon to the maximum extent possible, in recognition of the fact that the particularities of small states (e.g., they are relatively susceptible to exogenous shocks and natural disasters, have economies that are simultaneously open and unable to easily diversify, and suffer from ‘indivisibilities' of overhead expenditures, because these cannot be downscaled to population size) have necessarily encouraged them to devise appropriately focused and scaled approaches in line with their challenges.
  • The programme of activities will be practical, selective (in recognition that the Network is but one of many institutions active on the development front), and driven by comparative advantage.
  • The mobilization of resources for the implementation of this programme will be based on additionality and should not result in the diversion of existing funding to small states.
  • Successful projects will be replicated if the Network sees that this would enhance the comparative advantage of the Network in areas of interest to small states. 
Core Focal Themes
The core focal themes of the Network's work programme are:
  • building the capacity of public sector institutions to modernize the domestic economy and facilitate its more effective integration in the world economy
  • developing private sector capacity needed to promote international competitiveness
  • encouraging private-public partnerships to support the efficient provision of public services
  • addressing environmental sustainability and natural disaster concerns.
  • strengthening outreach and knowledge building/sharing among small states.

Comparative Advantage
To fulfill its mission, and given the scale at which the Network is expected to operate, it is important that the operational areas and issues where the Network enjoys comparative advantage be identified, so as to maximize the potential benefits Network can provide to small states. More generally, the Network's comparative advantage lies in two features: 

  1. it is owned and run by the small states themselves, and is therefore deeply familiar with the challenges facing small states and with the individuals who have relevant expertise specifically scaled to small states, and
  2. it benefits from its informality, flexibility, and speed of delivery, due to its minimal organizational structure. 
Implementation Methods
In fulfillment of its mission, guided by its principles, reflecting its thematic focus, and based on comparative advantage, the Network will finance specific interventions. The process of determining specific interventions and appropriate methodology is described in Annex 2 . While the form of implementation will be dictated ultimately by a judgment as to the best way to address a particular challenge in light of resources available, some implementation methods are likely to be particularly beneficial. These include:

Twinning Arrangements:Twinning small state institutions with low capacity with small state institutions that have mature policies and processes provides many advantages, including the building of long-term dynamic and constructive relationships, and peer-to-peer learning that is often more resource- and cost-effective than traditional technical assistance approachesTraining Workshop

In many cases, activities will have principally education, training, or advocacy objectives, taking existing work and making it accessible to Network members. Further, in keeping with the practical focus of this work programme, even where activities are research-based, it is expected that they will have education, training and/or advocacy/information dissemination elements to ensure that activity deliverables are communicated and applied.

Technical assistance: Traditional technical assistance models may be applicable in some situations. Again, however, in the spirit of the Network's objectives, every effort will be made firstly to identify technical support from within small states, including drawing on small state regional centres of excellence, before seeking expert advice and assistance from wider afield. In utilizing technical assistance, every care will be taken to ensure that known pitfalls (dependency, unnecessary output complexity, lack of absorptive capacity) are considered and managed. 

Performance Management
It is important that the SSNED be able to demonstrate its effectiveness in contributing to improving the development outcomes for its small state membership, and that the associated expenditures represent value for money. The monitoring and evaluation of performance will be undertaken at two levels:
  • At the activity level – ensuring that the products of individual activities achieve the outcomes specified in the proposal approved by the Board of Trustees
  • At the Network level – ensuring that the Network is delivering the outcomes for which it was established.

At the activity level, the Secretariat will ensure that the objectives/anticipated outcomes proposed align with agreed Network-level outcomes. Importantly, each activity proposal will need to articulate clearly how the successful achievement of the specific outcomes described will contribute to achieving Network-level outcomes. The Secretariat will monitor and evaluate the quality of the outputs and outcomes/results achieved and report on these to the Board of Trustees.

To systematically assess performance, the Secretariat will develop a performance framework that articulates a set of expected outcomes/results that align with the Network's objectives. Performance and expenditure reporting against this framework will be provided regularly to the Board of Trustees and to the wider Network membership on an annual basis. Potential areas of focus have been grouped under the four core themes. These areas have emerged from an initial round of consultations, with suggestions unconstrained by resource considerations; however, it provides a useful guide to members' expressed priorities. The evolving work programme of the Network will reflect agreed priorities of member states and available financial and management resources.

In keeping with the SSNED's ‘just-in-time' service philosophy and recognising the potential for new issues to emerge and priorities to change and for variable responses to proposals by financial and technical partners, it is anticipated that the work programme will be a living document that may evolve during the course of its two-year timeframe. The Secretariat will report any changes in the priority of the work program to the Board of Trustees.
 
Other Activities

In addition to managing the implementation of project-specific activities, the Secretariat will also provide management and business support functions. These will include:

  • development and updating of a register of institutions and experts that have particular capacities in relation to the core focal themes as they relate to the specific conditions experienced in small states
  • facilitation of contacts among individuals and institutions in small states to foster mutual information exchange and the building of productive relationships

This work will be supported by the establishment and maintenance of a SSNED website that will provide information to Network members, other small states, and other interested parties.

Other ActivitiesAnnex 1: CORE FOCAL THEMES

Core Theme 1 - Building the capacity of public sector institutions to modernize the domestic economy and facilitate more effective integration in the world economy

  1. Supporting governments of small states to put in place or modernize competition and regulatory frameworks taking into account the constraints arising from small domestic markets, including the high natural market entry barriers.
  2. Helping governments of small states in developing e-government and e-learning arrangements.
  3. Assisting governments of small states to develop taxation arrangements, drawing on the experiences of other small states where the migration from one type of tax regime to another has been successfully implemented. Such arrangements are especially needed in small states that must manage the reduction in government revenue resulting from the implementation of trade liberalization policies.
  4. Working with the governments of small states to profile the causes and symptoms of their economic vulnerability and to help identify and introduce macro- and micro-economic policies that are conducive to building resilience to the vagaries of operating in a global economy.
  5. Supporting governments of small states to upgrade the capacity of their postal services, in particular to develop methods for electronic postal services.
  6. Supporting governments of small states to upgrade the capacity of national and regional statistics offices, to produce timely information relevant to their social and economic development.
  7. Facilitating cooperation among small states in the building and furtherance of regional integration processes, especially in areas where pooling of resources could lead to enhanced efficiency and effectiveness.

Core Theme 2 - Developing private sector capacity needed to promote international competitiveness

  1. Facilitating collaboration between the private sector and the public sector to reduce the cost of doing business by, for example, speeding up business start-ups and registration procedures, putting in place one-stop shops for permits, and improving access to capital for small enterprises.
  2. Developing the institutional capacity needed by the private sector to compete effectively in world trade, including the ability to meet quality standards, through such things as the provision of technical assistance at the enterprise level.
  3. Enabling SMEs to access development assistance designed to support micro-level transformation.
  4. Assisting consultants and enterprises from small states to participate effectively in the global knowledge supply chain by fostering collaborative arrangements with relevant actors internationally.

Core Theme 3 - Encouraging private-public partnerships to support the efficient provision of public services

  1. Assisting governments and the private sector to identify services that might be better delivered in partnership than by government alone.
  2. Assisting small states in formulating public-private partnerships to deliver services drawing from shared expertise and experience and providing assistance related to the methodological, legal, institutional, and technical aspects of such partnerships.

Core Theme 4 - Addressing environmental and natural disaster concerns

  1. Assisting small states to develop strategies for sustainable development taking into account their special environmental concerns. In this context, assist small states to develop participatory and consultative schemes to foster ownership of the sustainable development strategies among stakeholders.
  2. "Helping small states devise schemes and share expertise in the use of renewable energy, energy efficiency initiatives, and carbon sharing.
  3. Supporting small states to develop early warning systems, insurance schemes, and disaster recovery mechanisms possibly in collaboration with larger countries in their region, within the context of a regional approach to disaster management.

Core Theme 5 - Strengthening outreach and knowledge building/sharing among small states

  1. Providing training in areas of major concern to small states that reflect the Network's core focus.
  2. Disseminating information and research relating the Network's core focal themes and contributing to the development of such information and research.

ANNEX 2: OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO IMPLEMENTATION

The following processes will guide the SSNED Secretariat's execution of a prioritized work program.

Twinning Arrangements:

  1. The potential Beneficiary Institution (BI) shall identify an institutional gap through an appropriate line Ministry or government agency, and send to the SSNED secretariat an expression of interest on a TW1 form available on the SSNED website.
  2. The SSNED Secretariat draws up an Interim Project Proposal (IPP) document containing information relating to the proposed project title, the potential beneficiary state/institution, objectives of the project, as well as a tentative budget. The World Bank, in consultation with the Commonwealth Secretariat, and following feedback from the other Board members, will decide whether to give its approval to proceed on the basis of the IPP. Once such approval is given, the Secretariat will liaise with the potential BI to proceed with the implementation of the project.
  3. The potential BI shall submit a detailed Twinning Project Request Document (TPRD) using an appropriate template (Form TW2). The secretariat of the Network will assist the potential BI in drawing up the Twinning Project Request Document.
  4. The procedure for engaging consultants for projects is detailed in para. 7.1.3 of the working procedures.
  5. The BI, the Service Provider (SP) and the Network shall draw up and sign a Twinning Contact, containing a budget with allocations to BI and SP according to their respective expected expenditure to be funded by the Network. The Contract shall be accompanied by detailed Terms of Reference (ToR) of the Project.7
  6. As soon as the Contract is signed, the Network may pay an advance to the BS and the SP not exceeding 30% of the allocation contained in the Contract.
  7. Following the signing of the contract an inception meeting will follow, which will draw on an inception report which describes the proceedings of the first meeting of the project monitoring committee.
  8. The implementation stage sees of twinning projects is generally composed of: a visit to the beneficiary institution by the twinning advisor; visits by trainees to the service provider; meeting of the project monitoring committee which includes a administrative mid-term report; payment of reimbursable expenses;
  9. The final completion stage includes a final project monitoring committee meeting which includes an administrative final report; reimbursement of remaining reimbursable expenses; a graded assessment of the project and presentation of technical report to the beneficiary ministry.
    Further information can be obtained from the SSNED website http://ssned.org/twinning-proj

Training Workshops:

  1. Institutions interested in collaborating with the SSNED in organising a training workshop on issues of major concern to small states can submit an expression of interest by filling in the expression of interest form for a training workshop called the TR1 form, also available on the SSNED website www.ssned.org, on the basis of which the Network may approve the project in principle.
  2. The SSNED Secretariat draws up an Interim Project Proposal (IPP) document containing information relating to the proposed project title, the potential beneficiary states/institutions, objectives of the workshop, as well as a tentative budget. The World Bank, in consultation with the Commonwealth Secretariat, and following feedback from the other Board members, will decide whether to give its approval to proceed on the basis of the IPP. Once such approval is given, the Secretariat will liaise with the host institution to organise the workshop.
  3. Trainees will be asked to grade the workshop on the final day. The questionnaire will depend on the nature of the workshop being oranised.

Further information can be obtained from the SSNED website: http://ssned.org/information_workshops