Multi-stakeholder governance and policy implementation: A political integrated framework with Uganda’s Road Safety Coalition.

• In Event: Coalitional Politics in Policy Reform Processes

Abstract

This paper explores the political dynamics that enabled Uganda’s road safety policy reforms to be achieved by an unusual coalition across different sectors. By examining the multifaceted interactions between legislators, civil society organizations under Road Safety Advocacy Coalition Uganda (ROSACU), the Ministry of Works and Transport, city authorities, professional drivers’ associations, and the Uganda Police Force, we illustrate how political fusion across tiers of government can reshape policy enactment.

 

The study applies a governance-focused lens to explore how this coalition maneuvered Uganda’s political terrain to secure policy reforms that, before, had stalled within traditional bureaucratic pathways. The Study illustrates how civil society activism strategically mobilized media engagement to transform road safety from a technical transportation issue into a high-profile political priority on the national agenda. The case illustrates ways in which intermediary organisations can span communications between government institutions, thus creating new channels for the diffusion of policy between ministerial silos.

 

The results indicate three essential aspects of successful policy administration. First, the coalition’s cross-governmental structure enabled vertical integration between legislators at the national and local levels, addressing implementation gaps that had impended past reform efforts. Second, the partnership democratized the policy analysis process by integrating voices of the people who would be affected by the policy, namely, professional drivers, and community representatives, thus enhancing both technical quality and political legitimacy. Third, the dynamic engagement with the media through media strategies developed by ROSACU turned abstract numbers to actionable narratives that could serve political needs for reform.

 

This was particularly important in the area of intergovernmental relations, where overlapping jurisdictional claims by national and municipal authorities were reconciled through formal deliberative processes. It introduced new policy coordination mechanisms that accommodated institutional heterogeneity while ensuring coherent policies were implemented.

 

The analysis also shows how at crucial moments bureaucratic resistance and political competition put pressure on reform momentum. The study shows the ways that the coalition adapted to sustain policy continuity through several years with chnages in leadership.

 

The Uganda experience provides important lessons on how political participation in policy processes can be designed in a way to further improve government efficiency and effectiveness. This implies that effectively implementing policy will need not only technical solutions, but also political innovations which help to align incentives between the different levels of government and non- governmental actors. The politically integrated model of governance represented by this case provides a template for addressing implementation challenges in other complex policy domains that depend on sustained cross-sectoral cooperation and the need to respond quickly to changing political circumstances.

 

To do this, a mixed method design  is used to collect semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, a thorough review of policy documents, and a quantitative assessment of road safety performance indicators.

Author

• Jackie Okao, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Presenting Author