CAF investigates the causes of low rates of formulation and implementation of cultural projects in Colombia

This initiative has two major objectives:

1. to provide a better diagnosis on the possible causes of the low rates of formulation and implementation of INC-funded cultural projects
2. to identify, design and evaluate policy alternatives and/or actions to help alleviate such problems.

The diagnosis included officers involved in the creation of cultural projects at both the municipal and departmental levels.

Main findings

One of the most outstanding aspects of the analysis has to do with the capacity of municipal institutions to formulate quality projects, which is evidenced by the poor information they possess about the formulation process, as well as the technical problems they face when carrying out the task. This results in the municipal entities’ perception that low approval rates stem from demanding departmental officials, who, in turn, indicate that the situation is due to a deficient formulation of projects at a municipal level.

Another relevant element is the insufficiency of funds allocated to INC calls for projects submitted, regardless of their size. This is another factor that indicates that the problem may be related to project submission, as opposed to approval by departmental entities.

The diagnosis also shines a light on gaps in communication between municipalities and departments, which, coupled with the possibility that calls for INC-funded culture-related projects may not always be opened by federal authorities at all, becomes a problem for municipalities, as it makes it difficult to plan their cultural projects ahead to obtain INC funding.  

In an effort to sort out these issues, participants designed a mass emailing system addressed to an assortment of municipal officials, aiming to incentivize the submission of cultural projects and modify certain aspects that may affect their approval, such as quality, fees, types and sectors, as well as whether they match the federation’s needs, among others. Additionally, an impact assessment exercise was designed with the purpose of measuring the effectiveness of such campaign on the formulation of cultural projects and its influence on their quality and, therefore, their likelihood of being approved.

The evaluation exercise could not be implemented successfully due to a law being in effect, which prevents the use of public funding as a tool to influence voters in an election year, and the impossibility of knowing the exact call dates in departments that were able to put out theirs before the ballots, which hindered their capacity to properly identify the ideal dates to send out the emails.

While the evaluation exercise could not be implemented, several takeaways emerged from the diagnosis, as well as from the design of the practice itself. In light of the diagnosis, the group of CAF experts recommends exploring initiatives that involve training municipal project creators, as well as promoting the formulation of smaller projects and fostering efficient communication channels between the several actors involved in the formulation and subsequent implementation of the proposed projects. In terms of evaluation, they recommended to assess the effectiveness of a mass email delivery system when conditions are ideal, and to continue pulling together efforts toward developing a learning agency that uses experimental methods of evaluation to determine the impact of the various policies, programs and actions promoted by the Ministry of Culture. The ultimate goal is to keep promoting evidence-based decision making.