FORWARD WITH MEPI IN ALGERIA: FEWER BUT DEEPER

C O N F I D E N T I A L ALGIERS 000966 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/07/2027 TAGS: PREL KMPI KDEM KJUS AG SUBJECT: FORWARD WITH MEPI IN ALGERIA: FEWER BUT DEEPER PROJECTS REF: A. ALGIERS 794 ¶B. ALGIERS 950 ¶C. ALGIERS 892 ¶D. ALGIERS 795 Classified By: Ambassador Robert Ford; reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Middle East Partnership Initiative programming is the best tool we have to undermine support for extremism in Algeria. We reported in ref A the activities and progress we are making on the education, media, political and economic tracks. It is an uneven picture. Understanding that there are limits to MEPI funding, we advocate that MEPI concentrate FY 2008 programming where we are most likely going to find both GoA buy-in for reforms and strong implementers. Our best sectors for making notable advances are in improving primary and secondary education. We can also make gains to reinforce the independent press and reform the judicial system. There are limits to how fast Algeria will introduce political reforms and how much they will let us engage to help. Even where Algerian political support exists for MEPI programming, Algerian bureaucracy and decision-making processes require long timeframes for project implementation. That said, once the programs get underway they can effect real transformation. Going forward, Washington should factor in these extended timelines when designing Algeria-specific programs so that programs have sufficient time to be successfully realized. End Summary. WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN'T -------------- ¶2. (C) After a year of close observation of ongoing MEPI projects, we see two factors that most favor success of MEPI implementers. First, there has to be a broad Algerian desire to reform the sector involved. That buy-in must include the Algerian government; without it visas and meetings can be blocked, often in under-handed ways. Second, the programs that have had the greatest impact have Western (usually American) expert staff living and working in Algeria. Algeria for all its outward modernity is still a very conservative society. The JDG/NYU program working with the independent press and the Creative Associates program working with the Ministry of National Education both had Americans who developed superb working relations with their Algerian counterparts. Those relationships enabled them to help steer Algerian processes towards real change. Moreover, this conservative society doesn't leap towards change -- it adopts it very gradually. Implementers who come for a week or two have never developed the close relationships or gained the same eyes-on understanding of how to spur change in Algerian policy and practice. For this reason we sense little gain from most of the MEPI small grants for Algeria. We need fewer MEPI programs, but more intense ones. With this insight in mind, we offer below our sense of how we can best use MEPI to promote reform in Algeria. EDUCATION PILLAR -------------- ¶3. (U) We recommend continuing several MEPI-funded education pillar programs into FY 2008 even though such longer-term projects may not match the typical MEPI profile. To be successful in Algeria, our implementer had to build strong ties with both the national ministry and local education officials in order to develop programming that operates generally smoothly. It would be seriously counterproductive to pull the plug on successful but incomplete projects just when we have won some support from the various Algerian stakeholders. In addition, the education ministry has funding to help with some of these MEPI initiatives, but it is incredibly bureaucratic and slow. We need a year to transition comfortably to funding such activities exclusively with Algerian budgets. In our view, the following programs are most useful (in priority order): -- ENGLISH ACCESS MICRO-SCHOLARSHIPS: Access is an effective way to engage and help the disadvantaged Algerian youth who are a big target of AQIM recruiting (see ref A). The ACCESS program began in 2004 in the Algerian cities of Bejaia, Algiers, Constantine and Oran. The Embassy strongly supports expansion of this program. -- PARTNERSHIP FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS (PSP) TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL) and EFL CURRICULUM REFORM: The PSP Teacher Training Program, according to the implementer, improved the English-language teaching methodology used in Algerian schools. Unfortunately, progress on the parallel EFL Curriculum Reform track was slow because the Ministry of National Education (MNE) took eight months to form a curriculum writing committee. A dynamic new director for international cooperation at the MNE has since pushed for curriculum reform. The implementer seeks a no-cost extension to finish this project and to write a training manual for the MNE's English language inspectors. The inspectors ensure that teachers understand and are using the new curriculum. We strongly support the request for extension. The implementer also seeks a three-part cost extension of the contract through May 2008. Two parts of the proposed extension would train-the-EFL trainer program to develop a national cadre of English-language teaching inspectors and to create a CD ROM of supplemental EFL materials for the new curriculum we are already helping develop. We also recommend a new contract to support helping the MNE to rewrite its textbooks so that they reflect the MNE's new competency-based curriculum. The third part of the cost extension of the contract would provide our share of funding to maintain the U.S. high school linkage program with ten high schools in Algiers and Blida (another Islamist bastion). Algerian students the Ambassador visited in early June understood how the program was building their job skills, and they liked the connection to counterparts in the U.S. Like the Access program, these relatively low-cost programs exactly target the key recruitment audience for al-Qa'ida here. The MNE supports extending the program, and we are urging it to provide a portion of the funding to maintain or better still to expand the program to schools in other provinces. -- PSP INTRODUCTION OF TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM: Integrating information and computer technology is reportedly already in the national budget for middle and secondary schools. Funding from us should prompt MNE contributions to expand at least the e-Math programs here. The MNE has signaled that it wants to expand the e-Math program to include 4th graders. The implementer is requesting a contract cost extension through May 2008 to meet this objective. We strongly support this request and the possibility of further expanding the program to include other subjects. Another GOA center charged with introducing technology into schools wants to expand the program even further to include middle and high schools. Although MEPI funds short-duration pilot programs, we support expansion of these types of programs in both primary and secondary school levels for another year while the education ministry gins up its own bureaucracy to provide all the proper funding. POLITICAL PILLAR -------------- ¶4. (SBU) The independent press is probably the most important single element of civil society pushing for greater openness and pluralism in Algeria. We are now seeing it start to define agendas and compel government responses, as was the case with its coverage of several business scandals last year. Most Algerian newspapers operate precariously in a business (and professional) sense. The JDG/NYU project to develop business management skills among independent newspapers has had substantial success with two of the three newspapers it worked with in CY 2006-2007. They substantially revamped their operations and layout, developed real business plans and saw sales increases. In one case, the paper soared to be the second-largest paper in the country and is now seriously rivaling the leading paper. We strongly support extending the project a second year, and want to see the team work with a paper in Oran, Algeria's second-largest city. ¶5. (SBU) We should also focus on judicial reform since there are actors inside the GoA and in civil society that are willing to work towards greater judicial independence and higher professional standards. President Bouteflika has hammered on this theme and publicly berated Justice Minister Belaiz for moving too slowly. Belaiz told us last year that he welcomed more engagement from the U.S. in this area, and in general his ministry has been easy to work with for MEPI implementers like the ABA and the Commercial Law Development Program. ¶6. (SBU) So far, however, MEPI work has focused on judicial training in order to raise judges' professional standards. We have worked mainly with the justice ministry's judicial training institute (Ecole Nationale de Magistrature). We should widen our focus to include working with the Algerian Bar Association to make it a more effective proponent of reform. (Already it is demanding judicial system changes - see refs C, D.) ABA needs a representative here permanently to work better with Algerian counterparts. PARLIAMENT AND PARTIES: LITTLE OPENING TO RUN THROUGH -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) We are unsure if continuing the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) program with the Algerian parliament will be useful. The NCSL forums in CY 2006 showed how very far the Algerian parliamentary structures -- and the deputies themselves -- have to evolve to promote genuine pluralism in Algerian politics. The new president of the Algerian National Assembly told a major newspaper here in early June that the Assembly should not be a place for confrontation, and it may be that the new parliament will be another rubber-stamp body. In a July 2 meeting with the Ambassador, the new National Assembly president did not indicate that he was seeking to develop a legislature that would challenge the already strong executive here. A limp legislature wouldn't merit USG funding. We also have questions about how effective occasional training sessions can be in securing real change in parliament. Lower-ranking officials at parliament argue that the NCSL program has been worthwhile and should be continued. We think the jury is still out, and recommend a reduced program at most. ¶8. (C) Separately, we have very few indications that Algerian political parties are willing to push hard for a new National Democratic Institute program here, and even fewer indications that the Algerian government would allow a program even were we to ask. ECONOMIC PILLAR: LITTLE IMPACT SO FAR -------------- ¶9. (C) MEPI is funding two efforts to promote economic reform here. The Financial Service Volunteer Corps is organizing training for commercial bankers on risk management, a noble goal for a banking system that all agree is a major brake on economic growth. Meanwhile, the USDOC Commercial Law Development Program's effort to encourage sound telecoms reform would, if genuinely complemented by Algerian policies to deregulate, spur growth in a sector that is seriously underdeveloped. It is not clear, however, that there is a real commitment on the part of the Algerian authorities. Most notably, top officials from the telecommunications regulatory agency recently skipped a useful set of meetings in Washington for no good reason we can determine. The Ambassador cautioned the Communications Ministry Secretary General (number two) on June 20 that his ministry had hurt its credibility by not sending representatives to the meetings. The Secretary General made the right noises about commitment to working with us on reform, but we are unlikely to see rapid progress, especially with the intermittent contact between the Algerian officials and the CLDP. ¶10. (SBU) CLDP is also trying to encourage reform to Algerian laws governing franchising. The biggest impediment is the Algerian ban on foreign currency payments of licensing fees. To date we have seen no interest from the Algerian authorities in overturning this ban. In the meantime, all that CLDP can do is encourage Algerian business people to demand the reform themselves. We recommend against new programs in the economic sector that drop in seminar advisors for a week or ten days and then depart again for months at a time. DAUGHTON