How many donors does it take to screw up a light bulb?
One week might be a long time in politics, but it’s about a minute in the civil service, so as a rule things move slowly here in the Ministry of Finance. This past week has been a welcome exception, however, and one of the projects I’ve been working on has been flying since the last Ramble.
Essentially, what we’re doing is going to the various multi-million dollar projects being funded around the country and finding out exactly what is preventing money from being released to them. Most projects are currently using between five and eighty percent of the funds donors had promised to make available to them. Eighty percent is a respectable figure, but we want to be closer to ninety, and anything under sixty is pretty much unacceptable. A lot of times the problems are on the Malawian side, often out of the control of the project teams, but something that a few senior officials could fix in no time. This is where we come in. When these problems are identified, we take a report of what the problem is and how to solve it to our Minister and Principal Secretary, who make the proverbial and literal phone calls to solve them. Voila – money in the Reserve Bank.
Some of the problems turn out to be far beyond our control, however. Often these have to do with inflexible donor practices and bureaucracy, with some donors rather more culpable than others. Just hearing about some donor practices can be infuriating, so I can’t begin to imagine how pissed off the actual project teams get. For example, one project manager explained to us how, before hiring any staff, he has to send a hard copy of the advertisement to the donor’s head office in its home country. When this is okayed, they have to send the CV’s of the candidates under consideration. After these are cleared, they can interview the candidates, minus those who have found alternative employment in the meantime. They then offer the job informally to candidate and send the proposed contract to donor HQ for clearance. This can take up to three months. If the guy/girl is still interested in the job, they can then secure his signature.
If I had heard all this three weeks ago, I’d have had an aneurysm. But last week, something changed. We got a new Director to run our division. This lady is nails. She’s risen to the top of a male-dominated world in Malawi, has a very close working relationship with our Minister, a clear idea of what she wants our division to achieve and exactly how to do it. She came in, set the agenda, set deadlines and made a point of soliciting opinions from everyone, regardless of seniority. She wants to manoeuvre Malawi to a position from where, instead of accepting any pet projects a donor wishes to fund and meekly agreeing to every condition they set, we decide what needs to be done over a multi-year period and then set about securing funding for it. We get the donors onside by irrefutably linking each strand to a Millennium Development Goal, and underpin each proposal with analysis of how it will contribute to the goals. Its ambitious, but she’s already set out the first steps we need to take before getting there, starting with building our own knowledge base and recruiting new members of our team. If she stays in post for a reasonably length of time, say four or five years, she could transform our division.
* * *
I’m in mourning for the loss of Richard Pryor. I still listen to his concert CDs regularly, and one of the things I miss most about home is my collection of his concert DVDs. It’s not possible to recreate his humour on the page, so important is hearing or seeing his astonishing mimicry, so I’ll simply recommend that you get your hands on his concert album '...is it something I said?'. The truth will make your sides split.
* * *
I’ll be in Liwonde in just over a week. I’ll try get a Ramble out before then, but if the rush at work prevents me, have a great Christmas and a fantastic new year.
Essentially, what we’re doing is going to the various multi-million dollar projects being funded around the country and finding out exactly what is preventing money from being released to them. Most projects are currently using between five and eighty percent of the funds donors had promised to make available to them. Eighty percent is a respectable figure, but we want to be closer to ninety, and anything under sixty is pretty much unacceptable. A lot of times the problems are on the Malawian side, often out of the control of the project teams, but something that a few senior officials could fix in no time. This is where we come in. When these problems are identified, we take a report of what the problem is and how to solve it to our Minister and Principal Secretary, who make the proverbial and literal phone calls to solve them. Voila – money in the Reserve Bank.
Some of the problems turn out to be far beyond our control, however. Often these have to do with inflexible donor practices and bureaucracy, with some donors rather more culpable than others. Just hearing about some donor practices can be infuriating, so I can’t begin to imagine how pissed off the actual project teams get. For example, one project manager explained to us how, before hiring any staff, he has to send a hard copy of the advertisement to the donor’s head office in its home country. When this is okayed, they have to send the CV’s of the candidates under consideration. After these are cleared, they can interview the candidates, minus those who have found alternative employment in the meantime. They then offer the job informally to candidate and send the proposed contract to donor HQ for clearance. This can take up to three months. If the guy/girl is still interested in the job, they can then secure his signature.
If I had heard all this three weeks ago, I’d have had an aneurysm. But last week, something changed. We got a new Director to run our division. This lady is nails. She’s risen to the top of a male-dominated world in Malawi, has a very close working relationship with our Minister, a clear idea of what she wants our division to achieve and exactly how to do it. She came in, set the agenda, set deadlines and made a point of soliciting opinions from everyone, regardless of seniority. She wants to manoeuvre Malawi to a position from where, instead of accepting any pet projects a donor wishes to fund and meekly agreeing to every condition they set, we decide what needs to be done over a multi-year period and then set about securing funding for it. We get the donors onside by irrefutably linking each strand to a Millennium Development Goal, and underpin each proposal with analysis of how it will contribute to the goals. Its ambitious, but she’s already set out the first steps we need to take before getting there, starting with building our own knowledge base and recruiting new members of our team. If she stays in post for a reasonably length of time, say four or five years, she could transform our division.
* * *
I’m in mourning for the loss of Richard Pryor. I still listen to his concert CDs regularly, and one of the things I miss most about home is my collection of his concert DVDs. It’s not possible to recreate his humour on the page, so important is hearing or seeing his astonishing mimicry, so I’ll simply recommend that you get your hands on his concert album '...is it something I said?'. The truth will make your sides split.
* * *
I’ll be in Liwonde in just over a week. I’ll try get a Ramble out before then, but if the rush at work prevents me, have a great Christmas and a fantastic new year.
posted by the Maradona of Malawi at 8:26 PM
