Cat scratch fever…
My attempts to keep busy at work have borne more fruit more quickly than envisaged this time last week. The upshot is, this has been the busiest week I’ve had since coming here, and I’ve been trying to find enough hours in the day to finish my work, get to my Chichewa lessons (dzulo madzulo, ndinali ndi phunziro, koma ndinali wopepera chufukwa ndinayiwala bukhu langa), unpack my belongings and get my house in order and still get enough sleep to be in the office by 7:15. So apologies in advance for the brevity of this week’s Ramble.
Anyway, I’ve been writing a paper on how we can move towards a system of what my Assistant Director likes to call ‘Institutional Debt and Aid Management’. This paper will be circulated for comments and will hopefully be a forerunner to the Debt and Aid policy I dream of getting signed up by the Cabinet. A good policy, well implemented would transform the way the country currently plans its development. More honestly, it would mean that we finally actually try and plan development meaningfully. All of our Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and think-pieces aren’t worth much when we don’t know what we’re currently doing. How can we prioritise future spending between sectors without knowing how much activity is being undertaken in each one at present? The creation of a signing-to-closing system of monitoring projects and allocating them between sectors is vital for the country, given how much aid we receive. It needs to be co-ordinated.
I realise that this is more than a couple of years work. It’s something that will move slowly and needs someone to push it every step of the way, and to make sure that it gets implemented, and doesn’t just sit on a shelf catching dust. That person needs to be far more senior than me (and needs to be a Malawian civil servant), but the way things are going, if work continues to be this interesting and my bosses don’t change too much, I’m very seriously considering extending my stay for a year or two to try and help see all of this through. If our Director doesn’t move on, I’ll at least have one sympathetic and senior colleague eager to push the work forward.
* * *
I’ve inherited a cat with my house; her name is Banjo. Those of you who met my previous pet, a violent terrier with a Napoleon complex, will know that I’m not really a pet loving person. That said, in less than a week Banjo has actually grown on me enormously. The only thing that irritates me is that she constantly tries to jump on to me when I’m sleeping. I’ve started to lock her out of my bedroom at night.
* * *
I have to ask, though – did anyone see Duncan Disorderly punch Paul Scharner in the Everton v. Wigan bout? Someone told me it was a punch Floyd Mayweather would have been proud of. I’m gutted to have missed it. I wish Dunc would pick one someone like Papa Bouba Diop and get his just deserts. Diop would roll him up like a pair of socks.
Anyway, I’ve been writing a paper on how we can move towards a system of what my Assistant Director likes to call ‘Institutional Debt and Aid Management’. This paper will be circulated for comments and will hopefully be a forerunner to the Debt and Aid policy I dream of getting signed up by the Cabinet. A good policy, well implemented would transform the way the country currently plans its development. More honestly, it would mean that we finally actually try and plan development meaningfully. All of our Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and think-pieces aren’t worth much when we don’t know what we’re currently doing. How can we prioritise future spending between sectors without knowing how much activity is being undertaken in each one at present? The creation of a signing-to-closing system of monitoring projects and allocating them between sectors is vital for the country, given how much aid we receive. It needs to be co-ordinated.
I realise that this is more than a couple of years work. It’s something that will move slowly and needs someone to push it every step of the way, and to make sure that it gets implemented, and doesn’t just sit on a shelf catching dust. That person needs to be far more senior than me (and needs to be a Malawian civil servant), but the way things are going, if work continues to be this interesting and my bosses don’t change too much, I’m very seriously considering extending my stay for a year or two to try and help see all of this through. If our Director doesn’t move on, I’ll at least have one sympathetic and senior colleague eager to push the work forward.
* * *
I’ve inherited a cat with my house; her name is Banjo. Those of you who met my previous pet, a violent terrier with a Napoleon complex, will know that I’m not really a pet loving person. That said, in less than a week Banjo has actually grown on me enormously. The only thing that irritates me is that she constantly tries to jump on to me when I’m sleeping. I’ve started to lock her out of my bedroom at night.
* * *
I have to ask, though – did anyone see Duncan Disorderly punch Paul Scharner in the Everton v. Wigan bout? Someone told me it was a punch Floyd Mayweather would have been proud of. I’m gutted to have missed it. I wish Dunc would pick one someone like Papa Bouba Diop and get his just deserts. Diop would roll him up like a pair of socks.
posted by the Maradona of Malawi at 9:54 PM
