“Ain’t got time to bleed…”
As usual, this weeks’ Ramble is tardy. Sorrow for this would be greater if I wasn’t so tired. At first, I thought it was malaria. Fortunately, I was wrong, but it still knocked the stuffing out of me – especially given that I couldn’t take any time off work…
* * *
It’s been a busy week, both in and out of work. Every year, the Ministry of Finance engages with donors to agree on a system of assessing Government on progress against major development aims, and more specifically, on whether appropriate processes to achieve these outcomes are being followed. This isn’t as intrusive as it sounds; these donors provide a significant amount of aid to us, and the least they can ask is that this aid is being put to the uses for which it was requested (or in some cases, foisted upon us).
But target setting has to be very careful. On the one hand, donors need to know that the money that is being pumped through Government systems is being used for the purposes it was provided. On the other, they have to be very careful not to take a dictatorial role. The aim of the entire international development system is a state which governs an effective, prosperous country in which people have a reasonable standard of living from its own resources in a positive and beneficial manner (there is no country in the world where no one suffers from deprivation). For this to become a reality, Government needs to take the lead in developing policies and setting the development aims it wants to achieve; if it doesn’t, as soon as donor pressure disappears so will the impetus to achieve the positive aims that have been foisted upon the Government.
Very few people would dispute this when it’s put to them. However, after working for a few years with the often inefficient and sometimes corrupt Governments that do rule over the poorest countries in the world, many people in the development agencies lose sight of this. It’s not that they stop caring about Government, but they can get very frustrated with the difficulties of translating support to a Government into real gains for the poor and deprived people the support is meant to be helping. This is made much worse when they know that their organisations could dispense the aid directly and see improvements in the standard of living of a target population much more quickly. A half-way house to this is to impose multiple conditions and attempt to dictate policy through these conditions.
It’s difficult to be too critical of these approaches; they are borne of frustration and a desire to improve the living standards of people more rapidly. Nonetheless, it’s important to stress that this is not the way forward. It will make more rapid changes in the short term. But when people feel coerced into doing something, their natural reaction once the threat that fuels the coercion is withdrawn is to stop taking that action. As a result, if we are implementing a policy only because funding is tied to its implementation, if the donors who make this condition try and withdraw it in the future, they are very likely to see Government let the policy slide into disuse. The donor then either has to maintain the conditionality or see the policy waste away. Of course, this isn’t inevitable, and I’m overstating the case somewhat, but the basic point is that if the impetus for a positive action derives from a donor without being embedded in the development plan set by the Government, it won’t be sustained beyond the involvement of that donor. Donors need to take the long view of building Government – slower progress now, but the ultimate aim of completely withdrawing will come faster.
To their credit, a number of donors now recognise this at the corporate level; at the individual level, these opinions have been held for a long time. The challenge for bilateral donors now is convince their political masters that they need to take this long view, which will prevent them parading their ‘quick wins’ to their electorate. The challenge for Government is to ensure that we stand up to remaining pressures to institute policies we don’t agree with – we need to reject conditionalities and, if need be, aid, when it doesn’t square with out own development vision. If the donor can convince us that something is worth doing using evidence and reasoning, fine – but it shouldn’t be done out of fear. It’s eventually self defeating.
For Government to keep to this, it needs a strong, competent Minister of Finance. Just like the one we’ve got now, in fact.
* * *
It’s been a busy week, both in and out of work. Every year, the Ministry of Finance engages with donors to agree on a system of assessing Government on progress against major development aims, and more specifically, on whether appropriate processes to achieve these outcomes are being followed. This isn’t as intrusive as it sounds; these donors provide a significant amount of aid to us, and the least they can ask is that this aid is being put to the uses for which it was requested (or in some cases, foisted upon us).
But target setting has to be very careful. On the one hand, donors need to know that the money that is being pumped through Government systems is being used for the purposes it was provided. On the other, they have to be very careful not to take a dictatorial role. The aim of the entire international development system is a state which governs an effective, prosperous country in which people have a reasonable standard of living from its own resources in a positive and beneficial manner (there is no country in the world where no one suffers from deprivation). For this to become a reality, Government needs to take the lead in developing policies and setting the development aims it wants to achieve; if it doesn’t, as soon as donor pressure disappears so will the impetus to achieve the positive aims that have been foisted upon the Government.
Very few people would dispute this when it’s put to them. However, after working for a few years with the often inefficient and sometimes corrupt Governments that do rule over the poorest countries in the world, many people in the development agencies lose sight of this. It’s not that they stop caring about Government, but they can get very frustrated with the difficulties of translating support to a Government into real gains for the poor and deprived people the support is meant to be helping. This is made much worse when they know that their organisations could dispense the aid directly and see improvements in the standard of living of a target population much more quickly. A half-way house to this is to impose multiple conditions and attempt to dictate policy through these conditions.
It’s difficult to be too critical of these approaches; they are borne of frustration and a desire to improve the living standards of people more rapidly. Nonetheless, it’s important to stress that this is not the way forward. It will make more rapid changes in the short term. But when people feel coerced into doing something, their natural reaction once the threat that fuels the coercion is withdrawn is to stop taking that action. As a result, if we are implementing a policy only because funding is tied to its implementation, if the donors who make this condition try and withdraw it in the future, they are very likely to see Government let the policy slide into disuse. The donor then either has to maintain the conditionality or see the policy waste away. Of course, this isn’t inevitable, and I’m overstating the case somewhat, but the basic point is that if the impetus for a positive action derives from a donor without being embedded in the development plan set by the Government, it won’t be sustained beyond the involvement of that donor. Donors need to take the long view of building Government – slower progress now, but the ultimate aim of completely withdrawing will come faster.
To their credit, a number of donors now recognise this at the corporate level; at the individual level, these opinions have been held for a long time. The challenge for bilateral donors now is convince their political masters that they need to take this long view, which will prevent them parading their ‘quick wins’ to their electorate. The challenge for Government is to ensure that we stand up to remaining pressures to institute policies we don’t agree with – we need to reject conditionalities and, if need be, aid, when it doesn’t square with out own development vision. If the donor can convince us that something is worth doing using evidence and reasoning, fine – but it shouldn’t be done out of fear. It’s eventually self defeating.
For Government to keep to this, it needs a strong, competent Minister of Finance. Just like the one we’ve got now, in fact.
posted by the Maradona of Malawi at 8:55 PM
