“… and He’s on your tongue, every time you lie…”
This week’s Ramble has come to a cliché. The Devil is in the details.
* * *
First off, an apology. The Ramble comes late this week due to an extremely hectic work schedule.
This is why: About three weeks ago, I mentioned that plans were underway for a rather important meeting, bringing together the some of the most senior representatives of all sides of the aid relationship. This meeting suffered from delay after delay, partly due to the packed schedules of the attendees, but also because of the problems we’ve had getting the budget through parliament.
Late in the day, though, word came through that the meeting could take place on Wednesday morning, leading to a frenzy of invitation writing, presentation finalization, agenda tweaking, briefing of senior official and the like. Anyway, after a few days of rapid greying of the hair, the meeting finally kicked off, with near perfect attendance, on time. Even more miraculously, we managed to wrap everything up at just ten minutes over our self-imposed two hour time-limit. Of course, the projector didn’t work until we were well into the meeting, but these things never go entirely smoothly.
But what of the content? Well, it wasn’t the revelation I’d secretly been hoping for; no donors threw themselves to the floor and begged for our forgiveness, and none of the Government officials slammed their fists on the table and screamed ‘no! this will not do!’. Despite that, it was still a great first step, an achievement. It was, on the whole, candid and constructive. People spoke their opinions, being careful not to name the organisations they were criticising (except my boss, who rather wonderfully named and shamed two donors, both present, for particularly bad practices – with a perfectly judged tone, to avoid offending). There were, inevitably, a few exceptions – people who said one thing while you suspected they were thinking another entirely.
For most of the meeting, we discussed the strategy the Ministry has been working on in some depth, and it quickly became apparent, to me at least, that for all I think it’s an excellent document, a lot still needs to be done. We’ve set out what we expect from our donors and what they can expect from us in return, and while this is very useful, it’s not enough. We need to really dig down into the specifics, rather than talk in broad terms. If anything is going to come of this, we need firm commitments, not encouraging noises. And no-one is going to firmly commit to anything unless they can really see all the implications of making that commitment. I doubt everyone will get behind us fully, but I think with a few tweaks and a bit of work, most of them will. That’s a start.
* * *
During the meeting, I also had a dilemma. I was sitting just to the side and slightly behind the head of one major development agency, listening to events unfold and furiously scribbling down notes when I noticed something. A small spider was slowly climbing up the back of his suit. Horrified, I watched as it continued it slow ascent until it reached his collar. Then, with a little hop, it leapt into his hair. I was now faced with a choice. Do I do my best to get rid of the spider, which would have involved slapping the cranium of a man who controls millions of dollars that are potentially at the disposal of our Government? Or do I let the spider be, and wait for it to bite, causing the poor man to scream in the middle of a meeting with all of his contemporaries?
The decision was eventually taken out of my hands by the spider’s decision to hop on to one of my colleagues, from whom I happily extricated it. But I’ve been thinking – if it hadn’t jumped, what should I have done?
* * *
First off, an apology. The Ramble comes late this week due to an extremely hectic work schedule.
This is why: About three weeks ago, I mentioned that plans were underway for a rather important meeting, bringing together the some of the most senior representatives of all sides of the aid relationship. This meeting suffered from delay after delay, partly due to the packed schedules of the attendees, but also because of the problems we’ve had getting the budget through parliament.
Late in the day, though, word came through that the meeting could take place on Wednesday morning, leading to a frenzy of invitation writing, presentation finalization, agenda tweaking, briefing of senior official and the like. Anyway, after a few days of rapid greying of the hair, the meeting finally kicked off, with near perfect attendance, on time. Even more miraculously, we managed to wrap everything up at just ten minutes over our self-imposed two hour time-limit. Of course, the projector didn’t work until we were well into the meeting, but these things never go entirely smoothly.
But what of the content? Well, it wasn’t the revelation I’d secretly been hoping for; no donors threw themselves to the floor and begged for our forgiveness, and none of the Government officials slammed their fists on the table and screamed ‘no! this will not do!’. Despite that, it was still a great first step, an achievement. It was, on the whole, candid and constructive. People spoke their opinions, being careful not to name the organisations they were criticising (except my boss, who rather wonderfully named and shamed two donors, both present, for particularly bad practices – with a perfectly judged tone, to avoid offending). There were, inevitably, a few exceptions – people who said one thing while you suspected they were thinking another entirely.
For most of the meeting, we discussed the strategy the Ministry has been working on in some depth, and it quickly became apparent, to me at least, that for all I think it’s an excellent document, a lot still needs to be done. We’ve set out what we expect from our donors and what they can expect from us in return, and while this is very useful, it’s not enough. We need to really dig down into the specifics, rather than talk in broad terms. If anything is going to come of this, we need firm commitments, not encouraging noises. And no-one is going to firmly commit to anything unless they can really see all the implications of making that commitment. I doubt everyone will get behind us fully, but I think with a few tweaks and a bit of work, most of them will. That’s a start.
* * *
During the meeting, I also had a dilemma. I was sitting just to the side and slightly behind the head of one major development agency, listening to events unfold and furiously scribbling down notes when I noticed something. A small spider was slowly climbing up the back of his suit. Horrified, I watched as it continued it slow ascent until it reached his collar. Then, with a little hop, it leapt into his hair. I was now faced with a choice. Do I do my best to get rid of the spider, which would have involved slapping the cranium of a man who controls millions of dollars that are potentially at the disposal of our Government? Or do I let the spider be, and wait for it to bite, causing the poor man to scream in the middle of a meeting with all of his contemporaries?
The decision was eventually taken out of my hands by the spider’s decision to hop on to one of my colleagues, from whom I happily extricated it. But I’ve been thinking – if it hadn’t jumped, what should I have done?
posted by the Maradona of Malawi at 11:05 PM
