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IMPLICATIONS FOR DONOR MANAGEMENTWhat to change and how to change itby Phil Bartle, PhDTraining HandoutMandate and MuscleINTRODUCTION; HOW THE DONOR AGENCIES MUST CHANGE Donor agencies need the mandate and means to provide aid for sustainable development, and to avoid the charity model Currently, as aid is practiced, they have neither the mandate nor the muscle, although they speak and write as if they do Here we lay out what that requires in terms of transformation of how donor agencies are managed The charity model is still applicable for during and briefly after a disaster when emergency response is required. We are talking here about development aid ─ not rescue but removing poverty POLITICAL WILL AT THE TOP Donor agencies, bilateral and multilateral, need a political and administrative context in order to undergo the radical transformations required. They are responsible to and report to their home governments (if they are bilateral aid agencies, or to the United Nations General Assembly (if they are multilateral UN agencies). This requires political will at the very top of the hierarchies The top bilateral aid agencies and their governments (eg parliament, Congress) must be fully on board, and that means being backed up with clear and deliberate laws and regulations. The top UN officials, and the United Nations General Assembly must equally be fully on board, and thaat means clear and delibrate General Assembly resolutions and UN regulations Oh! Did someone say this was going to be easy? Just remember, a trillion dollars went down the toilet. Donor agency middle management in their home countries and those in the host countries can not work without this strong mandate and the muscle to enforce it. They can not get that without jeapardising their careers The answer? A huge popular groundswell is needed. The politicians are sensitive, although not precicely, to the demands of their people. Here is the need for activists. See: Implications for mobilizers and activists (Listen to the bugle call of the cavelry). MORE THAN A CLEAR AND WRITTEN MANDATE A mandate is needed that identifies their role as providing for sustainable development, and its implications To identify and legitimise a sustainable development role several additions are also needed First, specialists in development, with hard nosed understandings of corruption, dependency and charity must devise strategies that will work. Currently only lip service is paid to sustainable development. This is not an academic research paper; it is a "how to" manual for animators and mobilisers. There is a need to carefully research this statement. My observations are based on what I have seen in the field/ THE MEANS TO ENFORCE THE MANDATE Second, the donor agencies must have the mechanisms for enforcing that the charity model is not used. To carry out a sustainable development role, donor agencies must have the ability to enforce the provision of aid in the required manner. The ability to suspend or to withold aid payments are the only means available to day, but are seldom used. Donor agency officials face punishment if they do not spend their budgets, Other sanctions must be devised, and used. Senior officers must not be punished for not spending their budget if the implementing agencies break the rules. IN SUPPORT OF COOPERATION Mechanisms need to be put in place to end current aid agency competition and back stabbing Aid agencies currently are obliged to spend money and overlook corruption and charity to achieve such objective. That must end. ORGANIZATIONAL ADDITIONS The "No strings attached" slogan is a red herring. Some current strings need to be removed. Other strings are needed and must be put in place. Third a common monitor, jointly funded, should have the mandate and ability to blow the whistle on aid agencies that break the rules to get beneficiaries REDUCING SECTOR SPECIALTIES Fourth, aid agencies should not be based on sector, but on variable beneficiary needs If Unicef could only do education (it does not) or WHO only do health, they could not respond to other beneficiary needs. Donor agencies need to be able to make aid projects that are not sector based MONITORING AND POLICING AID AGENCIES Fifth, the projects need to be monitored and policed Aid agencies need an obective monitoring agency (or department) to ensure conformity. Various aid agencies should pool together to fund and have a common monitor / referee / umpire. CONCLUSION; MANDATE AND MUSCLE To change from a charity mode to a development mode, reducing corruption and dependency, several major transformations are required. Laws and regulations from the top must be put in place. Donor officials should be required to suspend or cease funding when implementing agencies do not comply, and donor officers should not be punished when they do. Serious research needs to be done to guide the structure of project documents and regulations to ensure this. Donor agencies should reduce sector specialization and become more responsive to the real needs of host countries. Donor agencies themselves must be monitored by an inter agency institution, jointly funded, that ensures the conformity of donors to this mandate, and a decline in inter agency competition. These are major changes, and they will not be easy. ––»«––See: Alesina and Dollar If you copy text from this site, please acknowledge the author(s) |
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