I have ‘found my way’ to these forums through my interest in the Millennium project, and through that to interest in FBOs, of particular relevance to me as I am a missionary in – what transpires from this recording to be one of the most corrupt of the world’s countries.

One omission of the commentators in reference to this issue seems to be to linguistics. It is apparent to me that a major causative factor in certain African corruption is language. That is, the West brings its proposals as to what to do that are shrouded in the ‘mysteries’ of Western languages. The economic equation is such that the African-poor countries have no option but to say ‘yes’. They then go about implementing what they do not, and cannot understand, so inevitably implement in a ‘corrupt’ way. I strongly suspect that a scale of countries on 1. level of use of a non-indigenous language and 2. degree of dependence on outside aid (amount of control from outside) would correlate strongly with levels of corruption.

I am certainly not the only one to advocate the use of indigenous languages as a pre-requisite for ‘development’ (for example see BROCK-UTNE, BIRGIT, and HOLMARSDOTTIR, HALLA B., 2003, ‘Language Policies and Practices – some preliminary results from a research project in Tanzania and South Africa.’ 80-101 In: Brock-Utne, Birgit and Desai, Zubeida and Qorro, Martha, 2003, Language of Instruction in Tanzania and South Africa (LOITASA). Dar-es-Salaam: E and D Limited) – but have been surprised how little this is taken up elsewhere.

One commentator suggested that it is only the rich in the poor countries who are corrupt. This has not been my experience. A linguistic difficulty in say Anglophone Africa is of course that the population spends the prime years of their educational lives learning how to ’speak right’ even in a context that is ‘not right’. Because overseas researchers these days often rely on material written by nationals in English, this removes them a further step from what is actually happening on the ground.

While it would be a lot simpler if we could just prescribe Kaufman’s ‘good governance’ recipe (or ’share information’ about it as he misleadingly argues) Khan is right in arguing that the history of capitalist transition does not tell us that this will work. Structural market failures embedded in the particular political settlements are more fundamental to economic development, and general conclusions from econometric analysis on the role of good governance are thus often unhelpful.

The main question that I have is whether the involvement of international actors (development banks, aid agencies, UN) is actually supporting and sustaining the kind of destructive rent-seeking that Mushtaq described. A recent book by Steve Berkman (Gods of Lending) is only the most recent contribution to this literature. How long would Mobutu have lasted if the aid community hadn’t continued to pour funds into Zaire?

just a very minor complaint about owen’s paper: the counting of the paragraphs is completely messed up.

David

This recognises that these processes are complex: there is no agreement on what the best course of action might be and there is also no agreement on their outcomes. But it also recognises that our interventions –no matter how well funded and prepared they are- can only contribute to the final outcomes. (And this is all well documented in the discussions around the usefulness of Outcome Mapping in planning)

Having clear objectives that all members of a network or partnership can aim for however, is not enough though. We know that many networking initiatives (or consortia) have failed or stumbled along the way because they failed to recognise that networking is as, if not more, expensive than ‘going at it alone’ (to put it bluntly).

Networks where information flows easily across the membership, where competing objectives are negotiated and a consensus is reached, where principal-agent problems are eliminated by increasing transparency and accountability, and where collective action can be harnessed require (this is a necessary condition) an a fantastic network facilitator –often aided by a flexible yet effectively designed networking strategy (with its systems, structures and processes).

It is easy to be fooled by the ‘magic’ of the Web2.0 –we assume that is is us, the users who made it all possible. Let us not forget the millions that go into building the platforms that facilitate exchange and the millions invested in continuously improving the services we receive –if anything, to keep us interested and coming back for more. This is the same with research, policy and practice networks.

We now know that unregulated markets (networks, after all) fail (imagine the failure of the aid market).

So, Yes to all of the paper’s recommendations but paragraph 98 demands particular attention.

Unfortunately, this assumes that poverty reduction is the main objective of international aid.

There is another question worth asking … not so much how do the BoP live on under $2 a day, but how people in “rich” countries are so poor on $100 a day? My answer to this question is that the metrics being used make almost no sense at all … an accounting and academic disgrace!

Peter Burgess
Tr-Ac-Net Community Analytics!

http://www.federalunion.org.uk/blog/2009/07/life-you-can-save.html

It sure is. The link is the big orange graphic at the top right of the page. It is:

http://developmentdrums.org/feed

Thanks for asking.

Owen

Worth reading through some of the comments too – pretty heated debate still going on.

“There is no excuse for missing to pay salaries to soldiers in lawless eastern Congo for six months”

Following the deteriorating situation in east Congo, the MJPC called today for the Congolese Government to urgently pay the salaries to thousands of soldiers who have not been paid for over six months in eastern Congo, take swift action to enforce the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) warrant against Bosco Ntaganda and to hold accountable perpetrators of sexual violence against women for their acts.

“Failing to hold accountable individuals who commit war crimes and crimes against humunity continues to be the leading cause of widespread and systematic sexual violence acts against girls and women in the easten Congo” said Makuba Sekombo, Community Affairs Director of the Mobilization for Justice and Peace in the DR Congo (MJPC).

Mr. Sekombo again criticized the government of Congo for not only the continuing failure to protect women and young girls from sexual violence, but also for “encouraging conditions that create opportunities for sexual violence to occur”. “There is no excuse for missing to pay salaries to soldiers in the lawless eastern Congo for six months” said Sekombo. The MJPC has also renewed its call for the Congolese government to take urgent needed action to end human rights abuses in east Congo, hold perpetrators accountable and ensure reparation for the victims of sexual violence.

The MJPC has been urging the Congolese government to compensate the victims of sexual violence in order to also help combat impunity in eastern part of Congo where sexual violence against women and children has been widely used as weapon of war for more than decade. The MJPC online petition calling for help to put pressure on Congolese Government to compensate victims of sexual siolence in Eastern DRC can be signed at http://www.gopetition.com.au/online/26180.html

About MJPC
MJPC works to add a voice in advocating for justice and peace in the DRC particulary in the east of DRC where thousands innocent civilian including children and women continue to suffer massive human rights violations while armed groups responsible for these crimes go unpunished

For more information about the MJPC and its activities, visit http://www.mjpcongo.org. or call Makuba Sekombo @ 1-408-8063-644 or e-mail: info@mjpcongo.org. The online petition calling on the Congolese Government to put urgently in place a comprehensive program of compensation for the victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo can be signed at http://www.gopetition.com.au/online/26180.html

‘Failing to hold accountable soldiers who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity will result in continued sexual violence against girls and women in the DR Congo”, says MJPC.

The Mobilization for Justice and Peace in the DR Congo (MJPC) called for a full inquiry into new allegations of continuing rape and sexual violence committed by the Congolese Army after a recent report by Human Rights Watch revealed shocking new evidence. The report documents how the Congolese Army (FARDC) has been committing serious human rights abuses that amount to war crimes in East Congo and calls on the UN Security Council to demand the Congolese Government to immediatly investigate and hold accountable soldiers responsible for war crimes.

The MJPC is gravely concerned at continuing reports of sexual violence in eastern Congo. Makuba Sekombo, MJPC’s Community Affairs Director, stresses “paramount importance of sending a clear message to all armed groups in the region – and to the victims of sexual violence in the DR Congo – that rape and other forms of sexual violence are unacceptable and will not be tolerated regardless of the circumstances”. “Congolese army officers are not above international criminal law”, and “Congo has clear international law obligations to do something effective to protect girls and women from sexual violence” added Sekombo.

Congo has clear international law obligations to do something effective to protect girls and women from sexual violence
Rather than receiving appropriate medical and psychosocial care, women and child survivors of rape and sexual violence in eastern Congo continue to face rejection and stigma while the perpetrators of the crime go unpunished. The MJPC has launched an online petition calling on the Congolese Government to put urgently in place a comprehensive program of compensation for the victims of sexual violence which will encourage victims of sexual violence in Eastern Congo to report perpetrators to police and to express their needs for access to medical treatment, psychological services and other social resources. The petition can be signed at http://www.gopetition.com.au/online/26180.html . “While no amount of money can reverse or address the impact of sexual violence on victims, the MJPC maintains that in this way, society at large, through the government, can acknowledge the humiliation suffered, shock and pain experienced by victims and provide the resources to help victims rebuild their lives.

About MJPC
MJPC is a non-profit organization working to add a voice in advocating for justice and peace in the DRC particulary in the east of DRC where thousands innocent civilian including children and women continue to suffer massive human rights violations while armed groups responsible for these crimes go unpunished.

We are three students who just completed the Master’s Programme in Leadership Towards Sustainability at Blekinge Technical Institute in Karlskrona, Sweden.

As a diverse group; a Greek, a Brazilian and a Canadian of different ages, with varying degrees of experience in the field, for the past several months we’ve been working closely together on a thesis project aimed understanding how strategic approaches to sustainability might be better incorporated in the field of international development assistance. Specifically we’ve focussed on current and possible sustainability strategies of bilateral ODA donor agencies like DFID, CIDA, SIDA, USAID, etc.

Your podcast was discovered during our initial literature review and was a valuable asset in enhancing our understanding of some of the currently held expert opinions on the challenges facing the improvement of ODA effectiveness. We were also alerted to some new and relevant areas of research. It was a relief to hear being debated on your show the same essential concerns that we’d been discussing around issues like donor and recipient accountability, conditionality, and ownership.

After a recent opposition and defence of our work in which much of the discussion focussed on the likelihood, or ability of bilateral donors to accept experimental planning strategies, it was extremely interesting to listen to your recent episode on philanthropy.

The notion of flexible smaller organizations lacking the accountability of a governmental agency is something we hadn’t thought much about, but which is both compelling (re: flexibility) and worrisome (re: lack of accountability) for the reasons discussed on the show. Listened to the discussion, it occurred to us that the sustainability planning model we’ve developed might actually be better suited to such organizations because it is at the same time quite experimental but based on restraint-based precautionary principles. Our Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development Assistance is firmly rooted in a constraints-based approach to planning toward sustainability. In such a case where donors are not subject to political mechanisms of accountability it seems that a definition of sustainability based on a concrete set of constraints might be exactly what is needed to mitigate risk of unforeseen negative consequences.

Obviously you are a busy man, but if you’ve got time we’d love to send you a copy of our work, the brief summary we’ve been sending to various professors and experts. If you are at all interested, please provide us with an email address to send to.

Thank you,

Antonios Balaskas

Eduardo Nunes de Lima

Tyler Seed

Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/

Question from me would be how Africa can leverage its great technological initiatives – especially around mobiles – to win business/exports from the ‘west’ and build up this sector.

Like Jacob, I really enjoy your podcasts and think the length is about right (any shorter and you’d loose depth; and longer and they’d require multiple sessions to get through). The level of technicality also works for me – interesting in the areas I know something about (Aid, for example), but also still intelligible in the areas about which I know nothing (ICC, ICJ, etc).

In terms of suggestions for who to interview:

Robert Wade or Dani Rodrik would be great on the development impacts of the financial crisis (and more generally on the non-aid related aspects of international development).

On aid, personally, I think people investigating what works and what doesn’t are more interesting than people with blanket views such as Moyo. Maybe someone from CGD’s What Works Group (Ruth Levine et al) or MIT’s Poverty Lab.

Having said all that, your picks so far have been excellent – really enjoying the podcast.

I have invited Moyo but her publicist turned it down. I’ll try again.

I would like to start by saying that I think that this is a wonderful podcast, and I have not missed an episode. You not only are my main outlet from in-depth development news, but your engaging podcasts have increased my interest in development.

Now to answer your questions:

I feel that the length of your podcasts are great, I usually listen to them during my commute and I imagine most of your other listeners will as well.

I think the level of technicality is good; if it were too technical I would probably not be about to whole-hearty pay attention and drive. Plus, your current level of technicality makes the podcast very accessible.

As far as content goes, I think it is always, intriguing and thought provoking. However, the one qualm I have is that Aid seems to be covered somewhat redundantly. Now, I understand that Aid is a sexy topic, is always in the news, and therefore, is going to be in a podcast discussing Development News. However, I still feel that there are a plethora of current development topics out there to discuss that play are equally or even more pivotal to the development process than aid.

As for further topics, I would personally be interested in podcasts discussing Trade, Agriculture or where these two topics meet, namely, agriculture subsides. More specifically, I think a show discussing the outlook of trade reform in light of the increased protectionism due to the financial crisis would be interesting. The show could also touch on the giant agriculture subsides in the USA and EU that seem to do only one thing efficiently, keep agriculture focused developing countries out of world markets. (I know you have done a show in the past about the financial crisis, however, I really just want a podcast on Trade and the financial crisis seems like a good platform to begin this discussion).

One person I would like to hear on your show is Dambisa Moyo. Now I know I just talked about how there is too much aid talk, however, I would really like to hear you interview her as I think that interview would be very engaging and interesting, as it seems that your opinions on aid differ a bit.

Finally, since information is everything in economics, I thought I might tell you a little about me so you know your viewers. I have BA in economics and will be attending a master’s program this fall in either economics of agriculture and resource economics, I hope this master’s will lead to a PhD as I would love to be a researcher at IFPRI or WB. I was already deeply interested and somewhat well versed in development economics before I discovered your podcast, however, your podcast has definitely increased my knowledge. Also, I live in a suburb of Chicago.

Hope this helps some, and keep you the good work.

The peace settlement in Liberia included a safe conduct for Charles Taylor to go into exile in Nigeria — but that promise was dishonoured when Nigeria came under huge international pressure to hand Taylor over for trial by an international tribunal, another blow to hopes of a similar civilised settlement in future conflicts, since after Taylor, it will be more difficult to establish trust in any promise of a safe conduct and exile.

This (to my mind) significant objection to international indictments of such heads of state as those of Sudan or Zimbabwe was touched on in the excellent Development Drums episode on this subject, but I thought it deserved fuller discussion and greater weight.

Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/

I would like to comment on the narrative on the financial crisis impact on Africa. The narrative which seems to be agreed is that the crisis is having a huge impact on Africa. Africa, which contributed least to the crisis, will be impacted most as poorest countries are the most vulnerable. This is the same as the narrative on the climate change crisis which Simon Maxwell speaks so eloquently about.

An alternative narrative might be that the crisis has had a massive impact on the export earnings of the oil producers, most notably Nigeria and Angola. These impacts are large enough to reduce the estimates of aggregate growth of Africa quite substantially. Estimates of increased numbers in poverty may not be very accurate because much of this oil revenue would not have gone into poverty reduction anyway (remember the curse?). But other countries in Africa have much smaller impacts – and for quite a few the impacts are positive because the fall in oil import costs and food import prices is greater than the loss of other financial flows. (Earlier in 2008 we heard a lot about how terrible the impact of the rise in food and fuel prices was for Africa, but we are not hearing much about how great it is that this problem has been reversed).

A variant on the above storyline is that whilst the non oil producers have not seen much impact yet, the second round effects will be significant and negative, driven by falls in remittances, foreign investment, aid and demand for exports. We don’t yet have very good information on these second round effects – the timeframe or the depth of the impacts. If we act quickly to compensate, we may be able to offset the worst impacts.

Which narrative is best?

The big challenge of impact assessment for aid as a whole is the lack of the “counter factual”. What would have happened without the aid?

Jonathan criticises the policies encouraged by donors, but would the recipients have had a. better policies in the absence of aid; b. the same policies (because conditionality does not work) or c. worse policies (because donors are worse at deciding on sensible policies than developing country governments). All 3 are in practice true in different countries and times we do not have good enough evidence on the balance. And don’t forget that policies backed by conditions are not necessarily imposed against the will of the democratic government if the government also favours the reforms but welcomes the added help and discipline of the aid process to see the process through.

Structural adjustment was plainful and much criticised by the NGOs, but was necessary because policies were unsustainable. Without structural adjustment and IMF lending there would still have been a lot of poverty in Africa – possibly more in the long run and even the short run. Did the loans and changing policies lay the foundation for better macro policies and economic growth especially after 2000?

The accountability arguments are also complicated. Donors have recognised the problem, and focused on new and better aid principles which are known as “Paris” principles. Are the criticisms still as valid today as they were in the past? Can’t we have, and actually need, a lot of aid in fragile and landlocked African economies, but use it to nuture accountability rather than undermine it.

If we focused aid on the most capable countries (like Botswana, that Jonathan favours) we would reduce relatively speaking aid to the poor and on countries that need it most. Aid allocation models would sgguest more aid for fragile states like DRC, which have huge numbers of poor. Even though governance and aid effectiveness is lower, it is not so much lower that shifting more aid to the fragile states away from the emerging market and best governed ones, would be a good move from the overall poverty reduction impact.

Growth does not always lead to poverty reduction in the short run as inequality can increase, but in the long run growth is ususally seen as key – accounting for 80% of poverty reduction according to an oft cited paper by World Bank economists. Dutch disease needs to be managed but even the IMF agree that it is not a stumbling block to achieving the MDGs.

Fundamentally those that are skeptical should consider how we can accelerate development without aid. Trade, migration, and subsidies are all important but are they really alternatives, and will they deliver the sort of transofrmation that we need?

Not everyone agrees with Jeff Sachs, but I think he has a point that it does take some resources to achieve the MDGs and it is impossible to genereate the revenues needed if your GDP is $300 per person or less, leaving typically about 15% or $45 dollars per person to do everything (not just deliver the MDGs, which have been costed at more like $100 per person). What sort of health system can you deliver for $8 per person per year which is not untypical?

African countries face great challenges – more land-locked, terrible infrastructure, enormous health problems including HIV/AIDS, increadibly weak institutions. I agree with Owen that aid has actually been little rather than a lot, particularly given the context.

But Jonathan makes lots of good points – eg to focus on climate change, capital flight etc. Why can’t he (or better still, Bill Easterly) write a book on “how to develop Africa” rather than “the trouble with aid”. Get on to the positive agenda/focus on solutions. Is it because this gets less media attention and sells fewer books?

(Although I work for DFID these are personal comments).

Great job Owen – my comments are rather superfluous to the good arguments you made, but I thought it worth trying to stimulate some active debate.

A “soft cap” on military expenditure I find befuddling. Is this a “tax” applied at source or point of use? The “benign hegemon” makes/ buys lots of weapons for “defence” to “increase stability” , but as we know, then uses them in “pre-emptive” actions which it argues are legitimate. So the legitmacy of how many weapons you have and how you use them is a fuzzy yardstick, and unlikely to be swallowed when it means loosing aid.

How to cope with the looming brush of aid hypocrisy? What of a podcast about “witholding aid” rather than giving it….as a legitimate act of “retorsion” ?
regards

melvin

Thanks. Fair point.

But this isn’t meant to be Hard Talk. I do want people to have the chance to get their point across, and not simply to give them a rough ride.

Owen