Dialogue in Pursuit of Development - Are you looking for one of ...

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transaction costs for the government and the donors are reduced. Here decentralised
decisions and flexibility on the side of the donor community are
important for an improved and informed dialogue with the Government.
With increased decentralisation of decision making to the field offices,
and donor harmonisation at the country level, the dialogue tends to become
an ongoing process, much more closely integrated in the budget preparation
and implementation. The need for annual consultations and other
high level meetings as platforms for the dialogue is thus reduced.
Two different trends in the dialogue process thus are evident. One is the
integration of a low-key and continuous dialogue into the Tanzanian budget
process, providing a very good opportunity for constructive co-operation and
reduced transaction costs. The other is a more defensive and potentially trusteroding
discussion based on some contentious issues in the realm of governance
and democracy, together with a growing concern among donors that
Tanzania once more may show itself as an expert at the correct policy formulations,
while the implementation is slow. To this can be added an increasing
critique against anything ‘foreign’ in the Tanzanian public debate. The relative
strength of these two trends will decide which direction the relations and the
trust between Tanzania and its co-operating partners will take.
The role of NEPAD
Finally, the question can be asked, if NEPAD (New Economic Partnership
for African Development) provides the framework for a new type of dialogue.
Will some of the issues that are contentious at the national level be
more easily resolved at a regional level? It is obvious that as an African
initiative NEPAD has better chances to involve itself in national governance
issues with less defensive reactions from the governments implied.
Here is one of the main attractions of NEPAD to the donor community.
Should NEPAD not be able to take on this role it may still be a platform for
dialogue on dimensions beyond the aggregated national dialogue issues.
In a widely reported speech at a symposium in Addis Abeba (27 May
2002), the prime minister of Ethiopia, Ato Meles Zenawi, argued: “The focus
of our dialogue in the context of NEPAD with our development partners
must therefore not be on the specifics of their obligations for Africa’s
development, but on the full recognition of their direct and material interest
in it. Once we have consensus on the underlying interest, achieving
consensus on the specifics will not be all that difficult.” The initiators of
NEPAD seem to envisage a dialogue at the highest policy level, rather than
on what Prime Minister Zenawi calls ‘the specifics’. It is too early to assess
the potential of NEPAD as a lever for Africa in the international development
dialogue. If it does not deliver on issues like good governance and
peer review, the present problems at the national level may just be magnified
in a global context.