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

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those who stand to lose from a diminution of project aid, and there will be
those who stand to gain by different divisions of the overall budget, etc.
Second, dialogue is loaded by alternative postures vis à vis the different
development partners and their particular involvement and histories of cooperation
with the country. Thirdly, it is loaded by other budgetary demands
made on the government quite outside the ‘development’ context,
which do not appear on the ‘radar screen’ of the aid professionals.
Topics
Recipient country weaknesses: the need for capacity development
The new aid modalities require increased dialogue. However, it is not always
clear that the dialogue takes place in earnest, despite the good intentions
of the development agencies in attempting to ensure national ownership
and responsibility and thereby, hopefully, sustainability of programmes.
This is because aid recipients cover a wide spectrum, and the least needy are
likely to have the greatest capacity to engage more seriously and effectively
in dialogue. So, typically, dialogue, and the flow of programmatic funding,
necessitates considerable capacity building. Sometimes this capacity building
appears as disguised conditionalities, even when agreed by all. For instance,
it may be a requirement that World Bank procurement procedures
are followed, and in order to adapt the national system satisfactorily, an
international ‘expert’ comes as part of the overall package. Very typically,
financial management systems require reform, not least in sectoral ministries
which have not traditionally managed development budgets, relying
only on recurrent expenditure budgets for so long. Consequently, planning
within the framework of longer term development needs has become a
barren exercise, hardly carried out beyond the delineation of particular percentage
hikes from the previous year’s budget. Thus, activity-based planning
and budgeting and the development of medium term expenditure plans
that attempt to match resources with development needs is frequently a
new area for skills development, requiring a package of reforms to be negotiated
as a first stage of necessary capacity building.
Capacity building is nothing new; the rhetoric surrounding its implementation
may be, but capacity building has been a fundamental part of
development co-operation since the earliest stages of such assistance. What is
different in the new aid modalities is that typically, it is seen as part of the
overall strengthening of government systems, and not merely a temporary
‘shot in the arm’, as an adjunct to a project. However, the modalities of
technical assistance have not really changed, despite their wider remit in
current programmatic aid. So capacities have to be developed to ensure ’real’
dialogue, but only rarely is it asked how the recipient government can be in
control when the judgements are being made precisely of its incapacity.