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funds, especially towards meeting international development targets, but
some of them sit around the table concerned only with education and monies
cannot be disbursed because of the fiduciary risks. Thus, the road to
effective financial management in the education sector is a long one. Meanwhile
the development bank representatives are worried that no loans have
been committed, or if committed, little disbursement has taken place due
to the weak procurement and financial management systems. However, the
wider public sector reform that would bring about such improved financial
management is even longer in coming.
None of the issues raised here means that individual partners do not appreciate
the constraints on their respective abilities to conduct dialogue freely
and openly. Rather, they exemplify the importance of wider issues and their
influences. One could add lots of other, and by no means atypical, constraints,
such as a strong teachers’ union and the threat or actuality of a strike, the large
staff mobility within the respective ministries and development agencies, resulting
in changes in personalities around the table, the fact that ministry
officials are also juggling the demands of development partners not currently
around the programmatic aid table, such as JICA and USAID.
Some of these problems can be highlighted through the additional example
of the very early use of programmatic aid in Namibia in the early 90s.
In this instance, monies had been committed by USAID for basic education,
and the time had come to determine the indicators by which progress
would be judged. USAID representatives sat around a table with several
Ministry of Education staff, including the Minister. A fierce debate ensued
over each indicator suggested because the Ministry staff felt that the lack of
trust between the two development partners was so great that choosing
indicators was like selecting a noose with which to hang themselves. Without
minimal trust, even seemingly neutral indicators can be vigorously contested.
Development community weaknesses: the need for policy
harmonisation
Besides the weakness of recipient governments and other stakeholders or
the importance of trust in development co-operation, there is also the issue
of weaknesses amongst the development community regarding the coordination
of its efforts. Although one of the aims of the new programmatic aid
modalities is to reduce the transaction costs for recipient countries as well as
to make aid more effective, there are few instances in which the whole
development community in any one country is contributing solely to programmatic
aid or loans – not least, for some of the reasons given above.
Even in contexts in which there are sound government systems, donor harmonisation
does not always follow, not even amongst the so-called likeminded
donors4 , all of which support programmatic aid. In practice there are