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

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During the period of his presidency at the World Bank, Robert McNamara
decided that rural development would be the chosen priority of the Bank
for the developing countries, particularly in Africa. Export agriculture was
at the centrepiece of this policy. All countries benefiting from bank resources
were required to change their national priorities in order to accommodate
Mr. McNamara’s desire. As a result, many countries had to shift
priorities from health and education which could have had a more sustainable
effect on the population. Several years after Mr. McNamara’s policy
was introduced, the world market prices for primary products collapsed
bringing into reversal the gains of the years dedicated to the rural development
focus. Education and literacy became the victims of this unsuccessful
World Bank policy.
cies programs and performance. Many participating institutes have made it
clear that this mechanism which is dominated by the donors is a major inhibiting
factor on the quality of partnership dialogue and/ or the ownership
and participation by the aid beneficiary.
The United Nations system
Important partners in the development dialogue are the several agencies of
the United Nations system which have the general advantage of residency
in the beneficiary country. Continuing interaction with country representatives
on development is supplemented by the round table consultative
mechanism. Unlike the consultative group, the round table is intended to
provide the opportunity for true dialogue in that it allows full participation
of both donor and beneficiaries. However, the limited capacity of UN agency
representatives has constrained the quality of the dialogue as well as the
supporting studies and analysis upon which this is based. This in turn has
limited the support of the bilateral partners for the round table process.
As the major delivery vehicle for humanitarian assistance, either directly
or through NGOs, the United Nations has become a major proponent of
humanitarian aid, thereby crowding out resources that would otherwise be
directed to development assistance. In turn, the productive effort and capacities
of the beneficiary countries have been undermined, forcing them
to become increasingly dependent upon aid. The contradiction between
humanitarian and development assistance has a long history, going back to
the 1950s when the United States introduced the delivery of rice and other
grains under the PL480 program. It is argued that the same principle is
applied to current food programs of the UN System whose primary objective
is to support the agriculture policies of the US and the European Union,
thereby enabling them to reduce the level of their surplus food stocks.
An attempt by the UN to interconnect humanitarian and development as-