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

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by drawing from the field level experiences, a thorough discussion and exchange
of opinions and ideas and values from the grassroots all the way up
to the national policy makers. It is in this model that one finds today the
very much appreciated participatory approach involving the target group,
the rural poor.
Over time, this dialogue resulted in the social mobilisation methodologies
now adopted by multilateral donors such as the World Bank. Thus, one
could say that Sri Lanka’s IRDP went through a full cycle of dialogue, with
the World Bank influencing the first replicable project model from which
the other bilaterals took the basic framework to which they applied a process
of dialogue. The World Bank project now promotes social mobilization
as a basic requirement to ensure beneficiary participation. On the recipient
side a very hard bargaining process can be recalled in the Sida supported
Matara project. It almost came to a halt when the demands from the midterm
mission on defining the target – the poor – were too restrictive. Funding
drastically tapered off to a minimum level for over a year. As a result of
a more favourable turn of events it picked up again with the next mission.
The dialogue was then led by a rural development consultant with Asian
background from Uppsala University. There was more give and take because
both parties loosened up their dogmatic standpoints.
Project implementation stage: structures, ideas and people
There were periodic exercises at the field level on a quarterly, annual and
also a three year project cycle basis with participation from the donor headquarters
and the country missions, the recipient headquarters, and at the
field level the district administrative head and the project functionaries.
These events were scheduled one year ahead of time thus bringing in the
culture of preparation for talks which was rather foreign to the local functionaries.
The professionally supported documentation of the progress and
experiences gave the background information for a structured formal dialogue
sometimes continuing for a full day, with joint calling for explanations,
taking decisions and giving directions. The proceedings were recorded
and gone through, word by word, and agreed upon before circulation. This
is the flesh and blood of the dialogue in development.
The quarterly events at the project level were capped up with a national
dialogue, a national steering committee for the whole of IRDP which brought
together more than ten projects and perhaps an equal number of donors.
This was a development dialogue at its best bringing issues from the local
level to a national forum for a dialogue contributing to and leading towards
national policy.
These meetings brought together the heads of national institutions related
to the issues to be discussed on the agenda. The preparation of the
agenda itself also took the form of a dialogue through calling for issues and