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

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can be direct and indirect, obvious and very subtle. Formal conditions for
foreign aid are the clearest but not the only forms. Throughout Africa we
find programs and priorities that frank local observers insist would not have
been adopted or assigned high priority without external pressure (girls’
education and environmental education are common examples). That perspective
should not surprise us. By their nature, external funding agencies
are structurally obliged to impose conditions and assert influence. By their
training and socialization, agency officials are expected to know what is
best, what works and what does not, and what ought to be done. Aid conditions
– the antithesis of country led development – are essential to progress.
In addition, country led development requires a strong and assertive national
leadership that is willing on occasion to terminate negotiations or
even a funded program rather than acquiesce to external direction. Structurally,
however, the large gap to be closed where many school-aged children
are not in school and many adults remain unable to read and write
comfortably increases the reliance on external funding. A government that
jeopardizes that funding puts its entire development agenda and perhaps
itself at risk. That in turn leads the education ministries regularly to defer to
the external agencies: “Everything they do is directed by one agency or
another. MEBA [the Ministry of Basic Education and Literacy in Burkina
Faso] is not yet strong enough to insist on what it wants.”
Experiences from Burkina Faso:
Indeed, in both written documents and comments during our discussions,
agency personnel were generally quite critical of the Ten Year Plan. Asked to
comment on a revised draft, agency representatives noted that it was an
improvement over earlier versions but still lacked focus and coherence. Their
language was pointed. It is “off the mark on important points”. “It does not
recognize or frame sharply the strategic choices to be made.” “It lacks important
options.” The content and tone of their response was both striking and
revealing. Writing to the government, the external agencies announced what
ought to be done or what should be done, both in terms of the document
and its education policies: Chaque document devrait avoir.... On the eve of
its adoption, they proposed a fundamental reorganization of the document.
That duality appeared clearly throughout our discussions on the preparation
of Burkina Faso’s Ten Year Plan for the Development of Basic Education.
Notwithstanding reaffirmations of the importance of country led development
and of instructing less and listening more, at least some agencies
continued to assert an explicitly directive leadership role. As their recent
communication show, their language is that of instructor rather than partner.
External constraints and influences can be direct and indirect, obvious
and very subtle. Formal conditions for foreign aid are the clearest but not
the only forms. Several people told us of programmes and priorities that in
their view would not have been adopted without external pressure.