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

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Overall, information databases created and maintained by authoritative institutions
in the North with substantial economic leverage and ideological
influence are most likely to reinforce existing power relations, both within
and across countries.
(vii) Compared to project support, sector support has both important advantages
and the potential for important disadvantages.
Addressing the entire education sector (or sub-sector) rather than individual
projects ought to facilitate a holistic approach to education as an integrated
system in which each of the elements affects all of the others. Clearly, it
makes good sense to strengthen the links between reforms in, say, teacher
education to developments in the preparation of instructional materials.
Similarly, efforts to increase enrollment among females will require attention
to school location, and construction, to curriculum and pedagogy, to
textbooks and wall charts, and to management and administration. When
managed effectively sectoral support highlights the links among problems
and thereby reduces the risk that problems in one area will impede or undermine
policies or programs in other areas. Sectoral support also provides a
foundation for greater coordination of the aid provided by external funding
and technical assistance agencies within a framework established by the
national education leadership.
At the same time, much more than was the case with a focus on particular
projects, sectoral support legitimizes external intervention throughout the
education sector, including policies and activities that receive no external
support. An external agency, for example, may insist on reviewing policies
and programs in, say, special education, even though it has no direct role and
plans no direct role in special education. The education ministry’s objection
that the insistence is inappropriate since that agency has not been asked to
support special education is likely to be overruled. Sectoral support becomes
a warrant for all agencies to intervene in all areas. Within a sectoral
approach, the national leadership may find it much more difficult to pursue
policies in particular areas that are at odds with the priorities and preferences
of the external agencies, even though there has been no request for
foreign support in those areas.
(viii) The background, experiences, preparation, expectations, style, and sensitivity
of key officials of the government and of the funding and technical
assistance agencies generally have greater impact on the nature of the aid
relationship and on the nature of development co-operation than the formal
approach to education assistance.
Formally, approaches to education assistance have changed over time. We have
been concerned with what has been described as a transition from project
support to programmatic or sectoral support. Whether or not within a sectoral