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The Swedish government elaborated on these principles in a report to
Parliament in 1998 on partnerships in Africa, entitled Africa on the Move
(MFA, 1998:8). The report suggested some very ambitious principles for
giving more power to the recipient side, by allowing the their governments
to formulate their own strategies and policies and by adjusting the methods
of resource transfer to the capacities at the receiving end. While some of
these statements were quite radical and signified departure from some of
the practices referred to above, the report also contained pronunciations
which pointed in another direction. A condition for partnership should be
‘shared values’, among which a respect for human rights was paramount.
There were also references to past over-reliance on state intervention in the
economy, clearly based on values which Sweden no longer shared. The apparent
dilemma of basing ‘empowerment’ on ‘shared values’ was later resolved
by a Parliamentary Commission on Swedish Policy for Global Development,
which suggested that Sweden should limit its bilateral aid to
countries whose governments make credible efforts to reach the development
objectives laid down by Parliament. An open, transparent and equal
dialogue will be required to manage flexible aid forms like SWAPs, budget
support and debt relief that could be extended to this select group of partners
(Globkom, 2001).
The inter-governmental dialogue is fraught with political and institutional
contradictions, and these policy statements show that even a well-meaning
donor has difficulties in balancing all the interests and concerns involved.
To this must be added the deeper dimensions of stakeholder participation.
Even when the two government partners feel that their partnership functions
excellently and the playing field is level, local communities, lower
levels of the administration, NGOs and other stakeholders may feel left out
of the loop and dissatisfaction may already be spreading from the bottom
up. A recent evaluation of a Sida-funded area development programme in
Ethiopia showed an exceptionally high degree of government ownership,
but the project had been appropriated by the Ministry of Finance to the
detriment of the poor peasants who were supposed to be the ‘target group’
of the activity (ODI, 2002). The Swedish side was reluctant to interfere in
what was seen as an internal Ethiopian management question. A good and
well-established partnership like the one between Sweden and Ethiopia
should however, allow open discussion of such a matter, in particular since it
impinges on the outcome of the project as a whole.
Dialogue at the professional and technical level
One reason for the bilateral donors’ attraction to project aid has traditionally
been that the aid relationship need not be encumbered by politically
charged discussions about macro policy. It was long believed that whatever
the macro policy framework and the political situation, it would always be
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