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

The lesson of experience with the policy dialogue in the 1990s is that
imposing policy reform from the outside – sometimes referred to as a ‘monologue
plus money’ – is by itself an ineffective approach.
Policy reform, if introduced on that basis, is usually short-lived. It is
now generally accepted that strong domestic ‘ownership’ of policy reform
programmes – including wide political support – is the key to their successful
implementation and to the sustainability of its results. Rather than
being imposed, policy reform needs to be ‘embraced’, is the commonly
accepted conclusion of the 1990s. Donors have contributed to the embracing
of policy reform in several ways. First by ‘going upstream’ through
‘collaborative economic work programmes’. The latter included the joint
review of a country’s economic situation and prospects (which permitted
the dissemination of lessons of experience learned elsewhere), the conducting
with World Bank help, of public expenditure reviews, the provision
of technical expertise by the IMF through its consultations missions,
statistical missions from the IMF, and technical assistance provided by the
IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department. Of particular importance is that, in the
future, lead donors (including bilateral donors) could more effectively share
with the recipient government their knowledge and experience of the
magnitude and speed of change that was politically acceptable in other
countries, and, perhaps even more important, what was not acceptable elsewhere
The introduction of a peer review process may be helpful in this
regard. 7 This is so important because donors (and developing countries’
In Zambia several attempts at policy reform in the 1980s were frustrated by
this phenomenon. In 1991, when reviewing the history of economic reform
in Zambia, Professors Phillips and Burrell, both CIDA-provided economic
advisers to former President Kenneth Kaunda, made the following points:
“Most of us who were involved in pushing for reform failed to appreciate
how truly difficult reform was bound to be to implement, given the institutional
and political limitations in Zambia.”
“With hindsight it appears to us that the President was a victim of the
same syndrome that struck ourselves, the Bank and Fund and bilateral donors
as well, from time to time – an excessive case of over-optimism bordering
on self-delusion.”
“The whole process by which these programmes are negotiated tends to
encourage all parties to go beyond what is probably realistically possible,
and then express surprise when it cannot be pulled off.”
Source: Phillips, Dr. Allan, and Brunell, Peter (1991) “Review of Zambian Economic
Advisory Services (1966–1991)”, CIDA Report, Ottawa, 1991.
7 Often the staff of Bretton Woods Institutions are reproached for not having ‘political experience’.
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