Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals ...

Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals
fourth is that donors can more easily follow, and gain influence on, the
strategies of their partner countries when they are active in only a limited
number of sectors, which they are then free to deal with more intensively.
And fifth, having to negotiate with only a few donors in each sector also
eases the burden on partner countries.
Moreover, it may be wholly rational for donors to refrain completely from
engagement in given sectors, even though levels of urgency to solve problems
may be very high in them. The reason for this is that development
problems may have very different causes. It is, for instance, conceivable
that a developing country would be entirely able to solve a given problem
on its own, and that it simply lacks the willingness to do so. In situations
of this kind DC is neither called for nor reasonable.
It may e.g. be assumed that at least the middle-income MENA countries
have capacities sufficient to improve their population’s access to modern
information and communications technologies. And to do so they need
neither financial nor administrative support from donors. They have, however,
evidently set other priorities. Whether or not it makes sense to engage
in DC in the sector information and communications technologies
will depend on how reasonable these priorities may appear to be.
The question is quite similar when we look at the three other sectors
named above, in which there is at present very little DC, namely the sectors
governance, gender equality, and quality of education. It is entirely
conceivable that DC could at least facilitate or accelerate reforms in these
three sectors. However, there are doubts as to whether the governments of
the MENA countries are in fact interested in such reforms. These being
sensitive sectors, it is essential that this question be answered before any
thought is given to DC in the sectors governance, gender, or education.
DC conducted against the express will of the rulers in partner countries
will tend to be more or less powerless DC, and it may even entail negative
impacts. On the other hand, these are three very important sectors, and DC
cannot simply dodge engagement in them by pointing to the inadequate
disposition of partner countries to solve their socioeconomic problems. In
government-level talks, donors must regularly and persistently address the
problems encountered in these three sectors, emphatically calling for reforms.
Furthermore, it is essential for donors to look for subsectors in
which partner countries have no objections to reforms and to DC and
which hold promise of at least partial improvements. If need be, though,
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