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Evaluating Country Programmes
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Experiences
The participatory, field-oriented approach gradually unveiled unexpected advantages.
It produced positive side-effects with respect to communication and publicity, development
of a sense of ownership, collective learning, etc., the impact of which should not be underestimated.
In addition, it encouraged and enabled taking immediate measures regarding
unsatisfactory projects. Several of them were terminated during the review period, others
started a process of reorientation or phasing-out. Progressively confronted with time and
motivation constraints, participants were forced to come down from fantasy to reality and to
up-value the workshops as an instrument good enough to produce single-handedly most of
the inputs needed for the reformation of the concept. Thus, the initially ambitious, complex
and time-consuming review gradually became simple and inexpensive.
The endeavour had also its disappointments, especially in the “vision” part. The plan to
commission a documentary study on socio-economic development trends and scenarios of
Bangladesh was abandoned because the investment finally looked disproportionate compared
to the expected practical results. The idea instead to ask a selection of Bangladeshi
personalities to write down their own “realistically optimistic” assessment of the future of
Bangladesh failed to yield results because the persons approached did not come forward
with their vision. This negative experience might reveal something important about the local
culture. Where tradition, habits and the pressing needs of the immediate future shape the
collective pattern of behaviour, the mental inclination to try to anticipate the future through
the self-selected parameters of a personal vision is perhaps simply not very widespread.
Finally, the authors of the review came to realise how little they know about the “social factory”
of the host country, especially how its institutions are functioning, and what are the
sources of motivations and energy of the people.
OECD 1999