Transcript Day 1 - Session 3 - Project vs. Programmatic aid

Project vs. Programmatic Aid:
What role for civil society with the
growing ‘governmentalisation’ of
aid?
Rosalind Eyben
ODI Workshop
Southern Voices for Change in the
International Aid System
Is aid more than delivering
money ?
MDGs
Different approaches to
international aid
•
•
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•
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Managerial
Financial
Political economy
Post development
Relational - citizenship
International relations
The
world
of aid
Donor country
civil society &
INGOs
Donor
government
Recipient
government
Local civil
society
Multilateral
agencies
What are we talking about?
• A systemic or structural approach?
• The ODI background paper considers
architecture, procedures and rules
• A systemic approach privileges meanings and
relationships in which an explicit recognition of
power is central
• Is the noted lack of Southern civil society
involvement in the aid effectiveness discussions
an outcome of the paradigm already being
constructed?
Issues that shape this debate
• Power and relations in international aid;
• The connections and feedback loops
between purposive efforts to change
society and how history happens;
• Concepts of policy making: as a piece of
paper that gets implemented or as a never
continuously re-negotiated process;
• Can a government and its international
donors ‘deliver’ change?
My re-phrasing of the question
• Is this a question of which aid
instruments privilege civil society
involvement ?
• Or how do we deliberate to understand
and design aid for supporting
processes of inclusive citizenship?
I hide the project because
the programme manager
would be worried because
there are no measurable
results and nothing happens
beyond the local”
Voices from
DFID
“Why are changes in
a policy matrix more
significant than a
change in the life of
a community?”
Investing in relationships as much
as outcomes
• Understand the specific context,
• Identify and invest in relationships with
individuals, organisations and networks
seeking progressive change;
• Provide the human resources to create,
support and strengthen alliances, bringing
ideas as well as money.
• Be aware that there is no necessary
correlation between the amount of money
provided and the magnitude of the impact.
• Respond to the historical landscape of power
within which the aid relationship is placed;
Making a difference through
relationships
Aid agencies can make a difference not only
through formal interventions related to
objectives but through the relationships
and influence they have on others, the
values they represent and spread and how
the worth of their intervention is judged by
others
Relationships
Matter
Positive change
for poor people
Investing in
relationships
Donor
people and
money
Understanding
the context
Aid instruments: people and money
• Thus, support to the design and
implementation of a national poverty
reduction strategy, in addition to general
budget support it would involve
considerable staff resources supported by
small financial investments in facilitating
relationships and supporting those working
for change within the country as a whole.
Small scale and relatively low cost
interventions
• Designed with local partners (in or outside
government) on the basis of a problem
diagnosis that may be dissimilar from that of
actors in other parts of the system.
• It means donors playing a role in
encouraging rather than suppressing
alternative perspectives - being prepared to
recognise that harmonised diagnostic
assessments, as proposed by the Paris
Declaration, may be counter-productive to
securing the desired impact.
Embracing diversity
• 'Donor complementarity' would thus imply
not simply providing aid to different sectors
or with different aid instruments in support
of an agreed diagnosis, but readiness to
support variously positioned local actors
whose diagnosis of the problem may be
different. Contestation and (non-violent)
conflict is an important means to pro-poor
change
Valuing the relationship as much as
the outcome
• But this is more than a choice of a
particular instrument to meet a particular
end. For such an approach to work means
valuing how and with whom you work as
well as the goal you are seeking to
achieve. It also requires experimentation
and double loop learning.
Aid is not a catalyst
• Seeing aid as a catalyst implies the donor is
capable of intervening without being affected
and influenced by the patterns of relationships of
which its organisation and staff are part and that
are promoting or blocking pro-poor change in
the recipient country. Being ready to being
open, rather than resisting being influenced by
local actors encourages a donor agency to
examine more closely with whom it chooses to
relate and which networks of relationships to
support