… in which
we explore how procedures intended to make aid more
transparent
and consistent become complicated, rigid, and counterproductive,
reducing
efficiency and effectiveness and wasting both time and money.
Standardizing
Procedures: The Rationale in Brief
To see full document
Organizations
adopt procedures for good reasons. Procedures streamline and simplify recurring
aspects of work. They support standards of consistency, predictability, and
fairness by clarifying the rules for all actors. They facilitate orientation of
new staff and
partners to institutional standards.
International
assistance organizations are no exception. Individually and collectively,
aid
donors and aid agencies have developed standardized processes to translate
their
policies into efficient and effective field practice. Many have enacted
internal
management
procedures, fiscal procedures, assessment procedures, procurement
procedures,
and beneficiary selection procedures, among others. There are
monitoring
and evaluation procedures and even procedures for evaluating the
effectiveness
of organizational procedures. 6
People in aid-recipient societies also value the predictability and clarity that these
People in aid-recipient societies also value the predictability and clarity that these
agency
procedures are intended to provide. They, too, want to have standards
and rules
of behavior that they can rely on and work with, and to which they can
hold
agencies accountable. In the context of international assistance, procedures
are
important for ensuringthat the institution and its entire staff remain
committed to
the
organization’s priorities and accountable for the fundamental principles that
underlie
“best practice.” These principles, agreed to
by most aid providers and aid recipients,
include
participation of local actors in all phases of project design, implementation,
and
evaluation; promotion of local ownership; sustainability of results; equitable
distribution
of benefits; and mutual accountability.7
Many also point to the importance of contextual knowledge in pursuing these principles. Without common procedures, programming decisions can be ad hoc, optional, unpredictable,
Many also point to the importance of contextual knowledge in pursuing these principles. Without common procedures, programming decisions can be ad hoc, optional, unpredictable,
subject
to manipulation, and dependent on individual improvisation, which can
vary
widely based on experience, proclivity, and knowledge.
Since
everyone agrees on the principles that undergird good assistance and
everyone
agrees that procedures are needed to ensure commitment to these
principles,
one would expect that good procedures should lead to better results.
Some have
done so, serving both providers and receivers of assistance well by
increasing
transparency and fairness in the delivery of aid. However, repeatedly and
across
all contexts, people on both giving and receiving sides describe a downside
to the
growing numbers and complexity of international assistance procedures.
The
Downside: Proceduralization
Providers
and recipients of assistance describe procedures that “take too much
time” and
are “inflexible,” “too complicated,” or “counterproductive.” Many
talk
about the ways that “tick-the-box” processes become so dominant that aid
organizations
and workers lose sight of the very values that these processes were
intended
to support. They also obscure contextual differences and limit adaptations
to
changing circumstances. Providers and recipients frequently describe how rigid
templates
for planning and evaluation obstruct creativity and innovation, and lead,
instead,
to pre-packaged and irrelevant or unwelcome projects.
“We all know that in
order to reach the external aid resources,
management and administrative
procedures are required and we poor
people don’t have the
time for carrying out so many procedures”
-
Afro-Ecuadorian neighborhood leader, Ecuador
When donors or aid agencies assume that efficiency (presumed to be embedded in
procedures)
inevitably leads to effectiveness, they confuse compliance with systems
for
achievement of results. They focus their monitoring and evaluation attention
on
whether the boxes have been ticked rather than on whether the intended
outcomes
and impacts have been achieved. Aid providers and recipients describe
how
procedures can, and do, sometimes undermine efficiency rooted in simple
and clear
practice. In short, they describe how processes and methods meant to
improve
impacts have become so “proceduralized” that they are counterproductive.
We have
coined this quite awful word “proceduralization” (which we promise
not to
overuse!) to describe the codification of approaches that are meant to
accomplish
positive outcomes into mechanical checklists and templates that not
only fail
to achieve their intent but actually lead to even worse outcomes. The
word is
meant to resonate with “bureaucratization,” which describes the process
by which
bureaucracies that are developed to accomplish large tasks become rigid
and
unresponsive to human concerns and the people who work in them become
“bureaucrats”—often
used as a pejorative term—who impede rather than facilitate
accomplishment
of the original task or mission.8
When
relationships between aid providers and recipients are subsumed by
standardized
procedures that close off spontaneous and respectful interaction,
then we
can say that these relationships have become “proceduralized,” and the
values
that the procedures were intended to enable are lost.
“Donors
demand task-focused work. Staff would love to have
more time
to talk to people in the camp, to spend the night in
the camp.
But, we have reports due, with facts and numbers
and it
needs to be right to keep the funding coming.”
The
learning in this chapter comes from the people in recipient societies and
from
the
reflections of people involved in providing aid. Both have an interest in
ensuring
the
regular pursuit of the principles of good practice, and both see how many of
the
processes currently used to do so have become proceduralized. All want to
see this
corrected. Below, we describe how the principles of good practice are
pursued
through procedures and how these very often play out in the experiences
of aid
recipients and providers.
1.
Principles of Participation, Ownership, and Sustainability
The three
principles of participation, ownership, and sustainability are interlinked
cornerstones
of good practice and effective development, or peacebuilding. Some
also
argue that these same principles apply in humanitarian assistance because
when
recipients of emergency aid are involved in decisions about what they need
and how
it should best be provided—that is when humanitarian assistance is based
on and
supports people’s own capacities of response—it also can feed into and
support
sustainable development processes. Insiders (people in recipient societies)
and
outsiders (external aid providers) all observe that when people participate
in all
phases of an aid effort, from conception of the idea, to the design and
planning,
to implementation, and through final evaluation, they will “own” the
process
and therefore be more likely to maintain the results. Participation leads
to
ownership leads to sustainability. Most people at all levels of the aid
apparatus
agree to
this linkage.
“People are
either dependent on aid or they are engaged with
it—they are
participating. If people are not involved with the
project,
they will not own it and take care of it. If the people
are
invested in the development, they will take care of that
development.”
- A local
NGO staff person, Cambodia
The
linkage of these three principles—participation, ownership, and sustainability—is
confirmed
by positive and negative experience. That is, when people are thoroughly
involved
in planning and executing a project, they do own it and manage it for the
long
term. And, when they are not sufficiently involved, the reverse is true—little
or no
ownership exists and short-lived benefits result.
Even
though the international assistance community has developed procedures to
encourage
the participation of recipients in planning and implementing projects,
the vast
majority of people in recipient societies report that they do not feel
included
in the critical decisions about assistance they receive. In their experience,
many of
these decisions have been made before an aid agency arrives in their area
and there
are few, if any, opportunities to add their ideas as the effort unfolds.
In several
Ethiopian pastoralist communities, people said they were
very
engaged in the selection process and nomination of community
members
for skills training and that the participatory methods used
by the NGO
were appropriate and fair. Some recalled participating
in
meetings with experts or government people who came to talk to
them. They
saw some of their input later reflected in the projects and
talked
about open monthly meetings where they shared experiences
and identified
and prioritized problems. An NGO in this area supported
these
public meetings in an effort to revive the traditional system and
increase
transparency. [But in other areas] Some government officials said
that
international NGO projects are too donor-driven and that agencies
rarely
hold discussions with local governments on their budgets and
long-term
expectations.
People in
Kosovo offered examples of effective three-way communication
and
partnerships between communities, a municipality, and NGOs in which
the
community worked together with the NGO to prioritize projects and
carry out
implementation. The community and municipality also played an
active
role in the selection of contractors, and all stakeholders within the
community
were expected to contribute to the cost of implementation,
be it with
financial support or in-kind support. One person commented,
“Our
participation was very valuable—we wanted to own it. Even if we
did not
always have the material support, we gave the moral support.
That was
always, always there.” (Listening Project Report, Kosovo)
“This is
how the verb ‘to participate’ is conjugated: I participate.
You participate.
They decide.”
(An
indigenous businessman and grassroots development worker, Ecuador)
“Everything
is decided before you start the project. Some donors come
to us with
ready-made objectives so we have to channel them into our
objectives.
Once you get funded as a local NGO, you are strangled by
the
conditions you imposed on yourself in the proposal.”
(Local
NGO staff, Lebanon)
In Burma,
there was a widespread feeling that, because communities
were not
adequately involved in the early stages, they did not know
what to
expect of aid agencies and did not view the aid they brought
as
belonging to themselves … A project may be implemented in order
to suit
the needs of the organization, be it the need to implement a
certain
number or a specific type of project, regardless of whether
that
project will actually address a community need, or the need to
disburse
remaining funds before the end of a funding period. (Listening
Project
Report, Myanmar/Burma)
In
Bolivia, people commented on the importance of NGOs engaging
with them
in a participatory fashion, which encouraged and allowed
people’s
involvement in priority setting, project design, decision-making
and
management of participants, materials, and even funds. People also
voiced
disappointment, frustration, and even humiliation when NGOs
refused to
treat them in this manner and opted for a more vertical,
authoritarian,
top-down approach. (Listening
Project Report, Bolivia)
Proposal
and Funding Procedures
Aid
providers and people in recipient societies name international assistance
funding
procedures as the starting point of limited participation. Aid agencies need
resources
to do their work, so they appeal to donors. Donors need assurance that
aid
agencies have well-thought-through plans worthy of their funding. They need
to know
who will be helped, how, and with what inputs. They need specificity
about
expected results; they want to know how the agencies will report these
results,
often in the language of “benchmarks” or “indicators” of success included
in their
logframe analysis.
To get
funding, proposal-writing agencies therefore make some essential decisions
before
they can even put staff on the ground. Recipients say that donors and
agencies
talk about participatory development but do not provide time or financial
resources
to allow it. They ask why they see no procedures (and funding for them)
for
engaging recipients before proposals are submitted and funding allocations are
decided.
Further, because funding depends on proposals with a logical framework,
conceived
and elaborated by aid agency staff who, then, must submit donor
reports
demonstrating that their plan was “right,” little space remains for people
on the
receiving side to insert their analyses.
“INGOs have
good techniques but are weak in mobilizing the
community
people since they have limited time-frame. Not
all people
from community know well about the organization
and its
purpose, and when the field staff cannot explain well
to them,
misunderstanding occurred. Since they cannot build
the
capacity of the community people, the projects are not
sustainable.”
- Local
man, Myanmar/Burma
Pre-packaged
projects that arrive already designed and funded through proposal
and
funding procedures negate meaningful participation of recipients. Some people
also
point out that because proposal writing is a complicated procedure that takes
skills
they do not have, they must rely on others to do their proposals for them,
and this
further impedes broad involvement. In their experience, the procedures
for
proposing and getting funding for activities used by most aid agencies do not
really
encourage, or even allow, genuine participation.
Assessment
Procedures
Household
surveys, focus groups, questionnaires, and community meetings are
procedures
that aid providers use to identify needs, learn about local conditions,
invite
ideas, and engage people in considering options for programs. These tools
should
encourage participation, and hence, ownership and sustainability.
However,
many people find that these procedures function as straightjackets.
Where
they are intended to gather data on existing conditions, they do so in
predetermined
templates which categorize people based on family size, wealth,
needs,
etc., for ease of analysis. When they are intended to invite ideas, they are
focused
on whether people want what is being offered, or not, rather than on
hearing
people discuss their priorities and suggestions for making progress. People
feel as
if their thoughts are supposed to “fit” into predetermined categories or
options.
And on the occasions when people say they are actually involved in an
assessment,
they find that procedures for using the information and the ideas
they
provide are nonexistent or inadequate.
Working in
templates is easy. They are available. But to do it
right, you
need more time and money and effort. Template
projects
get more visibility. Some donors come with ‘resultsbased
frameworks’
with all their definitions. This is meant
to be a
tool for better projects, but they spend half the year
explaining
what it is.
- A
Lebanese PhD student and consultant, Lebanon
Community
Consultation
International
aid agency staff often begin their work in an area by calling a
community
meeting to describe their plans. They also use these meetings to
ask
people for ideas and suggestions. This procedure should, of course, lead to
involvement
and ownership.
People in
recipient communities say that this kind of consultation is excellent but
more so
in concept than in execution. They find that the styles of interaction of
some
international agencies limit recipients’ participation. For example, people
say that aid
agency staff are always in a hurry. But in their cultures, discussions
and
decision-making take time; when staff call a meeting for a specific time when
decisions
are to be made, the process feels imposed and unnatural to them. Some
recipients
describe how within their own culture, people express disagreement
in quiet
ways that outsiders often do not recognize. They say that their sense of
courtesy
means they sometimes accept the ideas of outsiders out of politeness
rather
than because they really agree with them. Finally, people describe how
some
external aid providers are domineering or rude so that people in recipient
societies
simply shut down rather than engage. Many procedures of aid providers,
people
feel, are not attuned to cultural differences and leave little space for
building
relationships
not focused on “getting the job done” and “meeting deadlines.”
“Foreign
staff efforts are undermining Cambodian efforts to
participate
in a meaningful way. We have to spend time investing
in the
staff. INGO staff speak fast English and use big words, and
by doing
so, shut local staff out of decision making. Outsiders
run the
show; local staff are not even invited to management
meetings.
The NGOs and the donors have expectations that if
you are
empowered, you will speak out and stand up for your
rights—basically
be like the foreigner. Yet Cambodians are
constantly
communicating their wants and likes in ways that
they feel
is direct, but foreigners don’t get this and expect more
direct
communication.”
-
International aid worker, Cambodia
So, the
principles of participation, ownership, and sustainability are undermined
by
procedures for proposal writing to gain funding, assessment procedures that
collect
information in predetermined (externally designed) categories, and flawed
use of
appropriate tools when agency staff invite input from recipients without
really
listening to it. People see these tools, these procedures, as methods aid
agencies
employ only to justify predetermined decisions and then to claim to
have been
“participatory.”
People in
Mali regretted the fact that visits were very brief and that
donors
always seemed to be in a hurry. In their view, donors seem to
be
responding more to the needs of their own organizations and were
more
preoccupied with feeding their own systems (with reports, data
collection,
meetings, etc.) than observing, addressing, and learning
from
issues in the field. Donor representatives themselves lamented
the fact
that they have little time to go to the field to see activities
first-hand
and to meet with partners and beneficiaries. Time constraints
and the
additional costs that more frequent monitoring visits would
entail
were cited as reasons for the limited follow up on the ground.
(Listening
Project Report, Mali)
“The lack
of flexibility and short time spans for projects—12 months—
creates
difficult conditions. Short time approaches are one of the main
factors
that instigate failure. In spite of this, the donors still ask for
sustainability!”
(Government
official, Afghanistan)
The
evidence from all our conversations suggests that most recipient
communities
are not being sufficiently engaged in aid programming
and
decision-making. There are common complaints that NGOs take a
blanket
approach and arrive with pre-planned programs, without doing
appropriate
needs assessment or consulting with the communities about
their
priorities. (Listening
Project Report, Zimbabwe)
To many
people in Kenya, international assistance was seen as a series of
disjointed,
one-off efforts to meet isolated needs, provided in ways that
left
incomplete, unsustainable results, rather than holistic interventions
that made
a long-term impact … Many people talked about how the
short-term
nature of many aid projects, including the short reporting
time
frames in which they are expected to show impact, was a major
challenge
to making projects sustainable. They noticed that the emphasis
on speed
leads to cut corners and poor quality work. Short time frames
and tight
reporting deadlines and requirements also result in less time
spent with
communities doing the time-consuming consultations
needed for
sustainable outcomes. The funds come in installments that
are
deliberately small, thus the organizations cannot plan long-term
for these
funds. (Listening
Project Report, Kenya)
Some
people said that they had participated in many assessments and
projects
but that they had never seen any of the reports that had been
written by
international agencies or donors. A few did not have much
hope of
changing the system and one person said, “Why should we tell
you what
we suggest? No one ever listens to us. Even if you will listen,
they won’t,
so why should we bother?” (Listening Project Report, Ethiopia)
Another
issue relating to information and communication had to do
with the
various groups or intermediaries that visited communities to
complete
surveys and questionnaires, to conduct needs assessments or
to carry
out evaluations but provided little or no follow up afterwards.
People
felt a bit “used.” (Listening
Project Report, Mali)
An
Additional Note on Sustainability: “Projectitis”
The
international community largely relies on the project mode of delivery. This is
true even
in sector-based programming because what many people in recipient
societies
see of such programs comes in the form of relatively short-term, discreet
efforts.
It is at this level that most procedures are tied into the project cycle.
Behind
the
reliance on projects is an assumption that, over time, if there are enough
projects,
they will add up to comprehensive and systemic change.
But as
noted previously, many people in recipient societies observe that projects
do not
add up. In their experience, one project simply leads to other projects;
they are
often piecemeal interventions that are not strategic and cannot, with
such
limited time commitments, support systemic change. The point here is that
many
recipients identify the proceduralization of the processes of the project cycle
(assessments,
proposal writing, reporting) as contributing to and reinforcing the
piecemeal
nature of assistance. They call for more holistic approaches and longterm
thinking
that, they believe, would support sustainable impacts.
Many people
criticized the “project mentality” among donors and
aid
agencies, saying that it lacked a long-term vision and impact
and that
more money was wasted with short-term thinking.
Some noted
that when projects are started by outsiders, the
projects
are often left to deteriorate and even called by the
name of the
“owners” (i.e., donors or NGO). People were critical
of how most
projects do not help communities identify their
own
resources and how to build on them.
- Listening
Project Report, Kenya
2.
Principle of Equitableness
Aid
providers set criteria by which to decide where and when to provide assistance.
In doing
so, many weigh two factors: they want to be strategic, and they want
to be
equitable. We saw above that people in recipient societies feel that aid is
not
sufficiently strategic but, too often, comes as piecemeal projects. Regarding
equitableness,
they note that aid as a delivery system largely focuses on overcoming
perceived
disadvantages (i.e., supporting equitableness) by addressing “needs.”
Recipients
say that since aid is provided to address gaps in societies, providers often
focus on
those who have been marginalized economically, socially, and politically.
An
Intrinsic Distortion?
Needs-based
(gaps-based) programming, however, can distort the procedures
used to
do contextual analysis. The approach virtually obviates the potential for
identifying
and honoring existing capacities. When international assistance is meant
to meet
needs, aid agency procedures focus on identifying what is missing. They
attempt
to deliver material and nonmaterial aid to overcome the identified gaps.
As noted
elsewhere, even though the language of “capacity building” is regularly
used by
donors and operational agencies, capacity building is often focused on
meeting
the “need” for “missing” capacities. Proposal frameworks and funding
templates
more often ask for evidence of “needs” that will be addressed by a
proposed
program rather than for evidence of capacities that the programs will
support
and reinforce.
The
procedures aid providers most often use to determine who they should
target
with their assistance are essentially the same ones we discussed in relation
to
participation, ownership, and sustainability. The ways in which they affect
distribution,
however, deserve specific examination.
Preplanning
for Proposals and Funding Purposes
The
necessity of specifying (some would say “over-specifying”) “targets” in
order to
get funding locks agencies into preset distribution criteria. Because this
specification
occurs before funded activities can begin, these may or may not turn
out to be
the right targets under local conditions. The proposal/funding nexus
as it
presets reporting criteria makes adjustments for local conditions difficult.
To
receive funding and be seen as “efficient and effective,” agencies accept the
limits of
their preset plans, often to the detriment of more successful outcomes.
Space for
people in recipient communities to provide input on how to allocate
resources
in the early stages of planning is, in these procedures of proposing and
funding,
marginal or nonexistent.
Though
donors and agencies affirm their commitment to meeting local needs
or
addressing missing capacities, many people on the recipient side of assistance
say that
aid is distributed according to the requirements of donors and agencies
rather
than according to local priorities and needs.
Assessment
Procedures
Assessment
procedures also lead to problematic distributional decisions. The
standardized
procedures most agencies use to determine who should receive
their
assistance assess whether or not people in any given community need
what
they, as
an agency, have to offer. Agencies seldom are free to open their inquiry
widely—looking
for capacities (as noted above) or listening to options and ideas
local
people offer. Assessment tools are designed to document findings and
structure
local responses in templates, frameworks, models, and categories that
are
related to the mandates and specialties of the aid agency doing the assessment.
(This in
part, explains why each agency feels it must do its own needs assessment
rather
than relying on those done by others.)
Many people
did not understand the criteria for assistance
of
different projects and did not get explanations as to why
some people
and communities were assisted while others were
not. Many
said that people were targeted differently under
different
projects of different agencies and that the criteria
often were
inconsistent and did not make sense. Many people
noted that
each organization did its own assessments, had its
own
information and did not seem to share this.
- Listening
Project Report, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Assessment
procedures designed to convince donors that what an aid agency is
good at
doing is exactly what people in a given region need are, by their very nature,
too “closed”
to capture the range of opinions and options offered by local people.
Fair
or Unfair?
People in
many locations say that they do not understand the procedures for setting
distribution
criteria. Procedures for “consultation” are, it seems, more extractive
than
informative. That is, they are designed (and followed) to gather information
about
what people need or want more than to communicate back to people about
why the
agency made specific decisions. In particular, people say they are not told
how aid
agencies use what they learn through surveys to determine where and to
whom to
provide aid. Because the terms on which some people receive aid and
others do
not are unclear, to many they seem unfair.
People
say that because the categories and templates are not appropriate for their
circumstances,
the result is misallocation and waste of international donors’ resources.
For
example, in some areas, people say that it is right for aid to be provided to
widows
and orphans, while in other areas, people say that larger families should
be the
focus. The issue is context. Standardized procedures for determining aid
allocations
seem to under-assess variations in circumstances and cultures.
Perverse
Incentives
Some
people raise another aspect of beneficiary selection procedures that they
feel undermines
effective assistance. This has to do with disincentives for people
to move
out of the recipient categories. In general, procedural categories do not
include
designations that leave room for people to transition from dependency
to
independency. One result is that people fight to retain benefits, even though
they also
wish to be independent. Some recipients suggest that processes be
developed
that help people move from an aid target category into increasing levels
of
self-reliance, rather than have clear lines of demarcation between eligibility
and
ineligibility
for support from, or relationship with, assistance providers.
a person
who wants to move forward in his life. This is why I
don’t
understand why the people that help continue to call us
gang
members. A gang member is helped in order that he stops
being a
gang member, but then he receives no help if he’s not
a gang
member.
- Young
former male gang member, Ecuador
Consultation Processes
And
people say, consultation processes, again, often fail to correct distributional
misjudgments
because there are limited opportunities for agency staff to listen
to a wide
range of inputs from people in recipient societies.
Western
concepts of vulnerability and worthiness do not always match
local
concepts. For minority ethnic groups in Cambodia, who stated
that they
believe everyone is equal and deserves the same aid, foreign
concepts
of vulnerability clashed with local concepts of fairness. “They
come and
ask about our needs and then come with district officials to
distribute....
We don’t agree with the selection. Poverty assessment is
based on
whether or not the family owns a motorbike or a wooden
house
(richer) or no motorbike and bamboo house (poorer).” People
were
angered by the selection criteria and stormed out of the community
meeting. (Listening
Project Report, Cambodia)
“They
decided to give bread to the displaced, but only to families with
more than
four members. This is not logical. The ones who really need
it are the
widows, the old couple who is living alone without relatives.
The big
families usually have members who can work.”
(Refugee
in a camp, Lebanon)
The lack
of transparency regarding criteria for selecting beneficiaries was
the cause
of discontent in many areas in Zimbabwe. In only a minority
of cases
were community members aware of how beneficiary selections
were
decided. Often the outcomes made obvious the distortions that
had
occurred, including one example where bedridden people were
given
agricultural tools. (Listening
Project Report, Zimbabwe)
“We know there should be priorities (often
named by villagers as ‘weak
and widows’
or ‘poor and alone’ or ‘those who lost the most’) but the
tenth
priority gets things while the first does not.” (Villager,
Indonesia)
Some
people in Angola complained about the targeting of widows and
elderly
persons for assistance, saying that the neediest families were
those with
the most mouths to feed, which in many cases, did not
meet any
of the various official selection criteria for “vulnerability.”
There was
general discomfort with the relatively low age of 50 used by
some aid
agencies as the threshold for assistance to the elderly. As one
apparently
healthy woman in Luanda observed, “I am 48; am I almost
elderly?” (Listening
Project Report, Angola)
Some NGOs
said that they often have to design programs without
specific
communities in mind, then later are assigned communities
by the
government, making it difficult to meet the specific needs of
selected
communities. (Listening
Project Report, Ethiopia)
“Here in San Lorenzo, I know of programs that call on people who know
that help
was being provided only for them to be in the picture for the
final
report.” (Afro-Ecuadorian
youth member of a CBO, Ecuador)
There were
comments about NGOs promising or feigning a participatory
approach
but in fact acting in a fashion that was quite different. This
includes
NGOs relying too much on local leaders (sometimes a single
leader)
who themselves did not consult widely and openly and who
dealt with
others in an authoritarian manner. (Listening Project Report, Bolivia)
3. The
Principle of Mutual Accountability
Finally,
donors and recipients alike are committed to accountability. They agree
on the
importance of the principle, and they agree that procedures can be useful
for promoting
accountability.
Donors
rely principally on narrative and financial reports to determine that their
assistance
has been delivered honestly and without mismanagement, that the
original
target population has been served, and that original goals have been
achieved.
Reports are written by consultants, international and national staff in
charge of
projects, local partner organizations and, occasionally, by someone in a
recipient
community. Reporting procedures have been tightened according to each
donor’s
needs (which do not always correspond!) throughout the international
assistance
system.
Procedures
have also been developed to ensure that donors and aid agencies are
accountable
to people in recipient societies. Some agencies welcome “audits”
in which
external agencies assess their professionalism and reliability according
to
international standards of delivery through field visits. Some agencies use
suggestions
or complaints boxes, inviting people in recipient communities to provide
anonymous
feedback—positive and negative—about their efforts. Some try to
elicit
honest recipient judgments through community meetings and monitoring
and
evaluation tools.9
But there
is widely shared agreement among many people in recipient communities
that
these procedures for mutual accountability (to both donors and recipients)
are
largely failing.
Narrative
and Financial Reporting
Aid
providers and receivers both say that current report-writing procedures,
completely
counter to their intent, introduce inefficiencies into international
assistance
work. Report preparation to meet donor requirements to ensure continued
funding
for a series of projects becomes an end in itself. Aid agencies say that
more and
more of their time is spent complying with reporting requirements in
each
successive year. The costs of reporting have, many feel, overtaken the value
of
reporting—particularly as the procedures of reporting limit the scope of what
is
covered to “results” that were specified in proposals rather than encouraging
engagement
with people on accountability around actual impacts and learning
that can
improve future performance.
Four
problems with the proceduralization of reports are identified and discussed
at length
by people (aid recipients and aid workers) who live and work in recipient
countries.
Reports
focus on what was proposed, not on what actually happened.
To track
that funds have been spent to achieve what was proposed, donors ask aid
agencies
(and recipients) to prove that they engage in “results-based management.”
Donors
require reports that are tied directly to the proposals they funded to justify
and
account for their provision of funds. This limits flexibility and
responsiveness
to
contextual changes. It may mean that actual results (not proposed) are not
included
in reports.
“For international
donors, a project is only useful if it has
immediate
results that they can show and measure. How can
you heal a
trauma in six months? And tell me how can you take
a picture
of a healed trauma?”
-
Coordinator of a Lebanese NGO, Lebanon
Reports
are overly complicated.
In an
effort to streamline reporting, many donors and aid agencies have developed
standardized
formats. Perversely, most users of these formats (from large international
NGOs to
small, local community-based organizations) say that such standardized
formats
have made reporting more complicated rather than simpler. Many also
note that
standardized formats limit honesty and accountability by predetermining
reporting
categories rather than inviting genuine reflection on what has occurred.
This
relates also to the “faking” of reports; people say that as much is left out
of such
set formats as is included in them. The complications also make it more
difficult
for local people to be involved in reporting.
Reports
often are untrue; they do not in fact promote accountability.
People
comment on three aspects of the dishonesty of reports. First, because reports
focus
only on what was proposed, so much may be left out that they represent
very
little of the reality. Second, many note it is easy to provide pictures
(sometimes
faked)
and receipts (also sometimes faked) to meet reporting requirements since
it is
widely known that donors will not often go to the field to see what has or
has not
occurred. Third, many people note with frustration that a true report
would
include the ideas and analyses of people in recipient communities about
the
larger impacts of any activity. Most people were quite clear that they are not
consulted
or listened to about lasting impacts. Most feel that they have no way to
hold
international assistance providers accountable for impacts in their locations.
Not all
want to complain, but they do want to have an opportunity to provide
feedback
that is heeded. This is not accomplished by current reporting procedures.
The
message is that donor agencies do not really care about real impacts or lasting
results,
but only about reports.
Perhaps
the most pernicious effect of the proceduralization of reporting is the
message
it sends to people in recipient societies. Many say they doubt the sincerity
of the
international assistance community’s claims to want to be helpful. Instead,
they say,
the system is self-serving: it is interlinked through proposals that get
funding
that lead to top-down and prepackaged programming, which is then
reported
on as successful when it delivers the things that outsiders decided it
should
deliver. It is, people feel, more concerned with its self-perpetuation than
with
actual outcomes and impacts. Their cynicism about the purposes of aid is
reinforced
by standardized reporting procedures that do not capture their voices,
reflect
real events, or provide a basis for increased understanding and development
of
alternatives. In short, current reporting procedures have become so
proceduralized
that they
undermine, rather than support, the principle of mutual accountability.
This is,
most feel, not only a travesty, but also a missed opportunity.
There was
a general sense, especially among people who worked for
Cambodian
NGOs, that donors required too much in writing, both for
reporting
and for requesting funds. There was also frustration that
reporting
timelines and formats were not synchronized between donors
so that
some NGOs had to spend more time and effort writing progress
reports
rather than focusing on the projects. Paying only for project
costs and
not administration costs, and making project payments late,
were also
concerns to local NGOs. (Listening Project Report, Cambodia)
“There is
no interest to develop people; it is all reduced to practicality.
Just know
how to write a report. The focus is on skills put into the
framework
of outputs with no reflection included.”
(Director
of a Local NGO, Lebanon)
The issue
has to do with useful follow-up, such as participatory evaluation
at the end
of a project and occasional monitoring or just checking in
during the
years after the active presence of the NGO has ended. One
person
added that it must be taken into account that donors rarely
authorize
an additional budget for monitoring or evaluation once the
project
ends, nor do executing institutions invest in carrying out such
follow-up,
which always has a cost. (Listening Project Report, Bolivia)
One person
pointed out that NGO projects are often timeframe-oriented,
rather
than human-oriented; that projects occur only during the defined
timeframe,
whether or not the project objectives were achieved and
Conclusion
Standard
Procedures and Contextual Appropriateness:
Compatible
or Contradictory?
The
international aid community is committed at both the policy and practice levels
to the principles
of good donorship. The principles discussed above emerged in
response
to what aid providers observed of the policy/program gap. Procedures
were
developed, standardized, and systematized first to make it impossible to
ignore
these principles and then to regularize their translation into field practice.
It is
therefore challenging to hear people in aid-recipient societies analyze the
missteps
between aid providers’ commitments and field-based outcomes. Does
their
commentary suggest that procedures should be abandoned?
Their
answer—and ours—is a clear “No.”
As noted,
people in recipient societies also want the predictability and consistency
that
procedures can provide. What they want does not differ from what most
donors and
operational agencies also want—namely, standardized processes
for
ensuring that outsiders and insiders, in each context, can effectively engage
together
to promote peace and development.
If we
listen to the analyses of people in recipient communities about their
experiences
with procedures, three notable factors emerge that point to solutions
to the
problems the current proceduralization generates.
First,
the location and timing of many decisions about international assistance are
undermining
the very principles aid providers seek to pursue.
Second,
the approach to assistance through projects with relatively limited funding
cycles
limits attainment of the principles.
Third,
the focus of decisions and funding on the delivery of goods and services,
with
less attention to process—that is, the focus on what is done more than on
how
it is done—gets in the way of achieving the principles of good donorship.
When
principles and procedures are over-elaborated as they have been, they
undermine
genuine relationship-building, which—most people in aid-recipient
societies
suggest—should be at the heart of effective international aid efforts.
Procedures
adopted to facilitate more effective and efficient international assistance
have
turned in on themselves and now, more often than not, undermine the
purposes
for which they were created. The international assistance enterprise
needs
processes that work. The challenge now is to dismantle those that are
counterproductive
and to find ways to develop new processes that accomplish
their
intent.
6 See, for
example, DFID’s Essential
Guide to Rules and Tools for one such collection of procedures governing interactions
with recipients of their grants.
7 The Good
Humanitarian Donorship Initiative, which produced a set of principles signed by
a large group ofdonors in
Stockholm in 2003, represents one comprehensive step in enunciating and
codifying principles and good
practice for humanitarian donors. Some of the principles for effective
humanitarian donorship are now widely accepted in all other areas of international assistance, such as the Paris
Declaration on Aid Effectiveness signed in
2005. The international NGO community has also developed corollaries in codes
of conduct, the Istanbul
Principles
for CSO Development Effectiveness, an INGO Charter, and, in the form of
partnerships, for example, has set
standards for humanitarian work (SPHERE) and accountability (HAP).
8 Dare we
also coin the word “proceducrats”?
9 See the
Listening Project report on “Feedback Mechanisms in International Assistance
Organizations” on the CDA website
(2011).
Thanks to CDA Collaborative Learning Projects for permission to publish this from their publkication:
Time to Listen
Hearing People on the Receiving End of International aid
Mary B. Anderson
Dayna Brown
Isabella Jean
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