With development funding rapidly shrinking, the future looks bleak, especially for the development strategist. On the bright side, public discourse has finally reached the point where we can openly discuss why so much development aid failed, or why its results always seemed so elusive whenever annual reports came due.
We were amateur actors in a theatre production called development. I have said this before and attracted the ire of esteemed colleagues and readers alike, because everyone understandably wants to believe they were hired for their expertise.
And of course, you are an expert. You may be an expert in medicine, cold-chain management, communications, economics, education policy, human resource management, or early childhood care. I myself am reasonably good with numbers, although I cannot remember more than two decimal places of π. Being a mathematician has limited practical use in ordinary life, apart from a persistent aversion to confusing an assumption with a proof.
But expertise in medicine, hydrology, nutrition, or logistics is not the same thing as expertise in development. Most of us, myself included, were never experts in that.
After several years in relief work in Somalia and South Sudan, I wanted to move into development. Malawi first, then Namibia. Compared to disaster zones, they seemed reassuringly manageable assignments. I assumed the organization would immerse me in the actual machinery of statehood: how governments identify priorities, negotiate political compromises, take difficult but transparent budget decisions, respond to the expectations of citizens, and gradually build institutions capable of governing effectively.
However, never once did UNICEF favour me with an intellectual foundation for understanding development itself.
Everyone knew the indicators of health, wellbeing, and economic progress, but there was little to nothing about the secret sauce that actually sets a country on the path to development. Instead, I was handed UNICEF plans and frameworks, documents almost entirely concerned with internal UNICEF strategies, UNICEF procedures, and UNICEF project management. Before long, and without quite noticing it happen, I was swept into the great bureaucratic maelstrom of organizational navel-gazing.
I became sufficiently proficient at it that I was eventually asked to rewrite the UNICEF Programme Policy and Procedure Manual. At one point, I was probably reading more draft Country Programme Documents than almost anyone else in the organization.
By the turn of the millennium, UNICEF had begun speaking the language of “systems change”. Policy advocacy became the magic phrase, yet tangible results remained elusive. We never asked the obvious question: why on earth didn’t ministries, governments, elites, autocrats, or elected presidents simply implement the brilliant national plans of action that we had hammered out together with their UN focal points through endless workshops and so-called national consultations? The plans that had emerged from ever more declarations issued at UN conferences and summits, each launched with glossy publications and photographs of important people?
We never stopped to ask whether anyone was serious about implementation. We did not ask these questions because we were amateurs. We had little understanding of how development actually works.
Almost nobody seemed interested in how governments set priorities, what exactly shapes public policy, how ruling parties or coalitions maintain power, or what drives the distribution of domestic resources in the concerned country, even though these are precisely the forces that ultimately shape development outcomes.
Our expert attention was fixed elsewhere: how we in UNICEF spent money, managed projects, monitored dashboards, and accounted for ourselves to donors. We reported how many wells we built, but not whether the national water agency was competently managed, sustainably financed, or performing as expected once our project vehicles disappeared over the horizon.
Development cooperation became something performed adjacent to the state, substituting government agency and accountability with parallel systems of fund administration.
Truer words have never been spoken Detlef!!! I can give you a multitude of examples to prove the point you're making. The UN has great systems in place, just don't apply them for large scale implementation. I am applying them now in my consulting work, and they work like magic, because I'm in control of how things get done.
ReplyDeleteBingo !!
ReplyDeleteDetlef - give yourself some credit in math for one UN . The calculation of what it cost to pay to work in the “free “ UN house was epic
ReplyDeleteDetlef, sensible and clear as a bell. Applying those same lessons learned within the communities where we now live is the true test.
ReplyDeleteThis is an accurate description of the development industry. Amateurism, combined with mediocre management and rapid expansion. Of course, we struggled.
ReplyDeleteYet, development itself was never particularly mysterious. There are plenty of successful examples to study. The sequence was broadly the same: economic growth came first, followed by improvements in education, health care, nutrition, and other social services. Prosperity created the resources and institutions that made those advances possible and sustainable.
Yet much of the aid community reversed the process. We acted as though social programmes could generate the economic and institutional foundations. When that failed, we produced more frameworks, more plans and more indicators.
As you suggest, we became experts in managing aid rather than understanding development. We knew how to draft country programmes and monitor indicators. We were less interested in the political and economic realities that determine whether countries actually develop.
Warmest congratulations Detlef for such an accurate assessment of reality.The older i get the more i am convinced of the vital importance of good governance rooted in systems that reward integrity hinesty transparrncy and focussing on local service provision
ReplyDelete…… and yet you continued to accept a substantial salary over so many years.
ReplyDelete@ Peter C: ...and why not? Presumably the organization believed I was doing the job it hired me to do, and apparently well enough to keep me there for many years.
ReplyDeleteAre you also telling the fast-food cook that he should quit when he no longer sees meaning in flipping burgers? Should every municipal bureaucrat resign when she sees inefficiencies?
It took me more than twenty years to fully grasp the bigger picture and to see how UN reforms increased the disconnect between rhetoric and reality. During those years, I did what professionals are expected to do: I tried to improve things from within, argued for (click) better approaches where I could, and carried out my responsibilities conscientiously.
Stepping outside the UN bubble provided a remarkably clear view of it. From the inside, you work the machinery which you are told is unique and indispensable. From the outside, one can finally see the machinery itself.
Thank you -
ReplyDeleteYour self critical evaluation of our contribution as Unicef staff to development gave us much to think about. While I agree with most of your analysis , I humbly say that most of us did evolve from “ amateur “ status- There are comments made by others from their UNICEF experience in Africa.
Let me speak from my first 10 years in UNICEF as a national officer in India. Most of programme staff recruited as national officers were selected from middle level professional category of existing national institutions, academia with research and domain knowledge, government departments and ministries and field based NGOs- we were considered professional colleagues by our government counterparts and involved in discussions in policy making at state ( provincial) and national levels- including the formulation of plans and budgets in the social sector- for instance, actions for reducing infant / child mortality, nutrition, education, integrated approaches, ICDS, drinking water and sanitation, women’s “empowerment” , child marriage and girls education- yes, we can confidently say that we did influence policy beyond advocacy not as amateurs but as professionals.
Last week, I was so glad to read the findings from the latest NHFS 2024 , which could certainly be better, but clearly show positive trends for children , women and their families and I am not shy to say that UNICEF India had made a difference. For one thing, the findings made the headlines on the first page of the national and regional newspapers… that was itself something 👏🏻👏🏻
Sree
Dear Sree, you are living proof of the point I am trying to make. You and your colleagues from India were, and remain, experts on issues such as nutrition, the education system, or the scourge of child marriage. More importantly, you were able to influence policies in India because you are Indian and understood how the country works. You knew how government functions, where decisions are made, and which levers to pull.
DeleteThe success that you and your colleagues achieved was not the result of a UNICEF strategic plan, an ASG in New York, or a country programme document approved by people who might struggle to locate Mumbai on a map. Nor was it because of a UNSDCF, a complex framework, or an expert flown in from the other side of the world who still remained an amateur on Indian policy making. You most likely succeeded because a sufficiently large number of people, including key parts of government, wanted to see India grow, and your expertise and understanding of the national context may have provided the decisive push.
Sree, did you contribute more to India's development because UNICEF paid your salary?
ReplyDeleteSincerely, the anonymous comment is not collegial in my opinion- I was given an opportunity by UNICEF to serve the interests of children and their families in my country- I am proud of my commitment and de dictated efforts - yes, like you, Mr? Ms? , anonymous colleague, I received a salary and made sure that I earned every rupee without guilt.
DeletePeter C's comment to Detlef — "and yet you continued to accept a substantial salary for so many years" — may apply more to me than to anyone else in the organisation. If Peter is accusing Detlef of hypocrisy, I am a better candidate.
ReplyDeleteBefore joining the aid industry and later UNICEF, I studied development in Sweden under lecturers who had designed SIDA's support for Nyerere's African Socialism in Tanzania. I was sceptical from the outset. After a study tour to Tanzania, I was convinced that the aid given to Tanzania was not going to help the country develop. I never completed my studies.
My entry into the aid industry was not intended as a career move. Nor was it driven by money. At the time, I could have earned more in Sweden. What attracted me was adventure: distant places, new cultures, and, honestly, the opportunity to see the world at someone else's expense.
I remember my first attempt to leave UNICEF. Returning from Europe after a job interview, I discovered that I had been promoted. I had a young family, and stability was more attractive than principle. Another few years would do no harm, I reasoned. Besides, my salary had by then become better than anything I was likely to earn back home. So I stayed.
The next time I tried to leave, nobody seemed interested in hiring me. During one interview for a position I might have been qualified for had my experience been more relevant, the interviewer asked some simple questions about the aid industry:
"What exactly do you do? What do you really achieve? How do you measure it?"
I found myself short of convincing answers; needless to say, the interviewer was unimpressed. Unsurprisingly, I did not get the job.
The truth finally dawned on me. After years in the aid business, I was not employable outside it. I could have moved to another agency. SIDA approached me at one stage. But UNICEF offered better job security and a higher pension, so I stayed.
That, in a nutshell, is the story behind my nearly thirty years with UNICEF.
Did my scepticism make me a worse UNICEF worker than my colleagues? I don't know. That judgment is best left to others.
What I do know is that when I was appointed UNICEF Representative in Khartoum. Sudan was the most difficult operation UNICEF had. There was a civil war. UNICEF worked on both sides of the conflict, guaranteeing endless political sensitivities. We had publicly accused the government of tolerating slavery. The capital was crowded with diplomats, journalists and donors, who constantly monitored UNICEF. The programme was big. The staff was large. We run an extensive aircraft operation. New York was on the phone 24/7. Sudan had, over the years, declared more UNICEF Representatives persona non grata than any other country in the world.
One might imagine that a well-managed organisation would reserve such a posting for its very best people.
Or perhaps the very best people had better options.
Many global development programmes fail. Tragically, children are let down, and taxpayers get poor value for money. But on a deeper level of analysis, bureaucratic systems offer a convenient excuse: the lines of accountability are blurred.
ReplyDeleteLogically, the system is designed to pass the buck upward. Taxpayers should complain to governments, who pressure Executive Boards, who hold Directors to task, who ensure workers deliver. But how would a taxpayer ever know to complain? Our reporting rarely gives them the full truth.
The most profound question remains: where does accountability start and end for a child who was let down? Because we, the development workers, hold no direct contract with that child or the taxpayer, the system allows us to walk away completely in the clear.
But surely, that is not how true accountability works.
Confusing contractual compliance with true accountability is a systemic trap. When structural complexity is used to absolve us of failure, the system isn’t just broken—it is insulated from its own conscience. If our ultimate accountability isn't to the people we are meant to serve, then who are we really working for?
Formal institutional accountability is easy to understand: who has authority, who supervises whom, what procedures exist, and what mechanisms exist to ensure compliance. Organisational charts and regulations make these relationships clear. However, how incentive structures interfere with formal accountability is more complex, and they often determine behaviour more powerfully. Staff frequently respond less to who formally supervises them and more to who controls their rewards, punishments and careers. Therefore, to focus on formal accountability gives a flawed picture of how institutions function. It is also well established that institutions that fail often do so because incentive structures act counter to formal accountability.
DeleteThe reason incentive analysis is difficult is that incentives are frequently informal and hidden, and require observing actual behaviour over time to discover where power and influence truly lie. This is why an institutional analysis must distinguish between formal accountability (what the rules say) and de facto accountability (what incentives produce in reality). The gap between the two explains a large share of institutional performance, corruption and failure.