ART OF EVOLUTION: ALTERNATIVE DISCUSSIONS ON GOOD GOVERNANCE,
POVERTY REDUCTION AND COMMUNITY RESILIENCE
**A DISCUSSION PAPER**
ALTERNATIVE EVOLUTIONS: WORKING GROUP ON GOOD GOVERNANCE, POVERTY
REDUCTION AND COMMUNITY RESILIENCE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
DECEMBER 2005
ART OF EVOLUTION: ALTERNATIVE DISCUSSIONS ON GOOD GOVERNANCE,
POVERTY REDUCTION AND COMMUNITY RESILIENCE
*** A DISCUSSION PAPER ***
Working Group on Good Governance, Poverty Reduction and
Community Resilience
09, 01st Lane, Wanatha Road
Gangodawila, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka
Tele/fax: + 94 (0) 11 2817 156 E-mail: altevo@greensl.net
The authors of this discussion paper firmly understand that every one has drunk
from other people’s wells and has been nourished by other people’s ideas, and
therefore is happy to feed the hunger or satisfy the thirst of people they may or may
not ever encounter.
Based on this, the information of this discussion paper provides the best
opportunity, when it is possible for people: to reproduce, stored in retrieval
systems, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, with or without the permission of the authors
or Working Group as may be the wish of the reproducing party.
2
FORWARD
This discussion paper is a result of thoughts, discussions and dialogue among
activists, academics and community practitioners linked to the Green Movement of
Sri Lanka, Centre for Family Services and Disaster & Development Centre and
Northumbria University, United Kingdom since mid-1990s. They have worked and
walked with communities in Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh,
Indonesia, Thailand, Ghana, Brazil, South Africa, USA, UK, Mexico, Sudan,
Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Chile.
It is very much of a need that middle-level academics and practitioners work together
as well as attempt to find alternatives to the mainstream paradigm of sustainable
development. Simply, life is not black or white; it is not dichotomous as most policy
makers see – life is full of gray areas and surprises. Policy makers and academics
have constantly attempted to fit communities and the complex parameters under
which they exist in to diagrams or curves that, historically, didn’t work at best or
caused massive damage to the life systems of these groups at worst.
It is therefore obvious, that concerned individuals should create diagrams and curves
that fit in to communities, rather than force communities to change themselves in
order to fit policies. This is a complicated and painful process, which is difficult to
implement with even the most conducive environment to work in. However, this is
the basic premise of alternative evolutions – to walk and work with communities and
catalyze them to find their own solutions and not force solutions on them.
At this stage the Working Group on Good Governance, Poverty Reduction and
Community Resilience in Developing Countries, remember the kind and strong
support received by William Conklin, Debi Khar, T. Mahasivam and many other
friends and colleagues from all over the world. It is Ravi Samithadasa who made all
the connections and without him this would not be a reality.
Finally, this discussion paper is an open invitation for people to join the dialogue and
participate in the Working Group on Good Governance, Poverty Reduction and
Community Resilience in Developing Countries. Apart from that your comments and
suggestions are welcome.
Alternative Evolutions: The Working Group on Good Governance, Poverty Reduction and Community
Resilience in Developing Countries (December 5, 2005)
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ABOUT AUTHORS
Kamal Kapadia is a researcher and practitioner in the field of rural development. She
has lived and worked in India (her homeland), Sri Lanka (her spiritual home!), Nepal,
Indonesia, the UK and most recently, in the U.S. where she is pursing her PhD studies
at the University of California, Berkeley. Her PhD research is an analysis of NGO
livelihoods recovery programs post-tsunami along the coast of Sri Lanka.
E-mail: kamal.kapadia@gmail.com
Thilak Kariyawasam is a practitioner of livelihoods and community resilience in Sri
Lanka. He is working with the Green Movement of Sri Lanka since 2002 in
organizing communities for education, implementation and evaluation of agriculture,
fisheries and home gardening for economic, social, political, environmental and
political development in Sri Lanka. Thilak is a key person within the Asia regional
discourse on resilience as well as disaster risk reduction.
E-mail: thilak@greensl.net
Suranjan Kodithuwakku is a community activist that works with communities across
Sri Lanka on environmental and bio – diversity conservation, effective resource
management, disaster risk reduction and sustainable development. Suranjan is the
Chief Organiser of the Green Movement of Sri Lanka and been a key person in many
successful campaign against developmental terrorism and protecting natural
resources. Suranjan is networking with community practitioners and academics over
26 countries over the world – Asia, Africa, Europe and Americas – to share
knowledge and experience to promote people’s owned sustainable development in
developing countries.
E-mail: suranjan@greensl.net
Janaka Jayawickrama is a Trauma & Refugee Care Practitioner and Researcher from
the Disaster & Development Centre, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne,
United Kingdom. He is conducting research and working with UN agencies, INGOs,
governments and local groups in Asia, Europe, Americas and Africa on trauma risk
reduction in disasters and development situations. Janaka is heading the Trauma Risk
Reduction Programme of the Disaster & Development Centre.
E-mail: j.jayawickrama@unn.ac.uk
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ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
ESAF
Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility
GNF
Gross National Product
HIV/AIDS
Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immuno Deficiency
Syndrome
IFI
International Financial Institutions
IMF
International Monitory Fund
LTTE
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
NGO
Non Governmental Organisation
PRSP
Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
PRGF
Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility
PRSC
Poverty Reduction Support Credit
RSS
Rashtriya Sewa Sangha
UN
United Nations
UNDP
United Nations Development Programme
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preamble
7
Background
7
Keep it Simple and Silly
9
Good Governance
9
Poverty Reduction
11
Community Resilience
15
Development Assistance: Help or Hinder
19
The role of alternatives and Discussion
25
Discussion points
26
References
29
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PREAMBLE
This discussion paper is designed to summarize key issues, and suggest possible
points of discussion, in the context of establishing Alternative Evolutions: Working
Group on Good Governance, Poverty Reduction and Community Resilience. It is by
no means a conclusive statement on any issue; rather it should be seen as food for
thought, talk and action.
When talking about alternatives, the question immediately arises, alternatives to
what? In this case, the reference point for alternatives to good governance, poverty
reduction and community resilience are the approaches being implemented and
popularized by mainstream academics, the United Nations and International Financial
Institutions (IFIs).
The first section of this discussion paper therefore provides a brief description of the
three fundamental concepts – good governance, poverty reduction and community
resilience, and discusses Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, IFIs and critiques of
PRSPs. The second section summarizes key critiques of development aid, which have
serious positive and negative implications for governance, poverty reduction and
resilience of communities. This section also discusses the need for new policy and
implementation frameworks. The third section discusses the role that alternatives can
play and suggests topics for thought and discussions on further possible actions.
BACKGROUND
If one is to believe the tenor of the protests voiced by people during the World
Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg or by opponents of
globalization on the streets of Seattle and Genoa, then a great deal – if not everything
– has taken a turn for the worse in recent years. The criticism focuses primarily on the
increases in social inequity. Thanks to better starting conditions, the “developed”
countries – and the better-off in these countries – have benefited much more from the
new information technology and globalized markets than the rest of the world – than
the worse-off in the rest of the world, who have become increasingly disconnected
from the opportunity of any increase in income. To what extent does this perception
conform to “reality”, if development with a human face is understood to be a
culturally appropriate improvement in the quality of life for all members of a society
which guarantees subsistence, personal development and the right to life, freedom and
security?
An assessment of development policies, reports and practices (e.g. UNDP Human
Development Reports, 2003 and 2004/ World Disaster Report, 2004) demonstrates the
truth of the constructivist thesis that individually perceived “reality” is to a substantial
degree the product of subjective views and personal value judgments. Also in
development policy terms the beholder always regards what he or she is able or would
like to see from his viewpoint to be the reality.
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The reality of success...
Anyone wishing to show that the balance sheet of development policy in 2003 is a
positive one can point to the fact that almost all relevant indicators for human quality
of life have clearly improved in the last 50 years:
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More success has been achieved in the fight against poverty over the last 50 years
than in the whole of the previous 500 years;
Infant mortality fell in developing countries from 165 per 1000 live births in 1960
to about 56 in 2000;
Life expectancy rose over the same period throughout the world – the increase
being greatest for people in developing countries, namely from just over 41 to
more than 64 years of age;
The literacy rate increased in developing countries from less than 16% in 1960 to
about 75%. In 2003, more children – and in particular more girls – received
schooling than in any previous year;
The proportion of chronically undernourished people in the populations of
developing countries declined from about 40% in 1960 to less than 20% in 2003;
Today, a higher percentage of people have access to drinking water and reasonable
sanitary facilities than ever before in the history of mankind;
Democratic forms of government and the respect and implementation of human
rights have assumed a higher priority in developing countries since the collapse of
communism.
It is clear that humanity overall has achieved enormous progress. On average, the 6.2
billion people in the world in 2003 are in a far better position than the 3 billion of the
world population in 1960. But this statement does not apply for all people in all
countries.
... and failures
These positive “average values” of the essential indicators of development conceal
substantial differences: progress has not been achieved everywhere on the planet and
not equally for all strata within different societies:
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2.8 billion people worldwide still live in absolute poverty on the purchasing power
equivalent of two US dollars a day or less;
Almost 800 million people are still chronically undernourished;
In many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, infant and child mortality remains
between 20–30 times higher than in Switzerland;
Life expectancy in most African countries is 30 years lower than in Switzerland as
a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic;
More than 38 million people in developing countries are living with HIV/AIDS,
more than 20 million have already died of AIDS;
The last three decades have seen a five fold increase in the difference in per capita
income between developed and developing countries from less than US $ 5,000 to
more than US $ 25,000. Around the world, those twenty percent of the population
with the lowest incomes have seen their share of total income fall from 2.4%
(1960) to 1.4% (1993), while the share enjoyed by the twenty percent with the
highest incomes has risen from 70% to 85%;
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While the world’s population is growing by about 220,000 people every day, the
natural resources to feed this growing population are declining through erosion,
over farming and water shortage;
The problems of climate change for many years have not been addressed with the
appropriate level of priority and sustainability owing to fears over the short-term
economic costs – with unforeseeable consequences for the quality of life of future
generations.
Most observers agree that the development policy deficits today are, as far as one can
judge, not insurmountable: The substance for surmounting them is in place, since
never before have so many resources and so much knowledge been available to
humanity for solving the problems which it faces. But the question is that who is
honestly using that?
KEEP IT SIMPLE AND SILLY
As a solution for the complex social, political, cultural, ecological and economic
problems of the present day, the simplified strategy of the International Financial
Institutions which say “you just have to do this and everything will be all right” is not
sufficient, not to mention, it does not work. However temptingly plausible the theory
of the “end of history” may be – in which Francis Fukuyama postulates that a liberal
democracy and market economic structures are the magic recipe – it has to be said
that the national, cultural, and religious conflicts which have flared up in recent years
suggest the matter is more complicated and that does not work too. It is nevertheless
true that ways out of poverty and deprivation need a foundation of at least three
preconditions:
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Good governance – simple ways of promoting consultation, transparency and
accountability;
Poverty reduction – sensitive to cultural, political, economical, social and
environmental conditions ; and
Community resilience – consideration of the fact that people in worse conditions
can still laugh and be happy
Good Governance
In almost all countries which are stagnating at an economically and socially low level,
those with political responsibility and in positions of power are much more a part of
the problem and than part of the solution: The deficits essentially lie in the poor
management of government business and thus in wrong policy decisions and in poor
development management. In particular, the following problems have been known for
years:
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Lack of professionalism and widespread corruption in public institutions;
Wrong priorities for action and spending which lead to a misuse of scarce
resources;
Lack of reliable legal frameworks which prevent the arbitrary use of laws and
regulations;
Lack of transparency in the use of public resources and blurring of the distinction
between what can be regarded as “public” and what is “private”;
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Absence of independent controlling bodies to keep a check on the use of public
resources;
Overregulation through an excess of rules, the need for permits, and laws that
hinder the functioning of the market; the excessive abundance of discretionary
administrative rules providing administrative authorities with the possibility of
exercising their decision-making authority not in accordance with objective
requirements, but according to the specific interests of the administrative officer
concerned, thereby encouraging corruption;
Lack of transparency and decision-making processes that are confined to a small
number of people, leading to abuse of power and personal enrichment.
Taken together, these elements create a climate that is hostile to development and
defiles in particular against the poor. This in turn leads to the cumulative growth of
further deterioration: When there are deficits in governance, people lack confidence in
law and order; under these conditions, investments remain conspicuous by their
absence, as does any reasonable economic growth. As it is the kind of investment
flowing in does not benefit the poor.
Good governance, defined as a responsible exercise of power and good professional
management of economic and social resources, is absolutely essential. Quality criteria
for a good management of government business are:
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Transparency, in the sense of appropriate and reliable information on the basic
principles of policy and social decision-making processes;
Responsibility, in the sense of accountability for the work performed by state
employees and, if necessary, the possibility to sanction failure;
Institutional pluralism, i.e. the promotion of independent institutions such as
unions, chambers of commerce, professional associations, universities, and also
press and non-governmental organizations. In this way, the possibility is created
for mobilizing support for the various positions and interests and for ensuring that
this support is integrated into government efforts;
Participation, i.e. systematic and sustained involvement of the population (the
right to a say and to raise objections) in the conception, implementation and
evaluation of the projects and programs affecting them; and
Priority of law, i.e. the creation of conditions under which an independent and
efficient justice system is commissioned with the primary task of guaranteeing
human rights and enforcing laws in a fair and consistent manner.
Good governance is found where the state, through its activities, provides the people
of a country with security, prosperity, cohesion, order and continuity, and where an
environment is created which allows individuals to develop their productive, political
and cultural skills. The role of the state remains of crucial importance, whether to help
shape an institutional environment that fosters economic growth or to pursue active
redistribution and social policy or to provide the motivation for ecologically
appropriate behavior. There are problems which the market can solve and those for
which it would be hard pressed to find a solution.
Although the responsibility of the developed countries for governance in the present
context is not of foremost concern, it also has to be addressed here. In at least three
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areas, political decisions by the “North” have negative development policy effects on
the “South”:
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Measures taken in the framework of agricultural protectionism: per day about one
billion US dollars inhibit rural development in many countries, because the
surpluses exported from developed countries at dumping prices destroy local
markets;
Tariffs and non-tariff-based measures adopted by the developed countries damage
developing countries precisely in the area of those export products which would
have brought the greatest comparative cost advantages;
Climate-relevant emissions of the rich countries are increasingly leading to
changes in rainfall as well as an increasing frequency of extreme weather
phenomena in poor countries.
The picture is further complicated by deficits in the blatant disregard for basic human
rights as well as other deficits which have a negative impact on the credibility of the
North when it starts demanding good governance in the South. This includes also the
lack of support in science and in the development and transfer of technology to help
solve relevant development problems through public resources.
Poverty Reduction1
Poverty Reduction seems to be something like motherhood and rice or bread –
everyone thinks it a good thing; the concept has universal acceptance. At first sight,
this is highly positive, as this could signal the entering of a holistic and responsible
thinking into the world of politics and society. But as it often happens with other catch
phrases that suddenly come into vogue, like “empowerment” and “participation”, it is
often nothing more than a rhetoric which fails to translate into practice, this all the
more so because poverty reduction can be given several different interpretations.
Recently, it has also been stressed by the United Nations and International Financial
Institutions that economic development should be compatible with political and social
progress. So a holistic concept of poverty reduction has emerged in which economic,
ecological, social, cultural and political factors need to be simultaneously considered.
Participation by individuals, particularly at the community level, is seen as an
important means for poverty reduction and formulating development goals.
Of course, the term “poverty reduction” is not new. In 250 BC – Kautilya, a famous
Indian philosopher and advisor to the then king, in his famous book – “Economics”,
mentioned various methods that a ruler can use in terms of reducing poverty.
Certainly in today’s world the names of Thomas Robert Malthus and Justus von
Liebig have to appear in the upper part of the pedigree of this concept. Earlier in this
century social scientists like T. H. Veblen and economists like A.C. Pigou had drawn
attention to external costs of economic activities2; and in 1950, one of the authors’
esteemed teacher Karl William Kapp published a comprehensive analysis of all
important issues which today are staging a comeback under the name of “sustainable
development”3. The term was probably coined by Barbara Ward, the founder of the
International Institute for Environment and Development, who made the point that
development and environmental protection must be linked4. The World Conservation
Strategy promoted a poverty reduction or sustainable development concept in 1980;
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so did “The Global 2000 Report to the President” 5. The concept eventually came to
world-wide fame when the “The Brundtland Report” was published, giving rise to an
international consultation process that peaked in the 1992 “UN Conference on
Environment and Development” (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro6.
Many early thinkers who were far ahead of the mainstream, among them K. William
Kapp, shared the fate that society was not mature enough at the time to absorb their
visions and concerns. Although there were some overly pessimistic predictions of
catastrophic consequences of continuing economic growth7 and rapid population
growth 8, widespread ignorance, lack of imagination, complacency and inertia
actually did result in deplorable damages to the environment. From the fact that
doomsday have yet arrived, humans shouldn't be lulled into a false sense of security:
Most of today's available knowledge suggests that the forthcoming 10 to 30 years are
crucial.
Existing knowledge demonstrates that vital environmental assets which are not
substitutable (like the ozone layer) are being steadily destroyed and that some of the
environmental damages occurring are irreparable (e.g. extinction of species). Apart
from actual and directly felt consequences such as an increasing prevalence of skin
cancer, damages to the human immune system or disturbances of photosynthesis due
to increased ultraviolet radiation, this raises the issue of intergenerational justice and
equity.
The existing poverty reduction or sustainable theories still lack a broader
understanding of the interdependencies of complex ecosystems, but much of this
knowledge will only expand as the natural environment continues to be irreversibly
transformed. As such an empirical gathering of information is associated with
cumulative risks and may be painful; it is not wise to learn the hard way. The better
approach would be the “precautionary principle”, which was brought into the debate
by the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in Principle 15: “Where
there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall
not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent
environmental degradation.”
Unfortunately the experience of developed or the developing countries in terms of
poverty reduction or sustainable development approaches seems to be ignoring these
factors. The best example is the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers popularized by the
International Financial Institutions during the recent years in developing countries.
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP)
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund approved the PRSP approach in
September 1991. This approach developed within the context of a growing
recognition that growth-based development alone wasn’t trickling down to the masses
as it was expected to, and some explicit acknowledgement of the needs of the poor is
required.
The PRSP is essentially meant to be a national programme for poverty reduction,
developed by individual developing countries. There are five principles underlying
the PRSPs:
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Country driven - involving broad-based participation by civil society and the
private sector in all operational steps
Results oriented - focusing on outcomes that would benefit the poor
Comprehensive in recognizing the multidimensional nature of poverty
Partnership oriented-involving coordinated participation of development partners
(bilateral, multilateral, and nongovernmental)
Based on a long-term perspective for poverty reduction 9
PRSPs are on the agendas, in preparation or in implementation of about seventy lowincome countries10.
In terms of funding mechanisms for the PRSP, the IMF replaced its Enhanced
Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) with the Poverty Reduction and Growth
Facility (PRGF); the interest rate and repayment conditions are the same for both. The
Bank created Poverty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC), a lending instrument
designed to support implementation of PRSPs, complementing traditional adjustment
loans 11.
Critiques of PRSP
The PRSP approach has drawn a large set of critiques. These range from relatively
mild, technocratic critiques from within the World Bank and IMF, to strong
statements like the one put out in Sri Lanka by a consortium of civil society groups, in
which they state, “…the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) now under
consideration will hinder the progress that Sri Lanka has made during the last
decades.”12Another strong statement comes from a consortium made up of Jubilee
South, Focus on the Global South, AWEPON, and the Centor do Estudios
Internacionales with the support of the World Council of Churches. Their review
concludes that “Fighting poverty becomes the newest justification for the aging
prescriptions geared to increasing the overall opening of the “host country” to external
economic actors and free market rules.”13
While specific critiques exist for most countries where PRSPs are being implemented,
there are many critiques of the overall approach that is common to all countries.
These are summarized as follows 14:
The PRSP approach is largely donor-driven
The PRSP is largely driven and designed by the IFIs, and many NGOs complain that
their inputs are not incorporated in any meaningful way in PRSPs. There is also little
or no room for discussion about the very basis and frameworks of the PRSPs, and for
challenging the concepts of poverty, governance and development that PRSPs are
based on.
There is a uniformity of policy prescriptions across countries
In spite of great differences in the histories, cultures, community resilience factors and
trajectories of development between countries, there is a startling uniformity in policy
prescriptions in PRSPs.
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The policies remain largely neo-liberal
While some attention is being paid to issues of social empowerment, the policy
prescriptions are in many ways remarkably similar, and often integrated with,
structural adjustment-type policies. As Craig and Porter mention, “(the) ordering of
priorities has a certain logic which is worth reiterating: global economic integration
first, good governance second, poverty reduction following as a result, underpinned
by limited safety nets and human capital development.”15 Such an approach to
poverty alleviation and/or development has been severely discredited, not just by civil
society groups and left-leaning academics, but by prominent economists (and
formerly senior staff at the World Bank and IMF) such as Joseph Stiglitz, Ravi
Kanbur and Jeffrey Sachs. The effects of global economic integration on poor,
marginalized people and/or countries are, at best, limited, and at worse, severely
detrimental.
The core principles are vague and subject to ideological interpretations
Concepts like “ownership”, “participation” and “partnerships” are very general and
ambiguous. As Piron and Evans suggest, “these principle seems to call for some
consensus between national actors, beyond the state elite, but it remains open which
actors should be paramount.”16 How consensus is to be achieved through messy
political processes (such as multiparty political competition, internal party debates,
and civil society protestation rather than cooptation) is also not discussed, with a
preference on the part of the IFIs for technical arguments rather than open political
debates (this issue is also discussed separately below). Participation can also mean a
number of things: who should participate, in what processes, with what power, and
with what legitimacy? Such ambiguity allows for IFIs to interpret the PRSP principles
according to the mainstream ideologies prevalent in these institutions.
The basic concepts of poverty reduction and good governance are technocratic and apolitical
The PRSP approach treats poverty and governance as technical rather than political
issues. There is still an overwhelming emphasis on income-based measures for
evaluating poverty reduction programs, and, as the Catholic Relief Services notes,
“Too often, PRSPs fail to reflect a broader approach to poverty reduction that fully
addresses dimensions related to security or empowerment as essential ingredients for
poverty reduction.”17
The three legs of good governance - transparency, accountability and participation are
also seen purely as technical issues. Further, there is no room to discuss or explore
how these principles of good governance are being implemented within the IFIs
themselves. Who exactly the IFIs are accountable to is in itself an important question
that never enters any PRSP-related discussion within the IFIs.
The PRSP approach also undermines existing democratic political mechanisms by
operating directly through bureaucratic agencies and bypassing parliamentary
procedures. Existing institutions for government accountability have been largely
bypassed in favor of new mechanisms for participation such as focus groups,
consultative workshops and PPAs.
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While local, decentralized implementation has its benefits; PRSPs ignore local
political power dynamics (that can severely affect the effectiveness of programmes).
They also bypass (and often undermine) the political mechanisms (unions, other
political organization) poor people have for seeking sustainable redress.
The PRSP entirely disregards the fact that global economic integration (and
accompanying “reforms”) is itself a highly contentious political process. Using loan
conditionality to force developing country governments to open their agricultural
markets, for example, while developed country governments continue to subsidize
their own farmers, is deeply problematic. Glaring power inequities between donor
nations and institutions, and developing country governments prevent any meaningful
“partnerships” between IFIs and developing country governments desperate for their
aid and/or debt relief.
Community Resilience
In relation to appropriate social development strategies, there is no shortage of
knowledge and experience in practice; what is often lacking is the political will to put
into practice at local level what is recognized internationally to be right. There are, in
particular, seven key elements of community resilience (and certainly there are more,
if we had the option to go on and on!):
Using community knowledge and strengthening of local initiatives and skills
Poverty reduction can never be set in motion from outside – help from outside can
only facilitate and accelerate, but can never serve as a substitute for local initiatives
and the willingness to take responsibility. Where people are aware of the causes of
their problems and are prepared to stand up for their own concerns and those of the
community, it is possible – also with outside help – to initiate changes. If this
willingness is not there, even the best-intentioned actions of the government or other
bodies can achieve little. People themselves not only form the target, but are also the
most important resource with their knowledge of social, political, cultural, economic
and environmental development. Their participation in the problem analysis, the
search for solutions and the provision of resources is therefore of central importance.
For the time being, it is important to build on existing skills and develop them further.
This may take place in an informal way within the family and with peers as well as
through models from inside and outside the community. The media likewise play an
increasingly important role in the informal development of skills. However,
developing and furthering of (organizational, professional and other) skills must also
take place on a formal level. In this case, the main focus is on primary education,
followed by general and job-specific training as well as learning for living.
To use the available training infrastructure as effectively as possible, participating
communities should be in the best possible state of health. Sick people can benefit
little from training programmes. Appropriate nutrition, protection against disease and
access to basic healthcare are therefore of utmost importance – this discussion paper
will return to the close correlation between socio-economic development and health in
more depth later on.
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Individual development processes are supported and strengthened by a functioning
and active community. Cooperation based on shared values makes it easier to achieve
collectively defined goals – learning from the experience of others helps to prevent
mistakes that have been made in the past being constantly repeated. Cooperation at
the communal level allows those economic, social, cultural and other needs which lie
beyond the realm of availing of individual opportunities.
Community development and the emergence of citizens’ organizations are often a
completely natural process. However, where the lives of people are characterized by
extreme poverty and marginalization or the capacity for community work is
undermined in some way by political processes, development often needs something
of a “jump start”, i.e. the supportive use of catalysts, to help it on its way. This very
valuable work is often taken on by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Strengthening of civil society
The gap between citizens in the community and the state should be filled by a strong,
functioning civil society for the benefit of citizens and the state. Civil society, i.e. all
non-state organizations in which people come together to satisfy certain needs, pursue
goals and take an active part in state affairs, is an essential element of social
development, because it:
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conveys the concerns of citizens to the state and seeks to ensure that the work of
the government better reflects the circumstances in which people live and their
interests;
acts as a collective means of bringing pressure to bear on bureaucracy, so that the
bureaucratic system does not pursue its own interests, but works in the best
interests of the citizens;
helps to preserve cultural values on which a functioning society is founded;
is the stage on which the various ethnic, religious, political and cultural actors in
society learn to develop understanding for one another and to live in harmony. In
this way, civil society plays an extremely important role. But it can only do this if
it is born out of strong local communities and thus reflects the concerns of all
citizens and not exclusively of small elite which is able to articulate its interests
most effectively. Ultimately, however, it is also necessary to have political
structures in place which acknowledge and promote the importance of civil
society.
At the same time the need for governance within the civil society groups is very
crucial. As an example a human right worker, working for a human rights NGO may
not receive proper labour rights or regulated benefits. Further, groups such as RSS
(Rashtriya Sewa Sangha) in India or Al-Qaeda also consider them selves as civil
society groups that address social and cultural grievances, while using violent
methods to deal with issues. At the same time religion based NGOs trying to convert
communities in exchange of aid is not that much different than the previous “civil
society groups”. There isn’t a discourse or dialogue at the global level on how these
issues should be addressed. At the same time some international donors force small
civil society groups to compromise their working agendas or traditions to meet donor
needs rather than community needs.
16
Regulating and monitoring civil society groups – whether internally or externally is
there for an important need
Strengthening of state institutions
A state normally forms the national political framework for the lives of its citizens.
The success of all development efforts ultimately depends on the quality of
governance. From the viewpoint of social development, the essential elements of
governance are accountability to the state’s citizens, the application of the principles
of justice and effectiveness of state work. Four main types of state institutions are
needed for the smoothest possible social development. These are:




Political institutions. They are key institutions because they are used for
governing the state. They provide the legal foundation and supervisory authority
over the implementation of political measures for solving specific problems;
Financial and other economic institutions. They define the conditions for the
economic process in a society. They determine the attractiveness of investments
and the sustainability and cultural, social and environmental acceptability of
financial and economic policy. Financial and economic policy especially promote
economic development when they offer performance incentives on the one hand
and at the same time provide for social, cultural, political and environmental
balance when people find themselves in difficulties through no fault of their own.
The financial and economic institutions in the best case ensure a maximum
possible transparency and reliability with regard to decisions and thereby hinder
corruption. They combat the development of inflation because this hits the poor
most of all and destroys people’s trust in the economic structure. State activities
are confined to safeguarding “public assets”; the market provides for an optimum
allocation of goods and services in those areas where this is superior to state
interventions;
Legal institutions. They provide for justice and therefore play an important role in
every functioning society. Ideally, everyone in a society should have the same
access to the legal system and be able to trust it to ensure that justice and the rule
of law are the rule and not the exception;
Public service. Since public service represents the state for people in their day-today lives, it should work professionally and efficiently as well as being accessible,
accountable and insulated from political interference.
Without efficiently and reliably functioning state institutions, little progress can be
achieved in terms of development policy regardless of how much energy is invested
in development policy by civil society. Its structure and ongoing development in the
light of new needs are the most important function of the state.
Mobilization of resources
All forms of social development require substantial resources – resources which are
scarce and remain in short supply in most of the poorest regions of the world. The
mobilization of resources is therefore an extremely important aspect of social
development efforts. In the context of successful resource mobilization, three main
strategies are under discussion today:
17



Maximum possible degree of self-sufficiency, because this puts emphasis on the
best-possible use of the resources available locally;
Since the public purse should provide core resources for all essential areas of
social development, a disciplined state budget is one of the most important sources
for the mobilizing resources. A further part of this strategy is a national allocation
for scarce resources in the light of deficits in terms of development policy. It goes
without saying that, when distribution conflicts occur and there are questionmarks over where the resources should go, healthcare and education should take
priority over an inflated military apparatus;
The private sector and NGOs. While it is the duty of the state to create conditions
favourable to development, economic development in particular is most efficient
when it is in the hands of the private sector. The importance of NGOs for the
creation of jobs (e.g. through income-generating activities) and provision of
services in the social area has risen enormously in recent years.
With all three of these aspects of resource mobilization, positive synergies are
achieved through a close collaboration between state, local communities, the private
sector and development organizations.
The socially weak as target group for social development efforts
Although social development efforts relate to society as a whole, the target group of
the socially disadvantaged is of course especially important. Since even in the bestcase scenario of current development trajectories, the number of people living in
absolute poverty will not fall below several hundred million in the foreseeable future,
the likelihood of major development deficits in this income group is very high. This
makes it of the utmost importance that social development efforts are concentrated on
the most needy population groups and their social environment, the main focus here
being on direct campaigns to combat poverty, the creation of productive jobs and
social integration efforts.
Social development and health
For the reasons stated, social development is of crucial importance for the state of a
society’s health. “Health” in the sense defined by delegates at the first World Health
Conference in New York in 1946 in the preamble to the constitution of the newly
formed World Health Organization (WHO), is very much more than simply the
“absence of disease”. But when “health” is rightly seen as a “condition of complete
physical, mental and social well-being”, social development programs become part of
the preventive and curative health policy of a society.
The campaign against the HIV/AIDS epidemic, for example, cannot be really
successful without progress in social development; essential progress in the reduction
of infant and child mortality depends on changes in the social environment; through
medical interventions alone they are not attainable. A reduction in maternal mortality
is barely conceivable without social development in the sense of a stronger position of
women in society. And a sustainably effective family planning, too, requires very
much more than the availability of contraceptives. Even the success and especially the
effectiveness of curative healthcare interventions depend to a large degree on the
status of social development.
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Disaster resilience
Asia gained global attention on December 26, 2004 due to the devastation it suffered
as a result of the Tsunami. Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Kenya, and Somalia,
among others, were affected by this. It appears that in that moment, human mortality
called upon the sense of humanity, thereby super-ceding human differences. Such
events are rare in human history, in terms of both the extent of devastation as well as
humility. Natural disasters perhaps elicit empathy more easily than human-made ones,
because people are free to respond on the basis of humanity as opposed to ideology.
There are many issues around participation, accountability and transparency in
humanitarian assistance in tsunami affected areas in Asia at this stage. This is one
area where the challenges of linking poverty reduction to good governance are openly
apparent and large. At this level, the rebuilding and rehabilitation of tsunami affected
communities in Asia does not focus on the poorest among poor. This means the
disaster recovery, rehabilitation and rebuilding paradigms in most cases in the world
are concentrating mostly on inequitable economic growth, at the cost of holistic
development.
For example, multinational corporations are attempting, in tsunami affected countries
– especially Sri Lanka and Indonesia - to restructure traditional agriculture and
fisheries sectors to be integrated into the globalized market, which will make small
scale farmers and fisher folks vulnerable. Most UN, IFI and other international
organisational strategies on social, cultural, political, economic and environmental
issues around a disaster do not consider traditional patterns and cultural practices as
well as environmental prototypes in disaster-affected countries.
Wherever possible, disaster relief should be placed in the context of long-term
sustainable development. This means formulating plans that will not only help a
community survive a crisis, but strengthen the community’s ability to recover and
thrive in the long term. It means that communities will have disaster resilience.
According to the world conference on disaster reduction (Kobe, 2005) good
governance is a prerequisite for effective disaster reduction, and people-centred
governance places the emphasis on the vulnerable and promotes accountability and
participation.
DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE: HELP OR HINDER
For most people in today’s world, the term 'development assistance' continues to be
associated with positive images of laughing children, satisfied farmers, and people
who have been cured of disease. And these images are justified to a considerable
extent. Development assistance has indeed been responsible for some of the greatest
developmental successes of the century: the eradication of small pox; the widespread
availability of vaccines for measles, whooping cough, and tuberculosis; spectacular
achievements in curing leprosy; and breakthroughs in agricultural research that have
increased food security in poor countries, among other things. But it also has issues
for hindering governance, maintaining poverty and ignoring community resilience.
To a considerable extent, the international resources of development assistance have
been responsible for the success of basic programmes. Examples include programmes
19
concerned with health care services for mothers and children, wastewater regulations,
supplies of drinking water and water for washing and bathing, and education (e.g.
construction of primary schools, provision of teaching materials, teacher training).
Additional success has been achieved in the area of infrastructure, e.g. road and
bridge construction projects, expansion of communications networks, and
electrification. Development assistance has also played and continues to play
substantial roles in the education of specialists in all disciplines, and in technology
transfer. Publications produced by institutions engaged in development are full of
empirical evidence of such achievements.
But development has also been plagued by a history of scandal. 18 This is not
surprising given that “development assistance” is provided by a great variety of
donors, with a wide variety of motives, to a very broad range of recipients. Stories of
snow ploughs delivered to tropical West Africa, despots with delusions of grandeur
using embezzled development funds to purchase beds made of gold, and sons of
negligent government officials collecting Ferraris in the south of France are
extraordinary enough to rank among the permanent “top ten” in the treasury of
anecdotes about development. In many poor countries corrupt government officials
and their extended families are known to have appropriated funds from the public
treasury to finance personal extravagancies and shopping sprees in Western capitals,
or to give their children an expensive education abroad. Although such facts are
known, they arouse public indignation only rarely – usually after an election has been
lost.
Spectacular or even grotesque failures in development programmes usually make
more attractive headlines than success stories, especially when the success stories are
unspectacular or only apparent after a considerable length of time. Because failure
usually receives greater publicity owing to its greater entertainment value, a bed made
of gold is likely to remain in the public memory longer than news of the eradication of
small pox. But even if the scandals that make headlines are not taken as an indication
of the ratio of success to failure in development, there is still a clear need for greater
awareness of the quality of development assistance.
Now, at the threshold of the world, a new term – “aid fatigue” – is coming into
fashion. Today, questions about the meaning and the effectiveness of traditional
development assistance are being posed more frequently. At the same time, almost all
developed countries are under political pressure to reduce deficits in their budgets.
While the volume of official development assistance rose continually from 1950 to
1994, it has since declined steadily. It is time to evaluate the situation and examine
what course to take. Certainly no respected expert in the field today would demand
that all development assistance be terminated. On the other hand, no serious
development specialist could recommend continuation of all current development
activities.
History will remember the beginning of the 21st century as an era characterized by
both positive and negative extremes in the political, social, environmental,
technological and economic spheres. In earlier centuries, relations between richer and
more powerful countries and poorer and less powerful ones were unilaterally
characterized by the exploitation of raw materials and the enslavement of human
beings. This changed in the middle of the 20th century. Owing to the destruction and
20
immense human suffering inflicted upon Europe by the Second World War, and in no
small measure to the subsequent division of the world into two ideological camps, a
new political vision emerged. It was expressed on June 25th 1945, in the Preamble to
the Charter of the United Nations. In this document, the world community pledged to
"Promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”, and
“employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social
advancement of all peoples.”19
The first step was a programme of reconstruction and development for Europe known
as the Marshall Plan (European Recovery Program), initiated by the United States,
and named for General George Marshall, who first presented the idea to the world in a
speech at Harvard University in the spring of 1947. By contrast with its European
allies, the United States had not sustained direct damage as the result of military
action; moreover, it was in a much better economic position than it had been at the
outbreak of the war. In this situation, the United States provided virtually all of the
financial aid that appeared to be necessary for reconstruction and revitalization of the
economies of Europe. By far the largest share of this development assistance flowed
to the countries of Western Europe. Although these countries had been weakened and
partially destroyed by war, their economies were basically sound. In addition, they
possessed industrial experience and know–how.
Of course, post–war Western Europe was not the only part of the world with
economic and social problems. Eastern Europe had been ravaged by war to an equal
extent – but the nations then joining together in the East Bloc refused to cooperate
with the United States for ideological reasons. At the same time, in what was coming
to be known as the “Third World”, the two newly independent countries of India and
Pakistan were in extremely difficult circumstances as a result of their recent
separation and the burden of dealing with millions of refugees. But they received no
help from the Marshall Plan. Moreover, most people in Africa and Latin America
were living in dire poverty; yet no organized aid effort was undertaken on behalf of
these continents. With the exception of Turkey, non–European countries were not
included in the Marshall Plan.
From the outset, enlightened self–interest, rooted in a desire to do as much as possible
to prevent the spread of Communism, was a pronounced feature of American
motivation to provide development assistance, starting with the Marshall Plan. As a
result, support was given primarily to anti–Communist governments during the Cold
War. A “childhood disease” continued to plague development assistance to a
considerable extent until the 1990s, namely, political and strategic aid to allies was
marked by a permanent weakness from its earliest days: in accordance with the motto,
“my fellow country, right or wrong”, recipient countries were seldom seriously
judged on qualitative criteria as a precondition for assistance. This is still the case
today; although the cold war in a thing of the past.
The motives for development assistance
Throughout the course of history, there have been many different motives for
development assistance. The following are among the most important:
21




compensation for injustices committed during the colonial period
political motives
economic motives
humanitarian motives and the ethical imperative
Compensation for Injustices Committed During the Colonial Period
At the end of the colonial era, there was political concern about the precarious
situation of newly independent nations. Virtually none of these countries had
sufficient indigenous expertise to even begin to confront the problems they faced, and
virtually none had infrastructures that were adapted to their new needs. Independence
was accompanied by demands presented to former colonial powers, which dealt with
them on the basis of a bad conscience and the need to provide compensation.
However, feelings of guilt cannot permanently motivate people to offer assistance
based on solidarity. Historical guilt in the context of relations between developed and
developing countries should not be suppressed; it should be dealt with and – wherever
possible – compensation should be made. But the motivation for compensation has
been steadily eroding for decades. Now, almost fifty years after the end of the era of
large–scale colonialism, it is difficult to convince most people that compensation is
justified.
Today it can be demonstrated that the majority of people in developing countries
suffer more from mismanagement of their national economies, autocratic forms of
exploitation practiced by the indigenous upper classes, and other consequences
resulting from policy failures at the national level, than from the consequences of their
previous colonial status. This has further eroded the motivation to provide
compensation. The age structure of the population in developed countries today is yet
another factor which undermines this motivation: more than three quarters of the
people living today in countries that were once colonial powers cannot be and do not
want to be made responsible for the actions of previous generations. In this context,
historical guilt as an instrument of development assistance has a counterproductive
effect and should hence be abandoned.
Generally, former colonies characterized by inefficient government and economic
mismanagement receive more assistance from one–time colonial powers than other
developing countries which are better governed and have honest, accountable policy–
makers and comparable levels of poverty, but no colonial past.
This brings us to the question of political motives.
Political Motives
In addition to the “special relationship” between one–time colonial powers and their
former colonies, there have always been other political motives and interests that took
high priority in the selection of the recipients of development assistance and in the
definition of development projects. US President Lyndon Johnson was reported to
have remarked once that, given the miserable human rights record and the corrupt
practices of a certain South American dictator, he would admit that the dictator was a
“bastard”. “But”, Johnson added, “He’s our bastard”. Of course there have always
22
been purists who advocated basing development assistance only on criteria of need –
but they have continually been in the minority.
Until the end of the 1980s, the most important political motives for development
assistance were geopolitical ones, such as containing Communism and securing
sources of raw materials and strategically significant sea–lanes (e.g. the Suez Canal).
Moreover, analysis of the tragedy in the Congo and disasters in countries such as
Angola, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, makes it clear that securing sources of raw
materials continues to be important.
Today, however, a new political motive is gaining importance, at least implicitly. This
motive is rooted in a desire to resist the unwanted flow of migrants from developing
countries to Western Europe and the United States. With regard to the current
problems of migration, it is important to note that the very poorest people usually do
not come to “developed” Western countries as economic and environmental refugees.
The world's poorest people have very little mobility: they rarely speak non–
indigenous languages, and even more rarely do they possess the resources that could
give them intercontinental mobility. If poor people are not forced to flee to
neighboring regions as the result of war and natural disasters, they continue to endure
destitution wherever they are. Even those who migrate from rural areas to cities,
where they populate the poorest quarters, are social elite in relative terms. But those
who migrate to Europe definitely constitute an elite class. The poorest of the poor
cannot even pay the fees demanded by traffickers who transport migrants, let alone
the price of an international airline flight.
Nevertheless, those who seek to secure their economic future in a different part of the
world cannot be accused of dishonest motives. It is obvious that people who cannot
ensure their well being in developing countries will attempt to do so in developed
countries. Development assistance can and does aim to make a contribution towards
ensuring a better future for people in their own countries, in order to prevent future
migration. Current measures for dealing with the influx of migrants could probably be
made more rational if regulated by migration laws, rather than by legal provisions
devised to deal with asylum–seekers.
Today destitution, destruction of tropical forests, and shortages of fresh water must
also be counted as contemporary threats to human security, along with drug
trafficking and international criminal activity. Social inequities, political polarization,
and peaceful co–existence are not mutually exclusive phenomena, at either the
national or international level. International development policy will continue to be
one of the instruments needed to secure international peace in the future.
The economic, social and ecological progress achieved by people in other parts of the
world not only improves their own quality of life; it also benefits us. What is true for
individual countries in this respect also applies to the world as a whole: the fruits of
economic prosperity smell sweeter to its beneficiaries if they are not poisoned by
social inequities. Development assistance should therefore not be seen as a
humanitarian luxury in prosperous times. It must also be regarded as an investment in
the future of our children and grandchildren.
23
Economic Motives
Expansion of world trade and development of potential markets in order to boost
exports, with the aim of ensuring domestic prosperity, have long been among the
economic motives for development assistance. In principle, there is nothing
objectionable about economic incentives for development assistance. The range of
products produced by developed countries includes many goods and services that are
essential to economic development and social well being in developing countries.
Moreover, these goods and services – to the extent that they are not part of tied aid
packages – are available at prices subject to international competition. The spectacular
successes achieved in reducing mortality rates, increasing food yields per hectare, and
building modern communications infrastructure would not have been possible in most
developing countries without goods and services imported from developed countries.
In recent years, however, economic motives for development have lost much of their
significance. Currently, they are relevant only with respect to so–called “newly
industrializing countries”. A study published in 1997 by the Erklärung von Bern
(Berne Declaration) calculated that every Swiss franc of official development
assistance generates a net return of 1.26 francs in Switzerland. This may be one
reason why the share of development assistance received by countries with moderate
to high–income levels has been increasing for a number of years. On the other hand,
the international purchasing power of the poorest countries is very low. Moreover, in
the age of globalization, many goods that these countries once had to purchase in
developed countries are now available, at a comparable level of quality and at lower
prices, in other developing countries.
In addition, development assistance to the poorest countries has declined. This does
not mean that allocations to these countries have been cut; a reallocation has taken
place in order to provide funds for disaster relief and for refugees and asylum–seekers
in developed countries. In Switzerland and Germany, current expenditures for
asylum–seekers and refugees are of an order of magnitude comparable to
expenditures for development assistance to poor countries.
With respect to communications infrastructure, and particularly from an ecological
point of view, the degree to which development is sustainable depends largely on a
combination of development assistance and commercial technology transfer. The
question of whether heavily populated countries such as China and India would
industrialize has long since been answered affirmatively, although the question of
which technological model this industrialization will follow is still at least partly
open. It would be ecologically disastrous if industrialization in major developing
countries took place according to the Western model of the 1960s and 1970s. State–
of–the–art ecological technologies now available should be applied in development
programmes whenever possible.
Humanitarian Motives and the Ethical Imperative
Development assistance was long regarded as a Christian missionary activity –
Christian in the sense of loving one's neighbour and missionary in the sense of
unwillingness to accept poverty and misery as a condition of one's fellow human
beings. Poverty, especially as a cause of the illness and death of individual human
24
beings, has always provided a substantial motive for humanitarian forms of
intervention. In the jungles of Africa during the First World War, Albert Schweitzer
wrote a passage that is still relevant today, in light of the mass poverty that exists in
Asia and Africa:
“No human being should allow unbearable pain to persist if he is able to prevent it.
No human being should be comforted by the argument that he would be intervening
where it is none of his business to do so. No human being should close his eyes and
maintain that the suffering he did not see does not exist. No human being should take
lightly the burden of his responsibility.”20
The great majorities of people in developed countries are thoroughly aware of the
contemporary dimensions of poverty and have drawn the right conclusions about its
tragic effects on the quality of life of those affected by it. Three out of every four
people in Western Europe are willing to offer aid when confronted with hunger,
disease and impoverishment in poor countries. These people expect development
assistance to help improve governance, conquer poverty, to help people to solve their
own problems by their own means, and thus to make a sustainable improvement in the
quality of life of those who receive aid.
THE ROLE OF ALTERNATIVES AND DISCUSSION
A saying attributed to Mahatma Gandhi is that “the world has enough for everybody's
need, but not for everybody's greed”. This is still relevant in economic and ecological
terms.
Considering the lifestyle of the rich minority of the world and the associated patterns
of consumption, production, and waste, it becomes clear that in environmental terms,
about 20 percent of humanity lives 10—15 times more destructively than the 3—3.5
billion low-income people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America21 . It is also true that
developed countries achieve substantially higher value-added with their economic
activity and perform much better in terms of emissions per unit of GNP than
developing countries do. In addition, the location of production means that developing
countries are relieved of some of the environmental load22. Nevertheless, with their
current patterns of resource consumption and emissions, people in developed
countries are contravening fundamental notions of justice: they are not acting, to use
Kantian phraseology, according to a maxim that they would wish to have as a
universal law.
Under today's political, economical and technological conditions, the global
environment cannot tolerate all 5.9 billion people living the “Popular American
Dream” or its European equivalent, as the consumption of non-renewable resources as
well as the emissions of waste products would overtax the carrying capacity of the
planet.
The Alternative Evolutions: Working Group on Good Governance, Poverty Reduction
and Community Resilience, has been organized in order to imagine, discuss and
facilitate the development of alternative approaches to poverty reduction, good
governance and the enhancement of community resilience. Of course, simply
discussing alternatives does not ensure the displacement of the hegemonic approach
25
(in this case, the PRSPs). Yet, in many countries have concrete experiences of ways in
which civil society groups have effectively engaged in the PRSP process, and created
enough political pressure to force their governments and the IFIs to accept key
changes to the proscribed PRSP.
In this section, the paper discusses briefly how a group of civil society groups in Sri
Lanka challenged and successfully altered the government’s development plan, which
was entirely modeled on the PRSP. At the same time, we acknowledge the limitations
of what was achieved, highlighting the need for a more coordinated, global network
of actions to promote alternatives to hegemonic understandings of, and activities on
poverty reduction, good governance and community resilience.
In 2003, the People’s Response to Regaining Sri Lanka23, which was the former
government’s development plan, modeled to fit the PRSP; had considerable success in
pressuring the government to alter the plan, based on this Response. The People’s
Response comprised of joint statements representing 26 civil society groups,
including trade unions, women’s groups, and local NGOs and CBOs. The Response
demonstrated how the PRSP and Regaining Sri Lanka plan did not adequately
consider Sri Lanka’s experience with social and economic development since
independence, especially the fact that government investment in basic services and
infrastructure such as education and health have resulted in considerable development
advancement over the decades. The PRSP and development plan instead call for
large-scale privatization of government agencies, and sweeping land and labor market
reform that could have very detrimental effects on the poor. Further, the specific
needs of the war-affected north and east parts of the country are entirely ignored. The
process of “participation” in preparing these reports has also been highly
questionable, side-stepping basic parliamentary procedures, and ignoring civil society
inputs.
The People’s Response had an impact. The government was forced to revisit the
Regaining Sri Lanka document and address many of the grievances such as provincial
specific development needs, unequal distribution of resources (especially in the North
and East of Sri Lanka) and inviting small community groups for discussions on
poverty reduction.
At the same time, the People’s Response has some limitations: it operated within the
context of the PRSP process, i.e. at some level; we accepted that the PRSP is
inevitability, and worked within its framework. Further, working only on the Sri
Lankan PRSP has little or no influence on decisions about the PRSP process made at
the head offices of IFIs. If the consortia represented within the People’s Response
could be part of a larger network of groups working on similar issues, the overall
impacts could reach much further.
Discussion points
The points for discussion in this section are simply suggestions. They are by no means
definitive, nor designed to exclude relevant issues that do not fall into these broad
categories.
26
Understanding alternatives that already exist
As discussed in the previous section, there are many concrete experiences in altering,
or promoting alternatives to the PRSP from different countries. It may be useful to
share these experiences, and attempt to understand: What was the goal of the effort
(or organization/s)? Who was involved, and who was excluded? What was the
process? What was the outcome? What were the shortcomings in strategy, approach,
organizational structure? How can these shortcomings be overcome, and the process
strengthened?
Understanding the basic concepts
When talking about alternatives, we need to examine how our very concepts of
poverty alleviation, good governance and community resilience are different from the
mainstream. The definitions of these concepts can differ substantially. For example,
understandings of poverty vary along a large spectrum. At one end we have the
economistic definitions of poverty as lacking access to capital, or, more recently, a
range of capitals (human, natural, financial, social and physical capital). At the other,
we have scholars such as Arturo Escobar (1997) who argue that poverty itself is a
western hegemonic concept, used by the west to continue to dominate their former
colonies, and internalized by the inhabitants of developing countries to make them
feel inferior to their western counterparts24 . Within this range of definitions, what are
our implicit or explicit concepts of poverty, and therefore poverty alleviation?
The same can be said of governance. The IFIs see governance as a technobureaucratic concept, devoid of any political character. The universally acknowledged
3 pillars of good governance are transparency, accountability and participation.
However, as discussed above, concepts such as participation are themselves open to
different interpretations: who should participate, in what processes, with what power,
and with what legitimacy? (ODI on politics and PRSP) Further, how can good
governance be applied and enforces within the IFIs themselves?
“Community” is also a politically-loaded concept. The word conjures romantic
images of groups of like-minded people living in harmony. In reality, communities
themselves are divided along class, caste, gender, religious, political and other lines,
and rarely do all members of a community see eye to eye. How then does a realistic
understanding of community affect our approaches to poverty alleviation and good
governance? The practical implications of this are many. For example, if we say we
are targeting the poorest-of-the-poor, do we entirely exclude the richer members or
political elites of that community from our program? If not, how do we involve them
in a productive, meaningful way?
Is there a need to agree to definitions or principles?
While we all feel strongly about allowing for pluralistic representations and voices,
we have to remember that these pluralistic voices also include the Taliban, the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the RSS in India, etc. What then is our
basis for deciding which groups we work with, and who we exclude? Do we need a
broad set of guiding principles, and if yes, what should those be?
27
To what extent is there overlap between our understandings, approaches and
principles, and the hegemonic ones?
Is there some common ground between approaches we advocate, and those of IFIs?
This is an important issue to resolve, as it will determine the kinds of actions we
chose to follow – do we oppose the very existence of IFIs? Do we oppose the very
existence of PRSPs? Do we accept the process as having some merits, and work
towards changing some aspects of it?
What are the shortcomings of development aid and how to make it work?
There are a serious need to establish a discourse on the effectiveness of, and possible
improvements to development aid, including the interventions of IFIs. How can
humanitarian policy makers and field level aid workers think and move towards a
world in which they do not, and should not, have their jobs anymore?
What are our own shortcomings?
Apart from the obvious shortcomings of having limited access to funds and other
resources, what are our other shortcomings? Who are our funders, and in what ways
are we beholden to our funders? Every organization operates with some ideology –
what is each of ours? Do these ideologies cause conflicts amongst us, and how can we
overcome these conflicts? As members of civil society organizations, many of us are
not democratically elected. In this case, who really are the people we represent? By
what mechanism did we gain authority to represent their interests? How do we ensure
fair participation and democracy in our own systems of operation?
How do we measure and evaluate the success of our own ventures?
What are our metrics, our own accountability and evaluation systems? How can we
measure successes based on our cultural and traditional knowledge?
Understanding the need for and role of a network
Why have a network? What other similar networks or groups already exist, and how
will we be different from them? What activities will we carry out? Through what
mechanisms?
28
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This summary is drawn from several sources including:
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Page 5 of Piron, L. and Evans, A. (2004), “Politics and the PRSP Approach: Synthesis
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30
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Albert Schweitzer quoted in report Development Assistance at the Threshold of the 21st
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A Joint Collective of People from North East and the Rest of the Country (2003), People’s
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Escobar, A. (1994) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third
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31