A Special Place.....

This doesn’t apply in my country.

My country can be Nicaragua, Kazakhstan, Iran, Kenya, a big country in Asia, or a small one in Africa, or any country anywhere. Take your pick.

I am sure any advisor in a Regional Office or any Headquarter Division has heard this before. And perhaps we have said it ourselves.

For many programmers – as for economists - the real world is often a special case. The country in question is too poor, too small, too big, too isolated, too dependent, too centralized, too disorganized, too traditionalist or too unstable; it has poor data, has too little institutional capacity, too little community spirit, or too little political will. The country has too much or too little of something and therefore the usual programming guidelines cannot apply. 

And because their country is a special case - so the programmers argue - the analysis cannot be done accurately, the human rights approach doesn’t work, one cannot formulate or predict results, the work plans take six months or never to be sorted out, the funds cannot be found, the cash not liquidated and the lessons cannot be learned.

Ok, I added the last one. 

Because: if a country were able to conduct an in-depth analysis of the situation of children and women; if it would apply a human rights approach to development; if it would have a vibrant civil society able to dialogue with the politicians; if it could draw up realistic plans; if it would be able to turn these plans into action; if it could manage its resources well – well, then we would not need to be there. And this would really be a special case.

(5 December 2003)

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