Money All Around

Money isn’t the issue. It shouldn’t be. There is so much of it sitting around. Everybody has funds to give away. Grants don’t get disbursed. Global Funds are moving at snails-pace. The well-intended Euro, ¥en or Dollar changes hands several times between a donor, a bank, a global fund, and multilateral agencies before it reaches the host government or NGO.

With all this money around, why do we need funds?

The best programme is one that is fully financed from the national budget. Do we have to fund activities and initiatives, because we can’t convince the government, donors, banks and Global Funds that these are high priorities? Why haven’t we been smashingly successful at redirecting national budgets, Poverty Reduction Strategies or bilateral aid agreements? Is it because we don’t have the credible evidence that our proposed interventions are the best thing that can happen to the country, or because we are too busy administering our own funds?

There is no sweeping statement to be made here. We need money to pay our staff. We need resources for emergency interventions, and for expanding knowledge. But the decision whether to spend energy on fund management or on policy advice has to be a conscious one. I know countries, where I’d rather help tweaking and monitoring a 50 million Dollar programme managed by the government and supported by a larger bank or donor, than administer half a million Dollar for a UNICEF-assisted programme.

We are not a donor, after all.

(29 April 2005)

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