Comments on: Civil Society, Public Action and Accountability in Africa

By: Michael Bailey

Michael Bailey — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 23:41:47 +0000

Two thoughts re blog topic:

1) At risk of stating the obvious, support from the international community for civil society is not just about money. Official donors, and their Foreign Ministries, should employ their diplomatic influence to help ensure that there is ’space’ for active civil society. e.g pressing for less restrictive media laws, for fewer undue legislative controls on CSOs, for an end to more overtly repressive policies … I feel this is more important than financial support, and perhaps carries less risk of doing harm.

2) But money is good too, and how much better if some of it went to enabling civil society in aid-receiving countries to hold donors to account. Oxfam once suggested that the DFID/Nordics civil society fund for Afghanistan, then in the planning stage, should be prepared to support projects which did this, and helped ensure donor responsiveness to civil society opinions. This was important because donors were, and are, shaping many national policies and providing about 90% of the government’s budget. The suggestion was not taken up, but perhaps readers know of cases where donors have been more, dare I say, courageous?

By: aidnography

aidnography — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 17:39:20 +0000

I haven’t read the paper yet, but I guess one should not overlook the discursive dimension behind such a report. So after all those years of supporting ‘civil society’ (after the Bank slammed ‘the State’) the Bank suggests that aid money in this area may not be well spent or has limited impact. I’m by no means saying the opposite is true or that Duncan’s analysis is wrong, but if we have little data about the relationship between aid money and civil society accountability any set of conclusion needs to be interpreted with caution. It’s not surprising that a report by the Bank finds support for business associations or rankings useful-because these are among the stakeholders and tools they like to support (and there’s always a way to sneak in a RCT-link…). From an academic point, it will be interesting to engage further with report, its language and conclusions…

By: Reclaim Education

Reclaim Education — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:48:04 +0000

Thanks Duncan, very interesting analysis. Any chance you could use your influence at OxfamEducation to encourage them to help schools provide similar nuanced, balanced and critical analysis of aid and accountability in schools?

At the moment the emphasis seems to be on pushing a stereotype that all aid is good and the more the better regardless of these important issues.

By: Mtega

Mtega — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:28:23 +0000

I was with you all the way, until the very last set of square brackets. The context I know best is Tanzania, where, for better or for worse, aid is much more than a bit player in domestic politics.

Which brings me to what I felt was missing from this analysis – the politic role (intentional or otherwise) played by donors. Domestic politics is sidelined when the key policy and budget decisions are made in meetings attended by representatives of donor agencies and line ministries. Many donors try to remain above the political fray, but they’re kidding themselves if they think that’s possible – any high level engagement with issues such as health, education, water supply, agriculture, etc. is always going to be political.

That doesn’t take anything away from what this report says about donor support for civil society, which makes a lot of sense. But I struggle to see how you can go looking for “transformational changes in accountability relations” without a proper analysis of how donors’ actions also affect domestic accountability relations.