Cultures of funding, management and learning in the global mainstream

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International Journal of Educational Development 25 (2005) 157–172

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Cultures of funding, management and learning inthe global mainstream

Rosemary Preston

International Centre for Education in Development, School of Health and Social Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK

Abstract

This paper examines changes over the last 20 years which have shaped international human development assistance

for the alleviation of poverty and inclusion and what it achieves. With reference to labour market restructuring and the

contemporary rhetoric, design and management of human development interventions, it describes a study into how

these changes influence the multiple messages being transmitted in association with aid sector interventions and applies

them to case studies of communication in very different organisational partnerships. The discussion is of the learning

they inspire and its implications for inclusion, control and stability at multiple levels. The paper observes close

similarities between the case studies in low-income states and others in advanced capitalist nations, which offer short-

term funding oriented at the inclusion of marginal groups and at the support of civil society initiatives for its own

development. It argues that the remit of the aid sector and other providers, rather than alleviating poverty, reinforces

internationally framed structures of inclusion, marginality, cohesion and stability, with differential skill in the

management of finance, human and other resources crucial to the process. Observable across corporate, statutory and

non-government sectors alike, such skill attains the status of a global literacy, subordinating other knowledge and

practice to its logic.

r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

1.1. Marginality and inclusion: implications for

innovation

The maintenance of stability implies tolerance ofdifference and disaffection, with no more thanmanageable disruptions to orderly relations be-tween individuals, communities, organisations,

e front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserve

dudev.2004.11.024

ess: [email protected] (R. Preston).

states and supra-national entities. Under the threatof instability, people will move, at and betweenany of these levels (upwards, downwards, horizon-tally, diagonally and circuitously), to mobiliseresources to minimise risk and damage to indivi-dual and institutional security, optimising presentand future well-being to the extent that is possible(Beck, 1999; Lash, 1999). Internationally fundedhuman development initiatives may be seen asstabilising mechanisms, distributing resources tothose deemed needy and inhibiting disruption.

d.

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R. Preston / International Journal of Educational Development 25 (2005) 157–172158

This paper examines how the cultures andpractices of such interventions contribute to theprocess.The policy fashions, under which such schemes

have evolved, mask the extent to which theresources, informed by wider political and eco-nomic interests, are increasingly deficient toalleviate prevailing levels of poverty (Germanand Randel, 1997). From what now seems likegenerous 1950s welfarist support to modernisa-tion, through the period of neo-Marxist depen-dency critiques, to more modest 1970s approachesoriented at meeting basic local needs, each changein policy principle has been associated with newarrangements for implementation and financialmanagement (see Hettne, 1995). While this makesfor innovation at successive policy moments, aswell as being a prerequisite of fundable pro-gramme and project design, the underlying imagesof ordered consumerist well-being which theyproject remain more or less constant. Once thediverse immediate targets of inputs are met, thoseat higher levels quickly converge, in the immediatelocality and beyond. Clean water improves health,which increases the capacity of labour and income,enough of which allows the purchase of a morecomfortable life style, both material and symbolic.Elementary training improves trade and manage-ment skills, increasing capacity through which todevelop income, and so forth. As a result, multiplelessons are to be learned from aid interventions, inaddition to those stated as their principle sub-stantive rationale. They are transmitted with theseimages and others like them which have powerfulimplications for the present and future socialpositioning of those affected. They include thepoor and marginal as designated users of theservices offered and those responsible for theirdelivery, at whatever level. Through incidental,planned and contextual learning, individuals andorganisational partners may be committed to quitedifferent tasks in the promotion of a commonactivity. They bring different skill repertoires anddevelop new ones, as they accommodate to theactivity in question, each other and their widersurroundings.This paper shows how changes in the wider

social context over the last 20 years shape the

purposes, policies and practices of internationalhuman development assistance and what itachieves. It reports methods used to collect andanalyse data, so as to describe some of the multiplemessages being transmitted with aid sector inter-ventions and applies them to case studies ofcommunication in organisational partnerships.The discussion conceptualises relations withinand between partner organisations as cultures oflearning and management and what they imply forinclusion, control and stability at different levels ofanalysis.

1.2. Trends in aid policy and practice

The delivery of international technical assistancehas had to respond to labour market changes ofrecent decades. No longer do international expertson long-term expatriate contracts carry out theprofessional and skilled work required by clientgovernments (Preston and Arthur, 1997). In-creased capacities in recipient states are attribu-table to hitherto unprecedented levels ofeducation. Routine tasks have long since beenundertaken locally and now senior administrativeresponsibilities are assumed by in-country person-nel (DFID, 2004). At the same time, in rich andpoor countries alike, market inspired down-sizingof bureaucracy in public and private sectors, sawthe 1980s growth of NGOs (private, not-for-profitand voluntary), to absorb displaced professionalsand other personnel. Across sectors, cadres offreelance consultants offering services to anynumber of intermediary bodies have also beencreated, competing under more and less favourableconditions for a dwindling supply of jobs (Preston,1999). Today, with general budgetary supportthrough multilateral and bi-lateral funding ar-rangements and sector wide reforms as a relatedoption (Murphy, 2003), high cost expatriate inputis further reduced to short policy advisory servicesand impact evaluation. It leaves recipient states toset objectives and decide how to meet them,including the services they will contract, on whatterms, from where. They will seek to minimisesuch outlay. They draw on their own networks,in country and internationally, at prices wellbelow the norms of the International Financial

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R. Preston / International Journal of Educational Development 25 (2005) 157–172 159

Institutions (IFIs) and bi-lateral funding bodies. Incontrast, the minority of direct funded schemesmakes no investment into treasury accounts of therecipient country (Preston and McCaffery, 1999).Instead non-government and community-basedorganisations (NGOs/CBOs) are contracted tomanage and implement the project, respectively.For funding organisations, direct funding con-tracts by-passing official bodies may representsprats to catch mackerel, sweeteners in the case ofstates deemed as yet unready for large-scalebudgetary support or, for whatever reason, apolitically expedient device to keep channels ofcommunication open pending the resumption ofnormal international relations (Preston, 2001a).

2. Project cycles and log-frames

The phases of project planning taken togetherare often envisaged as cycles spiralling from theidentification of a need, through design andmonitored implementation phases. They end withassessments of project achievements and impact,as precursors to identifying further needs andanother cycle. The logical planning framework hasbeen the king of a myriad aid project planningtools for nearly four decades (see Fig. 1). Designedto simplify management, it invites planners andimplementers to set their own project targets,design their own ways and means of meeting them,identify the resources required to do this andassess the risks that might prevent things going asplanned, along with strategy to overcome them.

Outputs

Activities

Inputs

Key:

Projectnarrative

Criticalsuccess factors

Indicatorsof success

Overarching goals

direction from which to read the relationship of inputs to outcomcontribution to achieving higher level objectives

Fig. 1. Simplified plan

Critically, it allows the tracking of immediateachievements and their contribution first to localtargets and then to wider, externally set regionaland national purposes and goals. The funder isaccountable to its governing body (government,corporation or NGO) for outcomes and the extentto which they contribute to these overarchingsustainable development goals. The detail of themonitoring and evaluation of the ways in whichthis is achieved varies from funder to funder, butthe criteria used are similar. For the IFIs it hasbecome the extent to which indicated expendituretakes place to schedule, with penalties for delay,regardless of who may be at fault in incurring it.Since the 1970s, the log-frame has become the

principal tool of the aid sector, all over the world.My first exposure to the mysteries of a WorldBank project document was in the early 1980s inthe westernmost province Papua New Guinea,bordering Indonesia. Several inches thick, itdescribed the sequence of activities across sectorsthat were to be undertaken according to theprinciples of outcomes-based management anddescribed within the confines of the logicalplanning framework (World Bank, 1984). A fewyears later, in newly independent Namibia, I foundmyself teaching project planning to senior mem-bers of the newly independent government, fromquite different departments. Preparing them towrite and appraise bids for financial support, thisincluded simulation exercises associated with log-frame planning and evaluation, although it madeno concession to how their specialist spheres(mining, social welfare, education, fishery) of

Contingencies

Assumptions /risks

es and their

ning framework.

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activity might influence the process (Rogers andPreston, 1990). A year later, with a research teamnear the Namibian border with Angola, villagersin the former war zone asked if we were able toteach them project planning, so that they mightapply for micro-enterprise loans and enhance theirdevelopment (Preston, 1997). We agreed to help,but in the main this was a general orientation withno specific discussion of whether the plansenvisaged were for tailoring, food processing orbuilding. In Central America, working withrefugees from Guatemala, Honduras and Nicar-agua, bids for a donor conference were accom-panied by sheathes of project proposals frommembers states, all of them structured around thelog-frame (Preston, 1990). Working as a consul-tant and then teaching and researching interna-tional human development consultancy in the1990s, terms of reference were without exceptionset in relation to log-frame specifications andmonitoring and evaluation was according to itsprinciples and phases (Arthur and Preston, 1996;Preston and Arthur, 1997). Ten years on, research-ing the complexities of communication in inter-organisational aid partnerships, hierarchies ofinterlocking log-frames continue to inform whatprogramme and project managers do, along withtheir affiliated consultant expertise, at all levels ofthe organisational networks involved. What fol-lows derives from this last research (Preston andMcCaffery, 1999).

3. Conceptualising partnership

The language of aid sector partnership waspopularised in the growth of the post-developmentNGO sector in the 1970s. National and interna-

•

•

•

Deliverers of the service

Funding organisations x N(multi-lateral, bi-lateral, NGO)

managing agencies(private, statutory, voluntary) x N

implementing organisations and teams

Fig. 2. The organisational acto

tional NGOs prided themselves on their altruisticphilosophies, their closeness to the beneficiaries oftheir work and its enhanced relevance. Workingwith governments and people, their motivationgave them community access of a quality said notto be available to local government, nationalbureaucracy and other aid sector bodies. Partner-ship was a cosy word to describe these relations.Since then, the term has been coined by the

mainstream funding community, first IFIs andthen bi-lateral and other donor organisations, suchthat today it is their interests that dominate itscurrent meaning (Preston, 2002a). This is in part aco-optation of marginal cosiness by the main-stream of the aid sector. It also derives from thetrends towards efficiency in the neo-liberal con-tract culture of the outsourcing labour market,private, statutory and voluntary as well. In the aidsector, partnership may refer in certain types ofintervention to funding organisations’ relation-ships with governments and also, much morewidely, to links with any other organisation,including NGOs and communities, in any part ofthe organisational network responsible for thedelivery of the service in question (see Fig. 2). Theinterventions in the complex projects research hadat least 5 organisations on their vertical andhorizontal axes, often many more (see Fig. 3 foran illustration).There is no equality of status, function or

resource between those organisations contractedas partners to the same project. IFIs and regionaldevelopment banks aim to make long-term profitout of repayments of large-scale loans and thereare head office celebrations when new agreementsare signed (Transcripts 185 and 192). They areaccountable to their boards of directors. Bi-laterals distribute funds in such a way as to

•

•

Recipients /clients of the service

governments x N

user groups (private, statutory,voluntary, community) x N

rs in any aid partnership.

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Funder

UKLowland Iberia Austral República Central Occidental

Van Eyck Ibérica

Department

BritanniaAtlántica Altavista Pacíf ica

Department Department L C Department Department Department

Centres L L RA

RA

LL L L

Junior staff/

* * * RA

* * * * * *

student * * * * *

* ***

LlaguzaValle Serena

KEYCountries

Universities

Staff status

High

Low

Field sites

Los Bajos

Ulay

Research areas with multiple communitiesin each South American country

Fig. 3. The six-country, six university ERCB project matrix.


contribute to the foreign affairs objectives of thegovernments in which they are positioned and areaccountable to their elected representatives (Tran-script 185). Not-for-profit and other NGO projectmanagement and implementing bodies working onbehalf of other funders are by any other nameprivate sector enterprises that have to remain inbusiness if they are to survive, with competitivetendering the mechanism that regulates theirservice charges. They are additionally answerableto Boards of Trustees and Directors for the waysin which they fulfil their stated missions.For people in client governments, aid projects

offer attractive opportunities to supplement in-come and enhance career development prospects,through bonuses such as international travel,workshop per diems, continued employment atcontract end and other devices. At a communitylevel, there are similar incentives for selectedminorities (notably those with leadership quali-ties), and access to otherwise not available (oftencredit-based) resources (Transcript 191) nearly all

facilitating the production and marketing of goodsand services.Another way of contextualising interventions is

through the hierarchy of the organisationalpriorities of partnership members. Comparing aCommunity education (CEP) programme in Sub-Saharan Africa, sectoral reform in Eastern Europe(ERP) and a multi-country, university project todevelop environmental research capacities (ERCB)(Table 1), all have generic features. As aidpartnerships, they are mechanisms for the transferof resources from international funding organisa-tions to recipients in other countries. They aim toachieve overarching political, economic and cul-tural purposes through the completion of specifiedactivities. Of note in each case is the fact that thehighest order purpose of each intervention issubstantively unrelated to the terms of the inven-tion being funded in order to achieve it, while thescale of the investments, their funding modalitiesand the activities being developed vary enor-mously. At all levels of the matrix, however,

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Table 1

Principal project purposes: organisational and individual

Africa (CEP) Eastern Europe (ERP) Latin America (ERCB)

1. Generic features Transfer of expatriate funds, expatriate leadership and control of decisions relating to continuance

of funding for purposes of overarching international relations to be achieved through multiple

locally implemented activities.

2. Specific features of principal

case studies

(a) International relations aims

(funders)

With small-scale, bi-lateral

funding from Western Europe,

the CEP by-passed the

national government of an

out-of-favour state. Along

with several other schemes, it

aimed to keep channels open

for future, large-scale

interventions, once normal

inter-governmental relations

were resumed.

Large-scale, multi-million

dollar, IFI funded SDP to

facilitate transition to free

market democracy and

eventual EU membership in

recognition of this

achievement.

Non-Lome European Union

(EU) funding administered

directly by Brussels, by-

passing national governments

of 6 states (3 in Europe, 3 in

Latin America) and EU

country offices to create long-

term institutional capacities to

manage EU funding and

policy implementation.

European bi-lateral interest in

funding the ERP component

consolidates its relationship

with the IFI and Brussels.

(b) Specified purposes

(managers and implementers)

With a European managing

agent, put in place a system to

increase literacy levels and

education for all in poor

regions and associated income

generation capacities.

With a European managing

agent, restructure and position

the Ministry of Education in

relation to the Ministry of

Finance and, through

decentralisation, improve the

quality of pre-university

education management and

teaching, to be relevant to

future free market work force

requirements.

Through comparative studies

of environment and livelihood,

create channels of inter-

university communication in

Europe and South America,

enhancing staff capabilities for

future international work.

(c) Staff commitment of all

partner organizations

Opportunities for socially responsible and continued employment and professional development.

Source: Preston (2001a).


project staff are driven by the need for secureemployment and adequate remuneration.

4. The research

The CEP, ERP and ERCB are the principal casestudies of the research on which this paper isbased, with 16 other human development projectsinvestigated in much less depth. The study was acomparative analysis of patterns of communica-tion in complex cross-national projects promotinghuman development for poor and marginal

people. The breadth of the study’s remit was toafford flexibility in the shaping of the work toallow the concepts with which it would engage toemerge from the primarily qualitative data itwould gather.The study had several phases. There was a

review of literature on the changing modalities oftechnical assistance, piloting field methods andinitial construct identification (Preston andMcCaffery, 1999). Primary and secondary datawere collected for 19 projects from some 200unpublished documents and face-to-face inter-views with different organisational actors (mostly

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Table 2

Interviews with staff of different partner categories

Donor Manager Consultant Implementer Government Facilitators Users N

16 16 36 19 24 22 3 136

Table 3

Case study projects with European funding (N ¼ 16/19)

Funder category Disbursement region

W. Europe Eastern Europe Middle East Africa Latin America Asia

Regional 1 1

Bi-lateral 2 1 6 1 1

Foundation 1 1

Corporate 1

1Between IFI lenders and borrowing governments, as well as

inter-government arrangements.


individually), about their experiences of the projectin question. Two thirds of the interviews werefrom the CEP, ERP and ERCB. Validation ofinterview data was achieved by asking informantsto review and amend transcripts, as quicklyas possible after the meeting. Nearly all infor-mants held positions in project delivery hierar-chies, but three were representatives of commu-nity user groups at the final point of delivery (seeTable 2). Key ideas were sought within organisa-tions, between organisations of different status inthe same partnership and between those of similarstatus in different partnerships, making the pre-sentation of the research as complex as thematrices it seeks to describe. This is attributableto the layers of tension: (i) between the agency ofindividuals and their interaction with the practicesand development of the organisation to which theybelong; (ii) the ways in which the structures of thepartnership shape the interaction between memberorganisations.Most of the case study projects in the complex

project research had a European dimension (16/19) (see Table 3). In 10, all finance came fromEuropean sources. In 5, the principal funding wasfrom IFI sources. All but one of the Europeanfunding sources was in located in Western Europe.The exception was a Central European Founda-tion. In 13 cases, the delivery point was in middle

and low-income post-colonial states of Asia,Africa and Latin America, while the ERP was ina transitional state of Eastern Europe. Theremaining 2 cases were in rich, western Europeannations. In due course, this paper compares themanagement of these two and those providingservices in low-income states.

5. Policy priorities and delivery modalities

Different organisational roles and purposes inthe delivery of different interventions belie thesimilarity of these organisations’ individuallystated purposes. From national growth, to meetinglocal needs, gender, poverty alleviation, humanrights and safety nets, all are committed to theoverarching priority of deepening of the market.IFI status in the funding community forces thecompliance of bi-lateral and private funders withIFI policy and the imposition of the same array offunding conditions on clients. In bi-lateral agree-ments1 for sector wide reform, such as the ERP,client governments are required to restructurebureaucracy, subordinating it to the logic of liberalfinancial governance and decentralisation before a

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contract will be agreed2 (Killick, 1998). Conver-ging with WTO/GATS accords, all facilitate openexternal access to national markets and unfetteredcompetition from anywhere to provide goods andservices.Retrospective direct funding3 by-passing client

governments may make the same prerequisitedemands, if on a smaller and more local scale.The CEP was an example. Through these mechan-isms, claiming relevance to client need, deliverymodalities from project to project and place toplace come to resemble each other. Technicallyrational participatory planning, implementationand evaluation are the management tools thatbring it about (Cracknell, 2002). Aid sectorpartnership, as a market process, represents theoutsourcing of project management and imple-mentation functions, formerly undertaken in-house by funders themselves. In the age oftransparency, the complex inter-organisationalrelationships that result can usefully obfuscatelines of accountability. With global anger at IFIloans as the purveyors of poverty and debt, suchobfuscation can often play an important part indefusing public criticism. It is equally convenientfor organisations dependent on revenue frompublic purses, government departments and vo-luntary sector bodies (Transcript 185)

5.1. EU aid

European human development aid allocated bythe regional government is managed in similarways.

�

co

It

tio

sur

pre

It derives from member state subscriptions.
� Individual member states may in addition havetheir own funding organisations, associated withministries of foreign affairs or independent ofthem.
2With IFI loans, there will typically be 60–70 prerequisite

nditionalities. With the CEC there may be 30–40.3Direct funding is paid on evidence of expenditure incurred.

means that managing agencies and implementing organisa-

ns must have capital available to front payments, as well as

plus to cover the risk that funders will reject accounts

sented.

�

dif

of

Whether the source is regional or national, aproportion of the allocation from each goes tosupport the multi-lateral aid initiatives of theUN organisations, among them the World Bankand IMF.

�
The remainder is managed through bi-lateralgovernment-to-government agreements andthrough the much smaller system of directgrants paid by regional and national govern-ments to private, not-for-profit and voluntarymanaging agencies.
Consonant with IFI strategy, increasingamounts of EU funding (about 80 per cent) aredestined for bi-lateral government to governmentassistance to sectoral reform and policy support(Cox and Chapman, 1999). In 2001, more than 90per cent of this was allocated to the transitionalstates of East Europe seeking EU membership.Much less (about 2 per cent) was going to directpoverty alleviation in a range of states (Cox andHealey, 1997; European Commission, 2001).There is strong criticism of EU tendencies on thepart of some member state bi-laterals arguing thecase for contributing a greater (if far from high)proportion to poor people (House of Commons,2000).Of the diverse modes of disbursement, contribu-

tions to social and educational developmentinitiatives, examined in the research on which thispaper is based, were to support large structuralreform programmes and smaller stand-aloneprojects. With reference to Table 1, the ERP isan IFI sectoral programme in a transitional ERPstate with middle income and medium humandevelopment scores (UNDP, 2003). It had addi-tional funding from a western European bi-lateraland a Central European foundation. Partnershipfunding meant that the bi-lateral payment wasmanaged from the IFI account, with all sorts ofimplications for conflict, associated with thediffering overarching objectives of the two orga-nisations.4 An alternative parallel funding me-chanism may have reduced the tension, but created

4In partnerships, IFI commercial intentions frequently have

ferent strategic implications from the foreign affairs priorities

donor governments (Killick, 1998).

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other problems, for example in synchronising thework between components managed by differentbodies. The ERCB was a six-country discretionaryinvestment programme by the European parlia-ment, not linked to country programmes orintergovernmental arrangements. Grant paymentswere in tranches, in advance, and the purpose wasto enhance research expertise in named highereducation in institutions. In Latin America, theywere located in one high and two middle incomestates, each of which has higher human develop-ment than GDP rankings (World Bank, 2003;UNDP, 2003). The CEP, in a low-income statewith a low human development score, had directfunding from a European bi-lateral. With deliverypoints in multiple remote places and a poorcommunications infrastructure, a process of trialand error ended with the managing agent makingup-front operational contributions, in the hope ofeventual repayments from the funder, againstacceptable implementer statements of accounts(Transcript 34).

6. How does it work?

Market penetration is achieved at the field levelby tying the stated development initiative toincome generation, commodity purchase and debt.Orienting the deliverables at women as principalactors meets the remaining overarching develop-ment objective. Typically, community memberstake part in such initiatives because they areinterested, although in some cases they may beoffered incentives. Community level facilitatorsare rarely paid, but are motivated by the prospectof professional training, as well as gifts of bicycles,books and so forth. Beyond the community,operational management staff are paid, howevermodestly and do receive training, as are all thoseworking for organisations contracted as partnersat different levels.More subtle, an inter-locking ratchet of con-

tracts binds all those involved in planning,implementation and evaluation, at any of themultiple levels of a partnership matrix and theirplanning devices, creating a fairly refined bureau-cracy for the duration of the work. Behind all this

is the array of financial incentives that drivesindividual employees, some times as teams, inspecified, but consonant directions, within mostpartner organisations (Preston, 2001b). Withincremental performance-related pay supplements,the sums become considerable over time withsignificant implications for pension enhancement(Transcript 191).

6.1. Rewards and penalties

Funders need fundable projects. Between 60 and80 per cent of bi-lateral staff time is dedicated todeveloping new contracts (Transcripts 38 and 68).Rewards to funder personnel for bringing projectsto contract militate against commitment to post-contract implementation (Transcripts 191 and192). Confirming our own observations with theERP and CEP, the decline in service from thispoint on is palpable with funder generated delays afrequent occurrence at critical points. They includeinception, mid-term evaluation and extensions.This can generate tensions in funding consortia,between organisations providing differentamounts of support. In the ERP it led to ametaphorical whipping of the bi-lateral by the IFIand also to the withdrawal of support by theCentral European foundation (Transcripts 73 and83). With pre-contract budgets of managementand implementing bodies pared to the minimum,such delays waste expertise and may requireunfunded compensatory payments for servicespreviously contracted. When the cycle startsmoving again, yet more time has to be spentfinding new expertise. This was the experience ofboth the CEP and ERP (Transcripts 34 and 81,respectively). Clients, managing agents and im-plementers alike are increasingly threatened withpenalties for expenditure delays, regardless of theircause or the organisation responsible (Killick,1998). With loans this can include the increase ofinterest payments (a major preoccupation in theERP) and termination of contracts. More fre-quently, it is taken to imply an under-spend andindicate resource surplus to requirements. In duecourse this will be cut from the residual allocation.For the unwary manager/implementer, committedas originally planned and contracted, but working

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to a somewhat modified time-scale, such cuts placeskids on already straightened circumstances.5 Inour observations across projects of very differentkinds, institutional staff members work doubletime, carrying on normal and programme/projectwork. Stress levels run high at all levels. They showin frayed nerves, exhaustion, lack of attention todetail, limited reflection and mismatches betweenthe Lego blocks of sub-contracted work providedand that required at different moments. If nothingelse, apart from the fact that they are necessarilystraddling countries, these observations show thesimilarities of the conditions and culture ofemployment in the aid sector to those in publicand private sectors and catering to the interests ofmainstream populations wherever located.

6.2. Log-frames rule

The logical planning framework regulates theprocess. As a technically rational tool to facilitateoutcomes based management (Cracknell, 2002), itspecifies a hierarchy of purposes to which allsubscribe and the objectives, targets, outputs, andinputs required (in reverse order) to achieve them(Preston and Arthur, 1997). It identifies actors to beassociated with these multiple activities, resourcerequirements and the implications of risk atdifferent levels of severity for project completion.Intended to be the product of collective designdecisions by all stakeholder groups, the mostcommon practice is for funding organisations tosteer log-frame design to ensure that operationalobjectives guarantee fulfilment of their own over-arching purposes (Transcript 82). It is increasinglycommon practice, once managers and implementersagree the objectives to be achieved, below the levelof the overarching goals, for funder representativesdo the detailed planning of lower level inputs andachievement indicators themselves (Transcripts 34and 47). This often occurs in the small hours, inhotel bedrooms, before international advisers to the

5This occurred in the 6 country, CEC funded ERCB project

in Latin America. There was a 30 per cent funder inspired cut in

the original proposal. There was then a first-year under-spend

of 25 per cent. Since this only became apparent after the

payment at the start of year two, it was deducted, unan-

nounced, from the third tranche at the start of year three.

log-frame process catch the plane home the nextday, often without a final briefing of eventualimplementers (Transcript 47). Overall, we foundlimited understanding of log-frame principlesamong staff of project organisations, particularlybelow the managing agency level. Indeed, in somecases, the managing agency prioritised a workingknowledge of log-frame processes in the initialtraining of implementation staff. They taught themhow to: pace the work on a day-to-day basis; keepup with the log-frame and how to use it to regulatethe minutiae of project finance; manage facilitatorsand stakeholder groups (Transcript 34). Wheremanagers and implementers knew little of log-frame procedures, their work was seriously jeopar-dised (Transcript 169).Notionally, the log-frame is a flexible friend,

responsive to change, as one set of activitiesbecomes irrelevant and another more suitable. Inthe case study projects, log-frame change occurredfrequently, with full agreement of funding organi-sation representatives (Transcripts 34 and 76).Staff members become dumbfounded at a laterstage when funder evaluators insist on the originallog-frames as their base reference, when appraisingthe relevance of project outcomes to initialpurposes (Transcripts 177 and 34). The misunder-standing arises because management modificationsto the log-frame are at the level of operationalactivities and their outputs. They do not implychange in the overall social objectives andpurposes set by the funder. The cleverness of thelog-frame is its subscription to Foucauldianconfessional approaches to management (Ed-wards, 1997). The employee sets the targets to bemet, struggles to meet them in the time indicatedand suffers extraordinary guilt and self-blame atfailure to do so. When agreed log-frame changesare shown to be irrelevant to outcomes and impactanalyses, there is a profound sense of betrayalamong management and implementation staff.They feel that they have been set up to fail(Transcript 177).

6.3. Conflicting knowledge and aid system culture

At all levels, across projects, there is strongdissonance between claims made for projects, their

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processes and what practical experience suggeststhat they are seeking to achieve.

�
In the CEP project in Sub-Saharan Africa, therewas community disbelief that income generationwas a sine qua non of adults learning to read(Transcript 51).
�
There was similar astonishment that the funderrequired income generating activities (IGAs) tobe developed collectively, by the community as awhole, when the time had long since passed thathouseholds and their members had learned tooperate individually (Transcript 119).
�
Among the local implementing organisations ofthe ERP, there was rank amazement at theindecent haste with which the raft of reformswas being introduced in the face of minimaladministrative and popular understanding ofwhat they entailed (Transcript 81).
�
Given the number of states in transition withsimilar programmes, there was disbelief amongERP managers, in-country and outside, thatfeasibility analysts had failed recognise the needfor parliamentary legislation to authorise thepayment of local trainers and consultants. Thismeant that there were no provisions in the projectdocument for the time and other resources thisprocess would take (Transcripts 81 and 83).
�
When the decree was approved, the nationalcurrency payments allocated to such casualprofessional expertise were insufficient to sus-tain livelihoods and those qualified refused totake the jobs. In desperation, the principal localcontractor to the ERP reported resorting tozealots, passionate in the cause of democracyand liberalisation and willing to accept so littleremuneration (Transcript 81).
�
An organisation completing a contracted studyfor a component of the ERP was appalled tolearn that the work had already been completedby a consultant contracted to the same funder afew months previously (Transcript 76).
�
In the ERCB, pre-inception cuts in fundingmeant that from the beginning to end staff wereunder pressure to meet the log-frame require-ments, in addition to their normal full-timeemployment responsibilities (Transcripts 27, 94,108, 187).
�
The unanticipated cut in the final advancepayment because of unspent allocation at theend of the first year was completely justified inthe eyes of the ERCB funding agency, butalienated project staff significantly.
�
For members of Latin American partner in-stitutions, the ERCB was one of the myriadschemes inspired abroad from which theircountry derived foreign currency, sellinghands-on expertise to benefit the intellectualreputations of expatriate researchers, at a costto their own (Transcripts 97, 100, 108, 109).
�
Consultants to any of the schemes observedwere likely not to be told of previous con-sultancies on which their work depended or evenof those being conducted simultaneously (Tran-script 47 and 151).
�
They might expect to have future contractsassociated with an on-going scheme, but wouldbe unlikely to have this confirmed at more thanvery few days notice, even when dates wereknown long before (Transcript 47).
�
Within funding organisations, there is noexpectation on the part of country officepersonnel, typically embassy staff, that they willhave been consulted about the relevance of aproposed scheme to the government or peopleconcerned, before a decision to fund is taken(Transcripts 97 and 102).
�
Nor do they expect to be informed of thedecision, before representatives of managingagency and implementation teams arrive andclamour for access to government official,licences to import vehicles and so forth. Allthis is as true of CEC country offices, as ofthose of European bi-laterals (Transcripts 97and 102).
The above examples represent what appear to beincompatible deliverables to a single scheme,others culturally at variance with the expectationsof target groups and administrative capacityinsufficient to cope with the multiple tasksrequired in ways externally specified. What isrevealed is a strongly coercive management culturewhich keeps those contracted and those hoping tobe contracted on a knife edge of uncertainty andmaximally compliant. The image is of skilled

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people in the resource rich countries where fund-ing agencies are registered who control the workof colleagues in any number of intermediarypartner bodies and through them the activitiesof contracted staff in resource poor regionswhere the services in question are delivered. WithIT networks, there has long since been the powerto intervene directly and invisibly to monitordownwards intervention, throughout the organisa-tional matrix of any project. A matter of hotcontention, the number of funding and manag-ing agents using such the technology in theaid sector is beginning to grow (Transcripts 44and 185).The examples above are not isolated and there

are many more reported in the different casestudies. They occur everywhere and much of thetime, in large-scale budgetary and sectoral supportprogrammes like the ERP and in the much smallerinitiatives receiving direct funding, for example theCEP. Each of them and others evoking similarfeelings of uncertainty led our informants toquestion the motives of the partners in theirsections of the organisational networks in whichthey were located and what the whole of the aidsystem portends (Transcripts passim).In most cases, this developing understanding

appears not to diminish the personal commitmentto doing as useful a professional job as possible,negotiating constraints encountered in accordancewith their own professional ethic (Transcript48, Preston, 2001a). They do have implicationsfor the quality of relations within and betweenpartner organisations in the aid sector. If therhetoric is enabling, full of promise for user well-being, the values embedded in their material andcontractual structures, are symptoms of thepervasive mechanisms and vested interests ofcontract culture of the global market. Betweenthe increasing layers of partnership bureaucracy, apunitive management culture is revealed. It isresilient to challenges to the legitimacy of itspractices and to those who question the relevanceof the activities it promotes. It begs the question ofwhat this implies for the transferable skills beingcommunicated, under the nomenclature of anti-poverty activities in human development andeducation.

7. Structures of regulated knowledge transfer and

thinking

Comparing very different examples of aid tohuman development, there are clear commonaltiesin the management of the complex layers ofknowledge required in project and programmedelivery. Taking the organisational matrix of apartnership as a funder controlled hierarchy, thedominant knowledge is that of project manage-ment principles as permitted by the confines of thelog-frame design. Only at lower levels, but equallyexplicit, does specialist knowledge of the applica-tion of a particular deliverable enter the frame, atfirst overshadowed by texts of management andthen, much lower down the matrix, becoming atleast equally as important for the funded durationof end-user interaction. If anything, this might beperceived as the point of a somewhat skewedreconciliation of tensions between the explicitsubstantive and implicit process skills transmittedthrough such activities. It is the primacy of thelatter and project-wide awareness of the supre-macy of funder authority (Transcripts 34, 48 and52) that facilitates the continuous, but tacit inter-organisational learning and internalisation of geo-political agendas through these mechanisms.Knowledge about local culture and institutionsbecomes relevant only to the extent that itfacilitates more effective adoption of that beingimposed (Transcripts 34 and 94). What is new hereis the prioritisation of international managementknowledge across the multiple layering of thefixed-term, networked system. In our case studies,client state informants from all types of organisa-tion describe explicitly the neo-colonial thrallsubordinating them to the prerequisites of ex-patriate funding imperatives, strategies and thefragmented, often low-level wisdoms in substan-tive skill areas derived from successive exposuresto these mechanisms (Transcripts 81, 83, 94, 100,108, 109).Within the process, there is a distinction

between the way in which provider-side partnerslearn to operate log-frames and the ways in whichclients are exposed to them. Training for provider-side staff is to members of partner organisations,as people acculturated to this kind of work, who

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will use the log-frame to monitor the work of clientgroups, below them in the organisational matrix ofany number of schemes, often simultaneously. Intime, it may well lead to improved careeropportunities elsewhere. Client-side communityusers have to learn to design such schemes forthemselves, if they are to compete for modest loanfunding for IGAs, which (as we have seen) maynot be logical supplements to what the named coreactivity of the scheme may be. Overtly they learnabout OBM and the skill they are acquiringassociated with (a) the deliverable program and(b) its monitoring requirements. In small groups,often in remote communities, they are seekingresources to promote activities about which theycare. To attract them, they tailor the design of theactivities they propose to what the funder will findattractive. In many cases, they are unaware thattheir laboriously prepared document, often forsmall amounts of money, may never be read(Preston, 1997). Crucially, they have learned therudiments of remote control funding mechanisms.They can choose to re-enter such competitions ordecide that there is no point in doing so. Theirinitial failure confirms the extent of their marginalstatus and portends similar rejection in futureattempts.We suggest that the stratified transfer of such

management expertise is the cultural imperative ofthe whole enterprise (Preston, 2002a, b). In theglobal system of international human develop-ment, the multiplication of softly funded, out-comes-oriented initiatives makes it pervasive andculturally normative. As the prototype of newliberal knowledge dissemination system, there islittle challenge to its logic. There is a strong casefor knowing how it works and what it represents,so as to be able to negotiate within theirincreasingly refined hegemony. Those who choosenot to compete, at whatever level, perhaps becausethey reject the values espoused by the system,remain on the margin.

8. Beyond poor countries

The argument thus far has been based oncomparisons of complex partnership projects

oriented at the alleviation of poverty in middleand low-income states. Questions arise as theprevalence of the same approaches to the manage-ment of disadvantage in richer parts of the worldand indeed to other forms of community develop-ment support, not associated with poverty. Evi-dence from just two European case study projectssuggests that it is probably misleading to associatethe above experiences with fixed term fundinginitiatives, in either low-income, post-colonial andpost-communist transitional states exclusively orwith a primordial commitment to improve thewell-being of people in marginal communities. Thefirst was concerned with poverty alleviationeducation (PAE) and the second provided supportto a local history heritage scheme (LHH). Bothprojects were implemented in a rich northernEuropean state and both used log-frames andOBM principles to guide their development.The six-country CEC-funded Project for Adult

Education (PAE) was for urban renewal andinclusion through basic community education foradults, in decaying manufacturing areas in anorthern European member state (Transcript 17).The model mirrors that of the ERCB in LatinAmerica. The case study component had theblessing of the national government, but theproject management contract went to a privateconsultancy, while the local authority of the areain question was to oversee outreach implementa-tion. This was being done in partnership withexisting community learning centres and others setup expressly for the purpose. In the country inquestion, the PAE represents local authorityoperational responsibility, under privatised projectmanagement, when both functions would formerlyhave been the exclusive responsibility of local andnational government. This aspect of the arrange-ment is directly comparable to the CEP in Africa.Like it and other case study projects elsewhere,participatory pedagogy set the classroom agendaand learners produced material relevant to theirown realities.Experiences similar to those already described in

the principle case studies in low-income statesincluded:

�
Fluctuating learner commitment (CEP).

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�
Significant differences of vision and purposebetween partners at different levels of theorganisational matrix (ERP, ERCB).
�
Variable familiarity with project managementtools (ERP, CEP and ERCB).
�
Lack of means of communication between thein-country operational centre and the outreachinstitutions (CEP, ERCB).
�
Lack of communication between the managingagent of this component with that beingexecuted in 5 other countries (ERCB).
�
Emphasis on providing a short-term response tosymptoms of disadvantage, rather than addres-sing underlying causes (CEP).
�
Ethical qualms at the lack of plans forcontinuity of the project once the currentfunding phase ended (ERP, CEP).
�
Payment and other delays (CEP, LIPERP,ERCB).
By-passing national government, upward com-munication was through the managing agent(located in a different part of the country) andthen directly to the supra-national regionalauthority. Unlike those contracted to the CEP,ERP or the ERCB who were accustomed tointernational management, implementation staffin the PAE found it a new and destabilisingexperience, which left them ignorant of the locusof day-to-day control of their work. Eventually,some came to rationalise the experience in terms offunder commitment to the political formation ofsupra-national regional allegiances and citizenshipidentity, going beyond loyalty to the individualnation-state (Delanty, 2000). The experience wasmade more difficult when staff learned that thecontracted managing agencies of the PAE, locatedin a high-income state, had developed its reputa-tion in international social and educational devel-opment in low-income post colonial states. PAEstaff, accustomed to perceiving themselves to be inthe world’s mainstream were uncomfortable atbeing managed by colleagues whose expertise wasprimarily acquired with designated marginal peo-ple in marginal states.The LHH was a community-learning heritage

project managed by several organisational part-ners, within an EU member state. Over a number

of years, individuals and their organisations hadreceived modest government and other grants tosupport the development of a nationally significantcommunity archaeology work. With economicreform, allocations became smaller and the num-ber of funding options dwindled, except those witha market imperative. In time, they came to graspany funding opportunity, adapting their priori-tised interests to fulfil the terms of reference of theapplication process. In the late 1990s, a group oforganisations formed a partnership and preparedthe LHH proposal for submission to a competitivetendering process. This added an income-oriented,public information strand in order to be able tofurther the archaeological development. The bidwas successful and funding was awarded by thecharitable foundation of a national commercialenterprise. Many problems were encountered(Transcript 188), many of which were similar tothose already discussed in respect of pro-poorinterventions. They included difficulties of main-taining good relations between partners andmeeting the requirements of the self-imposed,logically planned, project design. The articulate-ness of the representatives of the multiple im-plementing partners and their lack of experience ofOBM led to strife between the differently moti-vated stakeholder representatives from localauthorities, local history and archaeological orga-nisations, universities, village halls and parishcouncils. The frustration grew with the recognitionthat the time taken to negotiate the complexity ofthese inter-organisational relations was out of allproportion to the smallness of the fundingreceived, but multi-organisational partnershiphad been a prerequisite of the funding application.

9. Overall

Authority over all our lives is moving from thestates in which we have recognised status ascitizens and residents to institutions of regionaland global governance. Processes such as thosepresented in this paper are being replicated acrosssectors, creating common mechanisms of commu-nication and control everywhere in the world.In a neo-liberal economy, these processes ensure

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popular identification with the short-term contractculture and acquiescence to its cost-effective guilt-imposing principles of management. These arefactors among those which underpin the main-tenance of global order and minimise the risk ofrevolt. They are reinforced by differential posi-tioning in relation to access to these systems andvariable skill in their exploitation. For client usersat the lowest levels of the partnership hierarchiesof the world’s sub-system for managing marginalgroups, there is little opportunity to developcapacity to levels beyond those sufficient tounderstand where people above them on theladders of the global partnership are comingfrom. In rich and poor countries, they quicklyascribe this limitation to their personal inadequa-cies, since as in the cases above, they were givenseemingly proper opportunities to learn the rulesof the game and apply them. Beyond the aidsector, these complex contract modalities are beingreplicated from country to country, across statu-tory, private and civil society sectors in ways thatreduce the distinctions between them. Theirnarratives have become the hegemonic literacyof the day.

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Interview transcripts

17
COM (1999) Notes from a meeting of the at the University of Warwick, 25th June
27
RP (1999) Conversation with ERCB Co-ordinator. August
34
RP (2000) Telephone conversation with Senior Consultant of major western INGO, January
38
RP (2000) Meeting with Bi-lateral regional managers, January
44
RP (1999) Notes of telephone conversation with INGO Planning Officer, 13 June, 1999
47
JMcC (1999) Self-interview, October
48
JMcC (1999) Transcript of focus group discussion with project team, Biu, October
51
JMcC(1999) Interview about the CEP with Assistant Director, Ministry of Education, October
52
JMcC (1999) CEP interview with Director, State agency for mass education
68
RP (2000) Notes of meeting with HQ country desk officer, January
73
JMcC (2000) Meeting with lead consultant ERP, January
76
JMcC (2000) Transcript of meeting with ERP managing agent, January
81
RP (2000) Notes of meeting with Government Co-ordinator of Training to the ERP, January
82
RP (2000) Notes of funder consultant leading ERP log-frame change meeting, January
83
RP (2000) Notes of meeting with Director of government Project Management Unit, January
94
RP (2000) Meeting with ERCB Coordinator (Occidental) Febrero
97
RP (2000) Meeting with CEC Representative Republica Central, Frebruary
100
RP (2000) Junior researcher, Republica Central, Febrero
102
RP (2000) Conversation with local representative of European bi-lateral in Republica Central
108
RP (2000) Meeting with ERCB Coordinator (Austral), marzo
109
RP (2000) Meeting with ERCB Senior Researcher, Austral, marzo
119
JMcC(2000) Text of meeting with CEP Regional Project Manager, March
151
JMcC (1999) Interview with CEP consultant Dec
169
RP (2000) Interview with Coordinator ERCB
177
RP (2000) Notes from Lead consultant, ERP, January
185
JMcC and RP (2000) Notes of meeting with Senior Policy Director of an EU bi-lateral, December
191
RP (2002) Notes of conversation with Senior Advisor of an EU bi-lateral
192
RP (2002) Notes of conversation with former Senior Advisor, to an IFI, March
188
RP (2000) Notes of meeting with University partner representative, April

Cultures of funding, management and learning in the global mainstream

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Transcript of Cultures of funding, management and learning in the global mainstream