This report highlights evidence that donors can work politically, and that this improves outcomes. It examines seven cases, and finds that keys to success included iterative problem-solving and brokering relationships to discover common interests. The paper argues that donors need to be politically informed and astute to assess the scope for change, and to make good choices regarding issues to work on and partners to work with; and they need to allow local actors to take the lead in finding solutions to problems that matter to them.
The seven cases addressed different types of problems, in different contexts. The cases fall into three broad groups:
- Programmes addressing relatively well-defined problems that adopted iterative, politically smart approaches to finding and implementing specific solutions: a rural livelihoods programme in India; two cases of economic reform in the Philippines; and a programme supporting the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of ex-combatants in DRC.
- The FLEGT Action Plan to reduce illegal logging addressed a problem that was large-scale, complex and initially only broadly defined. The team used politically astute, iterative approaches to identify and define an effective strategy, and then to explore and negotiate more specific solutions including locally led voluntary partnership agreements with timber-producing countries.
- Programmes in Burma and Nepal were initiated in very challenging, volatile political environments where donors used locally led, iterative approaches to identify effective entry points, and to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.
All the interventions resulted in some tangible, short- or medium-term benefits for poor people. In all cases, there is evidence to suggest that the approach adopted was the critical factor in achieving these results. The interventions were also demonstrably more effective than comparable efforts to address similar problems in similar circumstances.
In all the cases, iterative problem-solving, stepwise learning, brokering relationships and discovering common interests were key to success, allowing actors to understand the complex development challenges they faced, identify and negotiate ways forward, and find solutions that were both technically sound (if not optimal) and politically feasible.
The cases show that donor staff can work – directly or through partners – in ways that we call politically smart and locally led if the political and bureaucratic environment within their own agencies is supportive. In all the cases, flexible funding arrangements facilitated iterative approaches to project design and implementation, and aid was deployed strategically as funding requirements emerged. Donors made long term commitments, with good continuity of staffing.
Conversely, the cases underline why significant aspects of current practice undermine iterative, local problem-solving. These include a focus on achieving direct, short term results based on project designs that over-specify inputs and expected outputs; pressure to spend that makes relationships with partners aid-centric and allows insufficient time for iterative learning; and squeezes on expenditure deemed ‘administrative’ which, when coupled with high staff turnover, impede the acquisition of in-depth political knowledge and the application of skills.
An obvious first step is for donors to change the practices and procedures that directly impede iterative problem-solving. This would increase the chances that innovative, committed individuals could find sufficient room to work flexibly and opportunistically within the current system.
However, for politically smart, locally led approaches to become the norm, a more radical shift is needed in the way donors conceive development challenges and their role in addressing them. They need to abandon oversimplified concepts of ‘ownership’ and ‘partnership’, and unrealistic assumptions about the scope for outsiders to lead transformational change. Moreover, politically smart, locally led approaches will not work if they are under-resourced or pursued half-heartedly; iterative problem-solving that is not locally led, or attempts to bolt political economy analysis onto conventional practice, will have limited impact.
On a more positive note, the cases suggest that donors, as outsiders, can sometimes be particularly well placed to stimulate change and facilitate constructive local problem-solving, providing that they combine technical knowledge with politically smart ways of working and look for opportunities to make strategic use of aid.