[afro-nets] Strengthening the health sector

[Peter Burgess <Profitinafrica@aol.com>]

Strengthening the health sector... it cannot happen... no money?
----------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Colleagues,

I wrote the message below in July 2000. It seems to be just as
relevant today as it was then. Why am I posting it again now?

On another list there is some dialog about strengthening the
health sector. I have responded that part of the problem is pov-
erty in the economy... and part is public sector finance... both
to do with lack of money.

Meanwhile... I attended a meeting in New York last Monday organ-
ized by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Fordham University
with the theme "The Crude Reality: Africa's Oil Boom and the
Poor". My thanks to CRS and Frodham for putting it on and rais-
ing the questions. But I came away from the meeting with a deep
frustration about the total failure of the relief and develop-
ment community, and business and political leadership to address
the real problems in ways that make any difference whatsoever. I
am frustrated by the global public complacency about the looting
of national wealth by local leadership and the collaboration of
international leadership, public and private while the looting
goes on. There is a failure of development. There is a failure
of ethics and morality.

When it comes to transparency, accounting and accountability and
effective monitoring and evaluation (TAAME), the standards of
today are pathetic and allow half-truths if not down-right lies
to inform the public at large. If strong TAAME remains absent,
the failure of development will continue and with it the crises
that cause untimely death throughout the SOUTH, including coun-
tries that are tremendously rich in terms of their natural re-
sources.

Sincerely

Peter Burgess
PS Please contact me if you would like to know more about TAAME.

--
Peter Burgess
in New York
Tel: +1-212-772-6918
mailto:peterb@afrifund.com
Database
http://www.afrifund.com/wiki/index.pcgi?page=AfrifundDatabase
Coffee: http://afrifund.coffeefair.com


--
DEVELOPMENT DIALOG ISSUES - DEVELOPMENT - The Development Proc-
ess

Peter Burgess: Seven issues in development... sent to the Com-
prehensive Development discussion of the World Bank in July 2000

From: Profitinafrica@aol.com
To: CDF E-Consultation <cdf@lists.worldbank.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 4:36 PM
Subject: [cdf] Implementing CDF Principles in Poverty Reduction
Strategies

My name is Peter Burgess. I am a late comer to the CDF dialog...
though I have had a long time interest in the importance of a
comprehensive development framework in order to achieve success
and progress in socio-economic development.... and by exten-
sion... success in reducing poverty and success in improving the
quality of life for more than just an elite few.

My background is Cambridge engineering and economics, UK Char-
tered Accountancy, US corporate management including Chief Fi-
nancial Officer of an international company and more than 20
years development and management consultancy experience. I am
now engaged in the management of the AfriFund Initiative for in-
vestment in the private entrepreneurial sector in Africa.

I would like to raise seven issues having an impact on develop-
ment success in Africa

One...

There must be a clear understanding of the difference between
economic value adding and economic value destruction. The Pov-
erty Reduction Process must be built on a foundation that allows
for sustainability... economic value adding. The CDF Principles
are not enough to ENSURE sustainability largely because these
principles are themselves only a subset of all the principles
that need to be applied to achieve development success.

There are management techniques that can help in determining
whether or not available resources will result in sustainable
development and sustained improvement in socio-economic stan-
dards... one such technique is Value Management which applied in
the development context will clearly differentiate between eco-
nomic value adding situations and value losing situations.

In my work in the corporate world, almost all investment has
produced rapid economic value adding results ... the reward from
good investment decisions is substantial, and there is never any
question of sustainability. Similar work within the ODA develop-
ment environment, using Value Management methodology shows mas-
sive economic value losing performance ... and then we wonder
why development investment has not worked.

Two...

The issue of management and the analytical framework. The ana-
lytical framework used for project evaluation by almost all de-
velopment financial institutions and donors remains a
THEORETICAL framework... with hardly any hard cost and perform-
ance information from actual operations. The management account-
ing dimension of development and government / public sector op-
erations is lacking... and sadly, hardly recognized as lacking
by the leadership of the ODA community. The feedback process so
essential for good management is missing. It is no wonder that
development aid is likened to a "black hole"... where resources
go in and nothing comes out. The CDF will not change much unless
the management dimension and feedback and accounting and ac-
countability are part of the framework.

Three...

In our view, the concept of a comprehensive development frame-
work seems to be at odds with the project form of organiza-
tion... a form of organization popularized by the World Bank
when large capital projects dominated the loan portfolio. I
would observe that a lot of the rules and regulations that have
been incorporated into the negotiation and implementation of a
project are very disrespectful of the concept of sovereignty and
the financial rules and regulations that are important in keep-
ing control of government and public sector resources. The or-
ganizational arrangements for development implementation should
make use of institutional capacity that is intended to be in
place for the long haul... not just temporary elite project im-
plementing units and organizations... just the basic organiza-
tions and institutions of government... and the national private
entrepreneurial business sector and the national professional
sector.

Four...

 From our perspective, the ODA community has done little to sup-
port and strengthen the mechanisms of government and public sec-
tor accounting... it has made accountability and transparency an
issue in government, while at the same time moving its own pro-
ject organizations outside the government structure and its fi-
nancial (and other) control mechanisms. It may be true that gov-
ernment rules and regulations do not make program implementation
easy... but it has been an abdication of responsibility on the
part of ODA leadership to avoid the problem of improving these
rules and regulations by simply moving away and setting up in a
favored environment outside the government framework of rules
and regulations.

Five...

Another issue relates to making best use of available re-
sources... human, natural, material and financial. In our view
(the AfriFund view), the human resources available in abundance
in Africa have been under-valued, while products of the NORTH
which are in short supply in Africa have been the central to de-
velopment investment. ODA has funded machinery and equipment,
and technical assistance from the NORTH while doing very little
to pay decent remuneration to local staff. There is little focus
on building local supply capacity, local contracting capacity
and building demand pull development. The WFP model where poor
Africans do development work in exchange for food is typical of
this thinking... nothing wrong with people working ... but peo-
ple should be paid for the work they do so they can pay for
other things that they need.

Six...

Another issue is the difference between what is being funded by
the ODA community with what is identified as priority by the Af-
rican community... both at the government level and in small
communities. Though everyone in the ODA world will say that do-
nor priorities are driven by national priorities... there are
few people in the African communities that I have visited that
believe that this is the case. Most community leaders I have
listened to over the past several years have asked that funds
are deployed to do things that are useful in their communities
and not just what the urban elite, NORTH and SOUTH wants to do.

Seven...

There needs to be a clear understanding of how the market econ-
omy works... both in theory and on the ground... a lot of the
depressed prices of export crops is a result of massive global
production capacity increase funded by government and the ODA
community using World Bank projections that were based on pre-
capacity increase projections. These decisions were not made
last year... but twenty and thirty years ago... with very long
term consequences. There needs to be an understanding of the
different behavior of markets in a shortage economy and in a
surplus economy... African labor is part of a surplus economy...
but African goods are in a shortage economy. There needs to be
an understanding of how non-monetary transactions work... and
how the banking and finance sector / public debt / exchange
rates etc. impact the non-monetary sector. Distortion in the
shortage economy of Africa has resulted in fortunes for those
with control over the (reasonably) free flow of goods. Mean-
while, the market mechanism to solve shortages has been cor-
rupted almost absolutely.

Sorry... Enough... This posting is already too long. I hope
these issues are as relevant to you as they seem to be to me.

Thank you

Peter Burgess
mailto:peterb@afrifund.com