Socio-Cultural factors promoting hindering reforms and development

1
Socio-Cultural factors promoting hindering
reforms and development
2

• The importance of socio-cultural factors in
  setting development cooperation priorities and
  determining intervention and negotiating
  strategies has been largely ignored by
  cooperating partners

3

• Mutual accountability has not been adhered to in
  practise
• Elites are quite happy in maintaining a status
  quo situation
• Cooperating partners are investors, but they
  hardly behave as investors

4

• Ownership
• Commitment
• Capacity development
• Culture
• Patronage
• Change
• Role of cooperating partners
• Zambian elite

5
Ownership

• Requires true commitment, leadership and broad
  participation (parliament, private sector, civil
  society)
• Ownership linked to processes of change, that
  challenge vested interests
• Ability to say no to cooperating partners

6

• Zambia
• strong leadership, really focussed on development
  objectives is lacking
• vested interests are strong and hamper true
  ownership
• accountability system is weak (e.g role
  parliament)
• cooperating partners hardly ever hear no, which
  is harmful to development process

7
Commitment

• Highest level commitment to plan and implement in
  line with national priorities
• Political strategy to built support for change
• Zero tolerance on corruption
• Role of cooperating partners should not be too
  dominant

8

• Zambia
• highest level commitment is partly present. There
  is a lack of drive.
• patronage remains a huge stumbling block
• no clear strategy to promote support for change
• corruption remains huge problem
• Co-operating partners still very dominant

9
Capacity

• Lack of capacity compromises possibility to work
  towards improvements based on ownership and
  commitment
• Technical assistance is not the solution
• Capacity development is more than education and
  training (e.g. conducive environment, work
  culture, reforms)
• Necessary to build on local, home grown
  processes, use local expertise

10

• Zambia
• enormous lack of capacity, limited drive to work
  towards solutions
• quite some cooperating partners continue to
  provide technical assistance
• joint technical assistance receives little
  support
• important to use local expertise, however,
  difficult to find

11
Culture

• Adequate understanding of local social/cultural
  factors and processes
• Understand the hidden agenda that exists

12

• Zambia
• cooperating partners pay far too little attention
  to understanding Zambian social/cultural context
• by the time expatriate staff members leave they
  start to grasp some issues.
• cooperating partners are too much focussed on
  internal processes and implementation of
  programmes that are part of their portfolio

13
Patronage

• Patronage plays an important role in the way work
  processes are structured and decisions are taken
  or deferred.
• Relationships and loyalty are very important,
  often more important than policy planning or
  implementation.

14

• Zambia
• Patronage determines to a great extent decision
  making processes in Zambia.
• Reforms, capacity building and accountability are
  severely hampered because of patronage

15
Change

• Change means uncertainty.
• Processes of change are complex and
  unpredictable.
• Zambia
• change is a threat to many in a country where
  social security systems do not exist,
  unemployment levels are high and knowledge is
  limited

16
Role of Cooperating Partners

• Disbursement pressure
• Incentive structure for aid officials
• Too little time to understand local setting
• Reluctant to criticise (e.g. culture)

17

• Zambia
• although important processes have been
  implemented, such as the harmonisation process,
  cooperating partners continue to make well known
  mistakes.
• disbursement pressure plays a role
• national priorities (our parliament) do not
  sufficiently appreciate the Zambia context
• still a great lack of in-depth knowledge about
  Zambian culture and processes
• cooperating partners are very careful in
  expressing criticisms. In practise they have few
  ways to be firm.

18
ROLE OF THE ZAMBIAN ELITE?

• TODAY
• allow me to provokealthough Im afraid Im
  showing you a realistic picture!
• maintain the status quo
• use the state and its resources to consolidate
  power
• keep the patronage system in place

19

• little commitment to improve the standard of
  living of the poor
• whats in it for me?
• speak the right language, but act differently,
  know how to play the game

20

• In 2020?
• Difficult to predict
• HIV/AIDS, the brain drain and lack of economic
  diversification
• Increased access to information, new generation
• Conclusion trust that situation will gradually
  change