0350-C5
Miyan Rukunuddin Ahmed 1
Despite a generous flow of foreign aid and technical assistance from bilateral donors and multilateral agencies (intergovernmental development banks, UN aid agencies, and similar organizations), the deforestation in tropical countries has not been halted but exacerbated. Donor policies and strategies in project selection, design and implementation could not fulfil the recipient countries' priorities and needs/local interests. Moreover, donors' influence on project selection and design marred the objectives of the projects. Most of the international assistance agreements conditioned with "tied aid" returned to donor countries as payments in purchasing goods and services from the donor countries, deposits in western banks, properties in western countries that belong to politicians/bureaucrats of recipient countries, salary and benefits to western bureaucrats and experts working overseas or at headquarters. The bureaucratic culture and politics in recipient governments as well as in donor agencies lead to poor coordination in project selection and implementation. The reluctance of the donor agencies to become involved in confronting the corruption and lawlessness in recipient countries cannot bring any project success. The ineffectiveness of projects is often due to excessive administrative costs, poor planning, contracting inappropriate advisors and lack of accountability in terms of performance. To improve the situation of project effectiveness, inappropriate investment or aid venture should be stopped. Recipient countries' priorities and needs should be honoured in project selection and design. Untied foreign aid, appropriate policy and flexible strategies, advisor/consultant's role, inter-sectoral, inter and intra-departmental coordination and cooperation are important for successful project implementation. Decentralized planning, local participation, transfer of environmentally and socially sound technology, long-term capacity building in recipient countries should be emphasized in project implementation.
The world has roughly a half-century of experience in providing official development assistance from "have" (donor) to "have not" (recipient) countries (Laarman 2001) targeting social, economic and environmental development. Currently there is a modest flow of foreign aid and technical assistance for conservation and development of tropical forests. Despite all this money and efforts, the unprecedented rate of loss of tropical forests could not be halted, rather exacerbated the situation. Forest area has increased slightly since 1980 in industrial countries, but has declined by almost 10 percent in developing countries. Tropical deforestation probably exceeds 130,000 square kilometers a year (WRI 2001). It seems, syllogistically, the metaphorical "development" prescribed by international development agencies (donor countries, intergovernmental development banks, UN agencies, or similar organizations) remains rhetoric than reality in development arena of the developing countries. The role of international development agencies on development paradigm focusing forest resource issues in vicissitudes of squalor majority of the east2 raises frequent questions. The critical analyses of the roles of these agencies unveil the bleak performances in their development efforts (Laarman 2001; Persson 2000; Roche 1997; Bandow and Vasquez 1994; Anon. 1994; Rich 1994; Laarman and Sedjo 1992; Bello et al. 1982). World Bank's 1991 forest policy, which included a ban on providing financing for logging projects in tropical forests, had failed to slow deforestation as destructive and illegal logging practices had expanded in many developing countries. The westerners or locals educated in the west's domination in multilateral agencies, the donors/multilateral funds, and western technology that influenced project identification and implementation in the east created debate in projects' goals, strategy, and achievements between donors/multilateral agencies and the recipient countries. The administrators and expatriate advisors are often planted on major foreign aided projects to act as auditors or influencers on behalf of the donors. Expatriate advisors often dictate the project authority of the recipient countries on what to do, rather on how to decide what to do.
The focus of this article is to analyze the role of international development agencies on development/conservation of forest resources in developing countries. The objective is to examine the typical `politics' in the processes and institutional arrangements that affect projects selection and implementation with foreign assistance in the east. Finally it concentrates on the implications of the projects with foreign assistance, and would recommend the agencies changing role and further revisions of project guidelines to improve the current situation.
Official Development Assistance from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member countries to developing countries was $51.4 billion in 2001 (OECD 2002). The fall in current dollar terms from 56.4 billion in 1999 and $53.7 billion in 2000 to $51.4 billion in 2001 results in part from falls in the exchange rates of some currencies against the US dollar. In real terms, ODA remained relatively stable, with a slight fall of 1.4% from 2000 to 2001. Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Sweden continued to be the only countries to meet the United Nations ODA target of 0.7% of gross national income (see figure in Appendix -1). DAC Member countries account for at least 95% of worldwide ODA.
The official development aid allocated to forestry in 1990 by international development agencies - amounted to US$ 1350 million representing about 9% of the ODA in agriculture and less that 3% of total ODA (Roche 1997). The table in Appendix 2 shows the distribution of ODA to the forest sector in 1993 by bilateral/multilateral aid with non-European, EU Member States, the development banks and the UN agencies. If one includes other official flows for forest activities, the money raised by international NGOs, and environmental and conservation projects not accounted for tin ODA statistics under forestry, total foreign assistance for forestry probably amounted to over $2 billion in 1993 (Kaimowitz 2000).
According to provisional data, in 1999 the major bilateral and multilateral donors committed $10,700 million in current prices as external assistance for agricultural development, compared with $12,605 million in 1998. When these figures are converted into constant 1995 prices, this corresponds to a decline of 17%, after increases of 14.5% and 4.6% in 1997 and 1998 respectively. Partial data available for 2000 suggest that the level of external assistance to agriculture would decline further (FAO 2002). In recent years, aid to forestry is about US$ 500 million annually, or about 1% of total ODA.
The trend of foreign aid was given for industrial forestry till late 80's, while abating deforestation and related issues such as the conservation of biodiversity, poverty reduction, women's role, and participatory forestry have attained a main concern in recent years (Roche 1997).
Despite targeting sustainable development objectives, much of foreign aid falls far short of its achievement. While referring to US AID, Laarman (2001) argued, "in the least flattering version, we are partners in imposing what has amounted to a green imperialism what has not worked as we (the donors) had intended." It is also questioned that USAID is to buy Third World adherence to its pet ideas through providing aids (Anon. 1994). Aid spending by European bilateral donors and US tended to follow their strategic, political or economic interests (CBO 1997).
But with the clamor for more money goes increasing uncertainty about what aid is for and what it has achieved. The naïve taxpayer might imagine that aid's main purpose was to relieve poverty. Yet only relatively small amounts of ODA go to the poorest of counties or to projects that benefits mainly the poorest of people (Anon. 1994). Of the $12 billion or so, which goes each year to buy advice, training and project design, over 90% is spent on foreign consultants. Half of all technical assistance goes to Africa - which, observes UNDP's Mr. Haq, "has perhaps received more bad advice per capita than any other continent" (Anon. 1994).
Another important document generated in the West was Tropical Forestry Action Plan (TFAP) that targeted to halt tropical deforestation with foreign assistance. Middleton et al. (1993) viewed that TFAP's founding group could not be expected to agree that pressures on forests produced by landlessness or poverty owe much of their origin to the political and economic concerns of Northern financial and state institutions and of their allied Southern oligarchies. It was donor-driven and lacked adequate grassroots participation, and it was too industry-focused and did not take into account the conservation aspects of forestry (Roper and Roberts 1999).
International development agencies role seems to be more political than development-oriented, more inequality than egalitarian, more dictatorial than democratic. It needs further investigation of the root causes of failure of development aid in third world countries and the role of recipient countries in project failure, and overhauling of the development agencies' policies and strategies in implementation of the projects.
The Third World countries were swamped with billions of dollars in advice, loan and grants from bilateral donors and multilateral development agencies like IMF, WB, regional banks, and UN agencies. These multilateral efforts for last five decades toward economic prosperity in Third World development failed. According to Bandow and Vasquez (1994), "instead of growth, the Third World has experienced social disintegration, economic stagnation, debt crises, and in some regions, declines in agricultural production and incomes." Bovard (1994) observes that the World Bank is helping Third World governments cripple their economics, maul their environments, and oppress their people. A recent review of the World Bank forest policy and strategy concluded that the Bank had fallen far short of the objectives of the 1991 strategy and that a substantial chilling effect had occurred of activities despite a US$3.5 billion worth forestry project during 1992 to 1999 (Knudsen 2000).
It is widely known that most aid money has been returned to donor countries in various ways: deposits in western banks; investment in western corporation; properties in western countries belonging to eastern countries' political leaders; salary and benefits to western bureaucrats and experts working overseas or at headquarters. How much of the total funding actually goes to the masses in poor countries cannot be known for sure but to some extent of course can be estimated (Nguyen 1989). Brewer (1983) criticizes the role of West in the implementation of aid projects: "these countries (developing nations) continue to be swamped by advice givers, technical assistance, equipment sellers agreements and join venture offers, international funding proposals, and the like" (p. 105). Laarman and Sedjo (1992) summarize the way aid money returning to donor agencies through "tied aid" that conditioned with purchase of goods and services from the donor country benefits the companies in the donor countries that export study teams, consulting services, equipment, and the like. They further added that foreign advisors sent to developing countries usually cost the equivalent of U$250 thousand per year per consultant for salary, airfares, and housing and education allowances (p.298). It has been estimated that tied aid raises the cost of many goods and services by between 15 to 30% (OECD 2001). Technology transfer from more "technologically sophisticated" to less sophisticated nations is all to the good. Unfortunately international donors and Third World administrators tend to think that only outside, "higher" knowledge is relevant to the development enterprise.
Design is crucial and has been identified as the major factor influencing project `success' of `failure'. Many projects are identified and selected more as a result of history, personal interest, or muscle of a particular group of advisors, than from rational analysis of actual need (Voysey 2000). Donors often are more motivated than the developing countries themselves. Serious implementation problems are not usually seen as primarily the agencies' fault; rather they are viewed as chiefly the fault of the recipient country. These implementation problems include conditions in the rural sector, national policies for natural resources development, and the institutions concerned.
Corruption in government bodies in Third World directly serves project definition and identification for their own interest and benefits. Genuine solutions require a serious confrontation with corruption and lawlessness, but donors are reluctant to get involved (Laarman, 2001). While referring to Indian forestry specifically and south Asia in general, Hill (2000) pinpointed the culture of corruption in the form of diverting foreign aid, tender negotiation, fictitious completion of works, and misappropriation of funds in procurements.
The inclusion of multisectoral features in the foreign-aided development project designs in turn appeared to give rise to formidable administrative, managerial, and coordinative difficulties in project implementation (Ayres 1983). It was apparent, however, that the use of an autonomous project unit staffed predominantly by expatriates raised very serious questions about the long-term institution-building capability.
Delay in project assessment by expert analysis emphasizing single-objective, digresses the technical issues for efficiency. It also siphoned a big amount of project fund. Bureaucratic culture and politics in recipient governments as well as in donor agencies lead to poor coordination in project selection and implementation. The more voices and bureaucratic procedures involve, the greater the likelihood of delay, confusion, and duplication in the project selection/implementation exists. In bureaucratic culture, the Minister/secretary takes the decision unilaterally (without consultation with other related departments/ministries) and imposes on the department for project implementation. The ineffectiveness of the project is often due to excessive administrative costs, poor planning, contracting inappropriate advisors, and lack of accountability in terms of performance.
International development agencies' politically motivated aid ventures and inappropriate investment led to natural resource depletion in the East. Conflicting priorities and criteria for loans and grants, complex operational procedures, excessive bureaucracy within the donor agencies brought nothing but failures in numerous forestry projects in developing countries. The word 'project' has, in many cases, come to be seen as almost a dirty word: major projects have often been disastrous and, even when successful have been seen as defectively benefiting the wealthier members of developing countries. Outsider-inspired and non-participative by the target community are also often seen as distinctive aspects of development projects (Smith 1989). The big volume of outsider prescribed guidelines inconsistent to recipient countries culture (political situation, institutional structure, technological capacity, etc.) cannot be the solution of project design and implementation.
The successful application of western know-how and skills requires the existence of complementary and supporting knowledge and systems that do not exist in the Third World environment; moreover, western techniques and processes are culture bound and cannot be applied successfully without changes in attitudes, values, and behavior of Third World people.
Brown et al. (1999) have drawn a picture of present shift of aid projects that development debates reflect these changing roles - stressing partnerships, democratic accountability and authority, pluralism and the strengthening of civil society. The donors and the recipients should work as development partners and accountable to each other. The West should take action to halt improper investment or aid ventures that will lead to natural resource depletion in eastern countries. There should be unconditional/untied foreign aid, however the donors can provide some general features on guidelines in project design and implementation. An understanding of the need for a good match between clients' and consultants' role perceptions, and the nature of the tasks is mandatory in project design and successful implementation. There should have been a mechanism of transparency of the project expenditure by both the donors and the recipients.
Coordination among different agencies is important to ensure the different project activities happen at the right time, in the right way and in the right place (Smith 1989). Inter-sectoral, inter and intra-departmental coordination and cooperation should be strengthened to avert conflicts through creating a high powered project coordination committee (democratic in participation) keeping representatives from respective ministries/departments, and related NGOs for project identification/selection. This committee should also negotiate with foreign donors, evaluate their terms and conditions, and examine donor agencies' policies where their priorities may or may not reflect local interests, etc. The project administration should be decentralized and participatory within the respective department.
Changes in government, policy or personnel should not affect the continuity of any project. Participatory Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation (PAME) (FAO 1990) should be adopted for forestry project in developing countries. In the future plan of implementation of the recently concluded World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD, 2002) suggested to create and strengthen partnerships and international cooperation to facilitate the provision of increased financial resources, the transfer of environmentally sound technologies, trade, and capacity-building to implement sustainable forest management.
The donor agencies should respect the recipients' priority in setting objectives, recruit and train local expertises for long-term institutional capacity building, encourage appropriate technology packages, adopt simplistic monitoring and evaluation techniques, and ensure the distribution of benefits to target community.
It is an undeniable fact that without aid and technical assistance from the West/aid agencies/UN organizations, the east cannot develop in a sustainable manner. However, in project identification/selection and design, the recipient countries' priorities and needs should be honored. Un-tied/conditional foreign aid, appropriate policies, flexible strategies and appropriate project guidelines, and transparency and accountability are important for successful project implementation in the third world countries. Decentralized planning, local participation, long-term capacity building in recipient countries can bring the fruits of international development projects.
Anon., 1994. Foreign Aid: the Kindness of Strangers, The Economist, May 7, 1994, p. 19-22.
Ayres, R.L., 1983. Banking on the Poor - The World Bank and World Poverty. Cambridge, MA and London, England: MIT press, p. 282.
Bandow, D. and I. Vasquez, 1994. Introduction: The Dismal Legacy and false promise of multilateral aid. In Bandow, D. and Vasquez, I. (eds.), Perpetuating Poverty, Cato Institute, Washington, D.C. 1-12.
Bello, W.F., D. Kinely, and K. Elinson, 1982. Development Debacle, The World Bank in the Philippines. San Francisco: Institute for Food and Development Policy, and Philippines Solidarity Network.
Bovard, J., 1994. The World Bank and the Impoverishment of Nations. Chapter 3. in Bandow, D. and Vasquez, I. (eds.), Perpetuating Poverty, Cato Institute, Washington, D.C. 59-74.
Brewer, G.D., 1983. "The State responsibilities for the protection and preservation of forestry resources". In Mergen, F. (ed.) Tropical Forests: Utilization and conservation. New haven: Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, p.102-108.
Brown, D., M. Richards, K. Schreckenberg, G. Shepherd, and S. Tiller, 1999. Getting Aid Delivery Right: Host Country, Donor And International Complementarity for Greater Aid Effectiveness in the Forest Sector. EU Tropical Forestry Paper 4, Overseas Development Institute, London and European Commission, Brussels.
CBO (Congressional Budget Office), 1997. The Role of Foreign Aid in Development. (Website: http://www.cbo.gov /showdoccfm?index=8&sequence=0)
FAO, 2002. State of the Food and Agriculture. 2002. Rome, Italy.
FAO, 1990. Participation in Practice - Lesson from the FAO People's Participation Program. Rome: FAO.
Hill, I., 2000. Corruption in the forest sector in India: impacts and implication for development assistance. International Forestry Review 2(3): 200-207.
Kaimowitz, D., 2000. Forestry assistance and tropical deforestation: why the public doesn't get what it pays for. International Forestry Review 2(3): 225-231.
Knudsen, O. K., 2000. The World Bank's forest policy and strategy. International Forestry Review 2(3): 169-170.
Laarman, J.G., 2001. Development aid for forestry: unsustainable and in need of reform. Journal of Forestry 99(7): 40-45.
Laarman, J.G. and R.A. Sedjo, 1992. Global Forests-- Issues for Six Billion People. McGrew-Hill, Inc. p.337.
Middleton, N., P. O'keefe, and S. Moyo, 1993. Tears of the Crocodile: From Rio to Reality in the developing world. Pluto Press, Boulder and London, 228.
Nguyen, T.Q., 1989. Third World Development--Aspect of Political Legitimacy and Viability, London and Toronto: Associated university presses, Inc. p. 221.
OECD, 2002. Aid at a Glance 1999-2000 (Web Site: http://www.oecd.org/EN/ document/0/EN-document-0-nodirectorate-no-12-29438-0,00.html)
OECD, 2001. Untying aid to the least developed countries. Policy Brief.
OECD, 2000. Official Development Assistance to Forestry 1973 -1998. DAC Secretariat.
Persson, R., 2000. Assistance to forestry: what have we learnt? International Forestry Review 2(3): 218-224.
Rich, B., 1994. Mortgaging the Earth - The World Bank, Environmental Impoverishment, and the Crisis of Development. Boston: Beacon Press, p.376.
Roche, L., 1997. Official development aid policies and sustainable utilisation of forest resources in developing countries. Commonwealth Forestry Review 76(2): 91-97.
Roper J. and R. W. Roberts, 1999. Deforestation: Tropical Forests in Decline. Canadian International Development Agency Canada, Forest Conservation Consultant, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Smith, P., 1989. Management in Agricultural and rural Development. London and New York: Elsevier Applied Science, p.276.
Voysey, B.C., 2000. From the contractor's side: constraints on effective project implementation. International Forestry Review 2(3): 208-211.
WSSD (World Summit on Sustainable Development), 2002. Plan of implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development [Revised] (Website: http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/html/documents/summit_docs/ 2309_planfinal.htm).
WRI, 2001. World Resources 2000-2001-- People and ecosystems: The fraying web of life. Prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Bank, and the World Resources Institute.
1 Professor, Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, Chittagong University, Chittagong 4331, Bangladesh. [email protected]
2 I interchangeably use developing countries/third world for the east. For our discussion I include the poor/less developed countries of the eastern and southern hemisphere as "the east". The east, here, may exclude Japan, Singapore, i.e., rich countries of the eastern hemisphere. The West/Western/northern countries refer as developed countries in western/northern hemisphere.