What Do You Want To Talk About?

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Permalink Reply by Shirley Mensah on January 25, 2012 at 6:30pm

Discussion

Is the growing partnership between Africa and China a healthy one, or are our leaders

allowing history to repeat itself?

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Permalink Reply by Hannah J Cooper on January 27, 2012 at 11:58am

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you so much for your feedback to date!

In addition to Shirley's suggestion, we've had a number of responses via email. I thought that I would share them with you and get your sense on which ones would be the most interesting to pursue. Let me know what you think via posting a comment or sending me an email: hjcooper12@gmail.com!

Hope all is well and have a great weekend!

Hannah

1- I wish to raise an area of concern on Results Based Management; With the current aid debate and challenges facing CSOs across the globe, how do CSOs plan and implement RBM while addressing their needs and priorities as well as reporting requirements (institutional specific indicators) and those of development partners?

2 - Have we ever looked at risk analysis (types of risks that threaten our results-chain) and assumptions (drivers of change that might affect realisation of results when they no longer hold)  in managing for results in a complex and ever-changing development landscapes?

3- I have a challenge on Mining taxation regime and how the Mining activities can speed up the  reduction of the poverty and improve the economic growth.

4- Measures or approaches to successful realisation of the education outcomes in our African context - what role would society practically play, who are the basic players, what role would municipalities/local authorities play, what role should central and provincial/regional governments play, can there be a way of possibly having some common kind of curriculum for Africa's development or the like?

5 - Are there any better financing models out there? -  infrastructure development (basic, social and economic) as well as general service delivery financing given the fact that taxes and big revenue of government is normally received by the central government. Are there any working formulas that would not leave the poor areas more poor?

6- How can local authorities be made sustainable, viable able to provide services and accordingly.

7 - Is it not time that now in dealing with corruption, both partners (i.e. officials and business persons) should be penalised for their conduct? I mean is it morally correct that a business benefits to the detriment of others through improper means, should it not be that businesses must be struck of trading if they are found to have been part of that, etc?

8 - What is the best partnerships that can exist between civil society organisations and government?

9 - In this discussion, I would like to learn more about the “impact attribution” issues   and minimum time frame of result measurement.   Sometime impact results are seen after the project phase out   especially impact on the capacity building support programme. I would like to see the result measurement  contact on the basis of intervention logic/Result chain logic or Theory of change perspective rather than  too narrow Log frame basis.

10 - Is MfDR realistic in a country that has limited resources and has to abide by rules established by Bretton Woods Institutions?

11- In a country where human resources are under payed, how can we talk about MfDR?  

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Wendo on February 25, 2012 at 3:36am

Question one seems interesting. CSO can work two ways. I always advocate for social enterprises as commercial-social vehicles towards managing the twin paradigm of organizations; needs and priorities as well as reporting requirements (institutional specific indicators) and those of development partners. Organizations have to make sense in themselves, first, before they make sense to other stakeholders-beneficiaries, donors, partners etc.

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Wendo on February 25, 2012 at 3:42am

I think this relationship does one thing, according to my understanding. It diversifies the type of relationships within the  African continents. Previously the African and other world relationship was very limited to the bigger players(US, Germany, Britain). These entities exercised massive influence on African contexts as was seen in Kenya by implementation of the SAPs in the mid eighties. I think trade and fair practice can only exist if and only if monopolistic pressures that existed are neutralized in this manner. However, African countries need to realise that development solutions are only being achieved through cooperation efforts; not sourcing China to solve our problems, otherwise China will be the next "America."(Sorry this post sounds political)

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Permalink Reply by Benedict Wauters on January 30, 2012 at 6:23am

RBM focuses very much on effectiveness. Are we doing the right things? Is there a viable theory of change? However, this has led to less emphasis on the appropriate level of funding to be spent. How do we deal with this? Sth might work really well in terms of delivering good effects but it may be really expensive as well. Value for money is a term increasingly used.  How do we deal with VFM in formal project appraisal? 

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Wendo on February 25, 2012 at 3:29am

RBM really is a strategic way of managing results- that is why i agree with its precept of "are we doing the right thing." I think that within the framework of VFM projects needs to focus on delivering value to themselves as well as the beneficiaries- i believe the beneficiaries are first in this. You see, very often, most projects are not self sustaining. They do not have a strategy within it to keep it moving onwards without seeking dole for continued survival. The concept of the social enterprise is a relatively recent one that answers this question. As less emphasis points towards funding levels towards what to fund(which is also an RBM driven ideology) projects need to take an almost quasi-commercial perspective. I believe that is one of the ways within which VFM can be instilled and built.

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Permalink Reply by Benedict Wauters on February 25, 2012 at 4:07pm

I find this a very interesting idea.  

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