Learning in Development Co-Operation 2

1 Edited by Jerker Carlsson and Lennart Wohlgemuth LEARNING IN DEVELOPMENT CO-OPERATION 2 Jerker Carlsson Associate Professor Department of Peace and Development Research University of Gothenburg Sweden Telephone: +46 370 30 14 30 Telefax: +46 370 493 31 e-mail: [email protected] Lennart Wohlgemuth Director The Nordic Africa Institute Box 1703 SE-751 47 Uppsala Sweden Telephone: +46 18 56 22 00 Telefax: +46 18 56 22 90 e-mail: [email protected] Distributed by: Almqvist & Wiksell International P.O. Box 7634 SE-103 94 Stockholm Sweden Telefax: +46 8 24 25 43 e-mail: [email protected] 3 Table of contents Part I Jerker Carlsson and Lennart Wohlgemuth Learning in Development Co-operation – an Introduction 6 Part II Elliot Berg Why Aren’t Aid Organizations Better Learners? 24 Gus Edgren Fashions, Myths and Delusion: Obstacles to Organisational Learning in Aid Agencies 41 Astri Suhrke From One Crisis to Another: Organisational Learning in UNHCR 69 Naoki Suzuki What Prevents Development Organizations from Learning? The Difficulties in Learning to Be Learners 88 Part III Louk Box The Toils and the Spoils: Agricultural Knowledge Networks, Professionals and Practitioners 104 Jerker Carlsson Learning from Evaluations 120 Kai-ming Cheng Learning the Local Perspectives 130 Margareta Grape What Did Mr Olofsson Learn? 142 Jacques Hallak Learning in International Development Co-operation – an Example of a Small International Institution 152 Kenneth King A Personal Reflection – Learning and Development Aid, 1960-2000 164 4 Kirsti Lintonen Learning in Development Co-operation – the Case of Finland 181 Narciso Matos Development Co-operation and the Process of Learning 192 Thandika Mkandawire Non-Organic Intellectuals and “Learning” in Policy-Making Africa 205 Ernesto Schiefelbein and Paulina Schiefelbein Slow Learning in Development Co-operation to Latin American Education 213 Willi A. Wapenhans Learning by Doing: Reflections on 35 Years with the World Bank 228 Anna Wieslander When Do We Ever Learn? 250 Part IV Annex: Notes sent to the Authors 268 Contributors 271 5 Part I 6 Learning in Development Co-operation – an Introduction Jerker Carlsson and Lennart Wohlgemuth This book deals with learning in development co-operation. The point of departure for our discussion is that learning is a common concern, involving all parties active in development co-operation. Looking at learning from such a multi-actor perspective is necessary in order to maximise the policy relevance of the discussion. Thus, the purpose of this book is not only to highlight problems of learning in development co-operation, but also to use the insights of the contributions to the book, to develop suggestions as to how effective learning can be implemented in development co-operation. To enable us to do this, we approached the issue of learning from the perspective of the aid practitioners themselves. We asked people with long experience of working with development aid, inside and outside donor and recipient agencies, to present their personal reflections and ideas about learning (see the Annex “Notes sent to the Authors” in Part IV). We wanted to provide them with an opportunity to tell their own story. The contributors would have quite a free hand to approach the subject of learning as they felt to be most relevant. The only constraint given was that they should focus on some or all of the basic learning issues: How do we learn? What do we learn? From which sources do we learn? What do we do with our knowledge? Inviting people, from different backgrounds and experiences, to write freely around four rather open questions will inevitably result in contributions that vary quite considerably among themselves. The articles in this volume do not follow a common format. There is a wide variation from the typical academic article, to a more “journalistic” style of writing. Furthermore, there is no common definition of learning among the authors. It is up to each of the authors to write and think about learning as they see fit. They also choose their examples from different countries, organisations etc. A book which is based on such a personal, narrative approach should, we hope, become more accessible to a wider audience, and not only to those interested in the subject of organisational learning. 7 Learning in the development debate During recent years there has been a lot of interest in the subject of organisational learning in development co-operation. This interest emerged as one issue in the debate on aid effectiveness. A range of studies was produced in the late 1980s and during the 1990s about aid effectiveness including well-known studies by Cassen et al. (1986), Mosley (1987), Bauer (1992), Berg (1993) and Burnside and Dollar (1997). Although there was no firm verdict as to whether aid worked or not, there seemed to be a consensus that there was little solid knowledge about the impact of aid. Generally the conclusion was that the situation would be much improved if such knowledge was made available, and if aid agencies, and their counterparts on the receiving end, devoted more attention to the issue of learning. Aid agencies and their counterparts would be well advised to ask themselves: Do we learn from our experiences and do we feed that knowledge back into improved practices? What has happened since then? If learning is evidenced by changed development thinking and practices, then certainly there has been a lot of learning which has taken place in development co-operation. The question of learning is, unfortunately, more complicated than that. As Forss points out: …are the changes driven by increased knowledge and accumulated experience? Are the actors primarily reacting to external changes as well as they can, or are they taking a more active role in shaping the nature of development co-operation? Does learning help the actors to keep abreast with a complex and chaotic world? (Forss et al., 1998, p.1) Perhaps it is not a question of either/or. Actors are subjected to strong external forces which demand change. The actors respond partly by drawing upon the lessons learned from their previous aid programmes. This is, for example, what happened when Finland was forced to reduce its aid programme in the 1990s, due to the economic crisis (Lintonen1 ). There are still only a few answers to these important and very relevant questions. Learning in development co-operation is more or less virgin territory for organisation research. Although there is a significant body of research on organisational learning in general, there are few studies that focus on learning in development co-operation (RRV, 1988; Samset 1 In the following we refer to the contributors to this book by giving their names in brackets. References to other sources are referred to by name and publication year. 8 et al.; 1993 and Forss et al., 1998). Studies of internal learning processes and the structures of donor agencies are important and much needed. But just as important are studies of learning processes involving the donor and its counterparts in the recipient countries. Studying learning processes in development co-operation offers its own complications. Aid is a relationship between basically two parties – a donor and a recipient. The effectiveness of development co-operation therefore depends largely on the quality of this relationship. It is a complex relationship characterised by huge differences in the terms and conditions by which the parties collaborate with each other. Since donors and recipients have very different roles and positions within the structures of aid, what they consider important to learn may differ in some, but not all, respects. If the purpose of learning is improving the effectiveness of aid, then learning becomes an issue which cannot be confined to one party only. Effective learning does require that both parties learn and that they have an opportunity to share their experiences and jointly work out an agenda of action. The notion of aid as a relationship between two parties – the donor and the recipient – is a simplification of a considerably more complex reality. On both sides there is a wide range of actors who communicate with each other at different levels and in ways that are not always clear and logical. In the recipient country we find actors, they can be private or public, at four different levels: the community, the district, the province/ region and the national level. They can be a community council or a women’s group, a district and/or a provincial council and at the national level a Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Development Planning or any other line ministry. On the donor side you will have an equally diverse set of actors, such as consultants involved in studies or in implementation, the embassy in the recipient country, the aid agency itself and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or a specialised Ministry of Development Co-operation. This intricate web of relations adds further to learning as an analytically complex phenomenon to study. What is learning? Learning is commonly associated with a change in how we understand and interpret the reality that surrounds us. From our perspective – the objectives of development co-operation – learning is not a purely 9 intellectual phenomenon, but a process which is linked to a change of practice. It is not enough to identify a problem and propose a solution. The solution must be put into practice before learning can occur. This raises the interesting issue about the relationship between organisational and individual learning. Organisations can be said to learn if knowledge based on past experience is incorporated in organisational skills, procedures and cultures. Such processes reflect organisational interests, structures, functions and decision-making contexts (Suhrke). The focus of this book is both on the learning of individuals and how the structure, process and cultures of aid agencies, and their counterparts in the developing countries, fail or succeed in creating conditions that are conducive to individual learning.

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