by Alex Evans | Mar 5, 2008 | Africa, Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development
“If you see people throwing stones, it means if they had guns, they would have been shooting”, observes Frederick, an economics grad who drives a motorcycle taxi in Douala, Cameroon.
The FT’s Matthew Green explains:
Only a few crumbs were left on the counter at the Boulangerie du Rail delicatessen in Douala after looters swept the shelves of cake, croissants and champagne… “People are hungry, they have nothing to eat,” said Felix Djoyo, the manager, who had locked himself behind a metal door while shanty dwellers ransacked his bottles of Bordeaux.
The crisis in Cameroon might have generated few headlines abroad, but the violence shows how soaring oil and food prices on global markets are threatening the patronage systems propping up some of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. Protests linked to surging inflation have broken out in Guinea and Burkina Faso in recent months, where presidents have ruled for more than two decades. Niger, Ghana and Senegal have also seen demonstrations …
The government has agreed to a small reduction in fuel prices to placate protesters, saying it cannot afford the kinds of subsidies needed to shield the economy from global market forces. But many residents blame Mr Biya for the hardship, saying years of venal rule have skewed the economy to favour a tiny elite.
So, another point to add to the growing list of what rising food and energy prices mean for Africa: patronage systems come under increasing stress in conditions of scarcity. Look at Kenya. People at the tops of agencies are acutely aware of the problem – DFID’s Douglas Alexander and the World Bank’s Bob Zoellick both returned from Davos fired up about the political impacts of scarcity issues, for instance. Some people in country offices get it, too.
But the underlying problem is still that many donor agencies’ culture is all about disbursing cash – rather than having a really sophisticated analysis of endogenous drivers of change and a theory of influence to go with it. Neither the old problem of patronage nor the newer problem of scarcity issues is really that well understood in donor agency cultures. We’d better hope they get up to speed pretty fast…
by Mark Weston | Feb 22, 2008 | Africa, Economics and development
Reading Alex’s recent post on Kenya, I was reminded of a snippet I put on my own mini- and not-very-productive blog exactly two years ago today (excuse the blatant plug).
One of the “fundamental realities” that western governments engaged with Kenya “swept under the carpet” was, of course, corruption. Hillary Benn, then Britain’s Minister for International Development, knew about Kenyan corruption but let it pass. On his return from a trip to the country in 2006, he reported in a speech to the Royal African Society that, “In Kenya I met President Kibaki. We had a full and frank discussion, as they say, about the persistence of corruption. I made no secret of our concern. During the same visit, I also announced that we will be putting £55 million into improving education.” Or in other words, have some more money to feed your greed.
As I cynically implied back then, maybe Kibaki had learned the art of hoodwinking the west from the master of the craft, Joseph Mobutu.
by Charlie Edwards | Feb 15, 2008 | Economics and development
The UK Parliament select committee on Development reports on the state of Afghanistan. You can read the report here. There are 50 recommendations – here are my top 10.
- Afghanistan should remain a major focus for DFID.
- DFID’s media strategy for Afghanistan should be strengthened
- DFID must develop a new communications strategy in Afghanistan to ensure accurate information about the scale of its work is widely circulated.
- We recommend the early provision of a dedicated aeroplane for the use of DFID and other Embassy staff to carry out their work in Afghanistan.
- Development agencies need to come to international agreements among themselves about what constitutes good practice for post-war reconstruction and development in fragile states, especially when they are working in partnership with the military.
- We believe that greater international pressure should be placed on Pakistan to control more effectively the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
- We ask the Secretary of State to discuss with the Ministry of Defence the feasibility of extending UK military commanders’ tours of duty in Helmand to, say, one year.
- Progress in creating an effective and legitimate Afghan National Police force has been slow. Corruption and bribery are rife and this is hampering acceptance of the police as a force for good. There are insufficient police trainers and there is no clear consensus about what type of police force—paramilitary or civilian—is required. We believe that the issue of remit must be clarified as quickly as possible
- Opium poppy production is causally linked to insecurity and corruption in Afghanistan. Suggestions of the involvement in narcotics of high-ranking officials are worrying. We believe greater effort on the part of the President and donors is essential to ensure that involvement in opium poppy production is stamped out at every level of government.
- We agree with the UK and Afghan Governments that aerial spraying of poppies is not desirable for health and safety reasons and because it risks increasing insecurity in already insecure provinces.
by Alex Evans | Feb 7, 2008 | Cooperation and coherence, Economics and development, UK
While we’re on the subject of Sue Cameron’s awesome Whitehall gossip network, note also her piece yesterday about DFID (or ‘Difid’ as she enchantingly calls it) – which bears all the hallmarks of hostile briefing from King Charles Street.
Could the horror engulfing Kenya change the balance of power in Whitehall? I am told that questions are being asked at the highest levels about Britain’s “limp-wristed” response to the Kenyan crisis. Senior Foreign Office people blame their colleagues at the Department for International Development for not realising that Kenya was, as one put it, “about to blow”. Difid is now the major arm of British policy in Africa because it has all the money for development.
Yet I am told its people are unwilling to discuss abuses of aid – which are widespread – and have little idea about good governance and how to bring it about. Now there are inquiries as to why pressure was not brought to bear on the Kenyan government. Why was aid not restricted? Why were Kenyan politicians – such as vice-president Stephen Kalonzo, now in London – not banned from visiting? We have spinelessly allowed him in even though Kenya has just declared Sir Edward Clay, our former high commissioner to Kenya, persona non grata. The outspoken Sir Edward once attacked “the massive looting and grand corruption” of Kenya. He accused Kenyan officials of behaving “like gluttons” and “vomiting on the shoes” of donors. His successor Adam Wood, a Difid man, has been more emollient. But change may be coming. Two months ago Mark Malloch Brown, Africa minister, said: “We have a development policy for Africa; is it time that the UK also has a foreign policy for Africa?” David Miliband, foreign secretary, shares this view. Difid’s ascendancy, which owes much to Gordon Brown’s influence, may be ending.
Now I’m not saying donors have their approach a hundred per cent right in Kenya. I’m unconvinced, for example, by arguments that Kenya was a suitable country for direct budget support; and I think donors have a lot of work to do to set out a clearer theory of how they work in developing countries that, like Kenya or Nigeria, could go either way – lift-off or basket case – especially given that such work has more to do with the quality of influence and political engagement than with the amount of aid spent.
But if it is indeed the case that DFID staff are “unwilling to discuss abuses of aid”, as the article charges, then it’s a bit of a stretch to see how bringing the debate to the diary column of the Financial Times is likely to coax DFID into a franker discussion. What kind of idiot thinks that this sort of approach will lead to policy coherence between the two departments?
The great majority of officials at FCO and DFID understand that their ability to work together is of paramount importance to their closely overlapping – if still distinct – missions. But in each department there are still a fair few old-fashioned turf warriors who know exactly which buttons to push in the other department to guarantee a rise.
Each time they press those buttons – especially in public – it makes life a bit harder for those officials who understand the need for the two departments to cohere with one another, by confirming the old stereotypes as to why you can’t trust DFID / FCO [delete as applicable].
Briefing stuff like this to the FT might be fun, but it does nothing to advance either department’s mission. The handful of turf warriors at each end of St James’s Park need to grow up.
by Alex Evans | Feb 5, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks, UK
The Foreign Office launched its new Strategic Framework yesterday. It seems rather a grand title for a leaflet that stretches to two pages of A4, but perhaps that means we can hope for a fuller exposition in due course. Here’s your cut-out-and-keep guide to how it’s different from the old strategic framework:
Stuff that was in before and is still in now: WMD, terrorism, conflict prevention, the EU, a high growth economy including support for UK business, energy security, climate change, human rights & good governance, migration, consular stuff, overseas territories.
Stuff that was in before but has disappeared: Organised crime (“reducing the harm to the UK from international crime, including drug trafficking, people smuggling and money laundering”); sustainable development.
Stuff that has appeared for the first time: More emphasis on conflict resolution (“including through an integrated civil-military approach to peacekeeping, stabilisation and sustained post-conflict peacebuilding”); an explicit reference to the Millennium Development Goals [happy faces over at DFID, no doubt]; and a reference to the international system in its own right [rather than just in the context of conflict prevention, as under Margaret Beckett].
FCO say that they’ve shrunk the list of priorities from ten priorities to four policy goals (counter-terrorism and weapons proliferation; prevent and resolve conflict; low-carbon, high-growth global economy; effective international institutions) and three essential services (support British economy; support British nationals abroad; support managed migration to Britain). But given that there are three distinct sub-points under each policy goal, and that 95% of the content of the old priorites is still in there, I’m politely sceptical.
Still, let’s offer up a small prayer of thanks for David Miliband’s special gift to us all: the defenestration of sustainable development, the world’s leading all-things-to-all-people concept. On the other hand, it’s a bit worrying that resource scarcity has effectively disappeared as a result, especially on the food and water front. A missed trick there (especially since Miliband really pioneered the concept of ‘one planet living’ hard while he was at Defra); it could have fitted in nicely alongside the energy security stuff.
So what happens now? David Miliband’s statement to Parliament on the new framework says a little about what it all means in practice:
We will be increasing substantially the overall level of resources the FCO puts into counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation; climate change; Afghanistan and other conflict regions; and key international institutions. All these areas will receive additional staff and money.
We have also decided that we should adapt the FCO’s overseas network of posts to align it more closely with our own priorities and those of HMG as a whole. So we will be shifting a proportion of our diplomatic staff from Europe and the Americas to Asia, the Middle East and other parts of the world, while continuing to sustain our global flexibility and reach…
In order to put more resources into these new priority areas and to sharpen our strategic focus, it is necessary to reduce the resources the FCO puts into certain other issues, notably where other Whitehall Departments in London are better placed to direct HMG’s international priorities, in particular in the areas of sustainable development, science and innovation, and crime and drugs.
Miliband also said that “we will be taking forward the detailed planning and implementation over the next few months, inside the FCO and with other Government Departments”. As that process gets underway, it would be good to hear more about FCO’s strategy in two particular areas:
1. Its role on policy synthesis. As David and I set out in our paper last April on Fixing the Foreign Office, one of the core problems in UK foreign policy is that with domestic departments all leading internationally on their little bit of foreign policy (Defra on climate, BERR on energy and so on), we have a problem with policy coherence arising from the fact that all of these organisational silos emphatically do not add up to a whole that’s more than the sum of its parts. Traditionally, overcoming this would have been a Cabinet Office job. But today, the Cabinet Office just doesn’t have the resources for such a complex task. So does FCO have a special role in effecting a strategic policy synthesis and in joining up the dots? And if so, how does it work?
2. Its theory of influence. Miliband is already clear that the new empowerment of non-state actors in foreign policy is a Big Deal (c.f. his idea of the ‘civilian surge’). But if diplomats’ work now extends far beyond just talking to other diplomats, does the FCO have a clear approach towards leveraging influence in this new context? (This is the question that David and I will be tackling in our forthcoming Demos pamphlet on The New Public Diplomacy.) And if so, how does it work?
