The Research/Practice Interface

Engaging Constituencies?A Practitioner’s View

James Morton - 13 November 2007

Who is this ‘Practitioner’ Anyway?

•10 years on large - multi-million, multi-annual - development assignments: DFID, EC, IFIs•Africa, Asia, Latin America, M. East

•Researched and published•Managed research programmes•Started as Volunteer

“I come on the low end of the ‘practitioner’ scale. At the top of that scale are the aid-giving organisations whose primary concern is to ‘move the money’. Those like myself are required to make that money work on the ground.”

And ‘Practice’ Means

Helping government officials and others in developing countries to provide better services for poor people:

• Planning

• Managing and Implementing

• Accounting, Monitoring and Reporting

What Research Helps?

•Understanding poor people’s needs

•Technologies - in the broadest sense

•Understanding the society I am in

BUT

It is not for me, it is for my developing country clients. If they do not want it, cannot use it or cannot absorb it - Forget It

A Practitioner’s View - 1690

“…. Knowledge is as food, and needs no less,

Her temperance over Appetite, to know

In measure what the mind may well contain,

Oppresses else with Surfeit and soon turns

Wisdom to Folly, as Nourishment to Wind.”

Milton, Paradise Lost

RICH PEOPLE

POOR PEOPLE

DONORS

DFID etc

ACADEMICS

NGOs

CONSULTANTS

GOVERNMENTS

DONORS

DFID etc

ACADEMICS

NGOs

CONSULTANTS

GOVERNMENTS

RICH PEOPLE

POOR PEOPLE

RICH PEOPLE

POOR PEOPLE

DONORS

DFID etc

ACADEMICS

NGOs

CONSULTANTS

GOVERNMENTS

What’s a Constituency?

• Voters whose interests are organised by location?OR

• “Also tranf. = CLIENTELE a body of clients or dependents; a body of adherents;

a following …..” Shorter Oxford Dictionary

The Intermediary Constituencies

• Competitors for Money

• Competitors for Influence

More Like Clienteles Than Constituencies,

RICH PEOPLE

POOR PEOPLE

DONORS

DFID etc

ACADEMICS

NGOs

CONSULTANTS

GOVERNMENTS

The Games People PlayThe State of the Art Game

“One group sees its role as unsettling others by asserting new thinking to denigrate old thinking” - Geoff Wood, Bath University

The Holier Than Thou Game

“One group polices the behaviour and intentions of others to deny them the right to play at all” - JM, by extension from G Wood

GAMESMANSHIP - ‘The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating’ Stephen Potter, 1920s

The Holier Than Thou Game 2005 Version

“SCANDAL OF PHANTOM AID MONEY”“technical experts in Vietnam are paid $18,000

compared with $1,500 for local experts”

“three quarters wasted on inflated salaries”

“money spent where it was needed rather than on Business Class flights for western consultants”

Action Aid Report, May 2005

Holier Than Thou 1989 Version

The Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige & Corruption of the International Aid Business“Year in year out, …. aid pays the hefty salaries and underwrites the

privileged lifestyles of the international civil servants, ‘development experts’, consultants and assorted freeloaders who staff the aid agencies.”

“Charities established to do good works … know that they can benefit from this powerful but transitory altruism and go into public-relations overdrive when there is a relief operation in prospect. …. famines, floods, earthquakes and other catastrophes can be real money-spinners”

Graham Hancock: The Lords of Poverty

Research and PracticeA Practitioner’s View - 1994

• “I do not accept that aid can be made to work – if only method X is used in place of Method Y, ….

– if only the political and commercial strings are forthwith removed,

– if only the poor are properly ‘targeted’

…. Such formulas, ..., have about as much intellectual validity as the facile excuses of tribal rainmakers … who seek to explain the failure of their efforts in terms of obscure but correctable errors in their performance of the ritual.” Hancock, The Lords of Poverty

• Comprehensive studies in Darfur demonstrated “two contradictory points. – First, that this old-fashioned approach to research can provide a good understanding of

an area where the more modern, arms-length approaches cannot.

– Second, that even a good understanding does not offer much hope that knowledge will make a significant contribution to development; at least in the sense that it is not going to identify ways in which the vast sums of development aid can be usefully spent.”

Morton, The Poverty of Nations

The State of the Art GameA Livelihoods Case Study

“The sustainable livelihoods concept had all the qualities of a classic ‘paradigm shift’. This shift came at a time when previous dominant theories and practices – particularly those associated with integrated rural development – were losing their intellectual and political attraction. Sustainable livelihoods offered a fresh approach. ? A CLASSIC ‘RAINMAKER’ REVISION

– “it drew on changing views of poverty, recognising the diversity of aspirations, the importance of assets and communities, and the constraints and opportunities provided by institutional structures and processes; “ ABSOLUTELY

– “it placed people – rather than resources, facilities or organisations – as the focus of concern and action; and emphasised that development must be participatory and improvements must be sustainable; “ GAMESMANSHIP, INCONSISTENT

– “it had evolved within research institutes, NGOs and donor agencies and was not exclusive to one or the other.” NO PRACTITIONERS

Score Academics, NGOs, Donors 3 Governments, Consultants 0

SLA - A Practitioner’s View“The Framework has proved a powerful tool in all DFID’s subsequent work – in promoting SLA within the Department at Headquarters and in its regional offices and to partner organisations; as a focus for discussions with other donor agencies (Carney et al., 1999); and as an agenda for further policy development and research.” AND PRACTICE?

•Enhancing capability – in facing change and unpredictability, people are versatile, quick to adapt and able to exploit diverse resources and opportunities;

THEREFORE, WHAT?

•Improving equity – priority should be given to the capabilities, assets and access of the poorer, including minorities and women; HOW? WHO’S THE JUDGE?

•Increasing social sustainability – the vulnerability of the poor should be minimised by reducing external stress and shocks and providing safety nets.

HOW?

A TOOL FOR THINKING AND ADVOCACY, NOT FOR DOING

Does it Matter?

• Yes. The State of the Art and other games:– Destroy institutional memory– Devalue technical rigour– Generate incessant policy cycling– Create large transactions costs

• Above all, they destroy trust, without which engagement is almost impossible.

What Research Do I Use?To win proposals - Whatever the donor client

wants.

To do the job - Whatever is useful to my developing country client:- poverty studies- farming systems research, adaptive research- soils to economy - sociology, anthropology

But I rarely use- methodologies and approaches

There’s Only One Constituency

POOR PEOPLE

Those who serve (not represent) them should:– Give up the games. A self-denying ordinance.– Challenge themselves rigorously on all activities

that do not pass services or resources directly to the poor.

– AND offer themselves to challenge by others.– Respect each other’s good intentions.– Read, don’t write. – ABOVE ALL filter research ruthlessly: knowledge

is abundant, time and attention are not

ConstituenciesA Practitioner’s View - 1994

“The gap between the aid-giving ‘bureaucrats’ and the field ‘practitioner’ is a chasm compared to that between the ‘academics’ and the ‘bureaucrats’. Indeed, there are worrying signs that the bureaucrats have captured the academics, or possibly vice versa, to the exclusion of any field ‘practice’ at all.” Morton, 1994