From Accra to Seoul – Road Mapping Civil

Priorities into the National Agenda for Aid and

Development Effectiveness, Sri Lanka
5th – 6th September 2010

 
Organized By     :    Green Movement of Sri Lanka Inc. 
 
Public  Campaign  on  Aid  and  Development   
Effectiveness  

 
Sponsored By  :  The Reality of Aid
An Independent Review of Poverty Reduction and Development Assistance
 REPORT
Prepared by
Arjuna Seneviratne
Facilitator
Aid and Development Effectiveness Consultations

2
Introduction
The multi-stakeholder consultative workshop “From Accra to Seoul – Road
Mapping Civil Priorities into the National Agenda for Aid and Development
Effectiveness” was held at Hotel Renuka, Colombo 3 on the 5th and 6th of
September 2010 as part of an ongoing action on aid and development
effectiveness on all fronts. This was the 3rd meeting of a 3 meeting series that
looked into CSO effectiveness, A & D effectiveness on agriculture and national
development effectiveness agendas.

This meet was a culmination of the week long process with representatives from
donor agencies and other players participating. Although the dialogue amongst
the CSOs did not yield a concrete set of priorities to be taken to Seoul in 2011,
the discussions yielded some very important points on how to strategize CSO
action for inclusiveness in the development arena given the volatile and
suppressive political environment that exists.

The participants
No Name Organization Email

Civil Society Organizations

1 Mr. Hemantha Withanage
2 Ms. Dilhara Jeewanthi
3 Ms. J.H.S. Malakanthi
4 Ms. Menu Nilukshika
Center for Environmental justice ( CEJ) hemanthaw@ureka.lk
Center for Environmental justice ( CEJ), dilharajeewanthi@gmail.c
om
Vikalpani National Women’s Movement vikalpani@yahoo.com
Vikalpani National Women’s Movement. vikalpani@yahoo.com

5 Mr. Gamini Ruberu Community and Environmental sasthri@sltnet.lk

Development Foundation,
6 Mr. Lionel Thilakarathne SANGRAMA sangrama@sltnet.lk

7 Mr. M.C. Mendis Community Challenge Technicians slcohp@sltnet.lk

Association
8 Mr. Vincent Janawaboda Kendraya janawaboda@sltnet.lk
Bulathsinghala
9 Mr. Piyasoma Bentota The Committee For the People's Rights gamagedara@sltnet.lk
10 Mr. B.U.R. Rajapaksha The Committee For the People's Rights gamagedara@sltnet.lk
11 Mr. Ranjith Organization for Environment and en_
Wickramasinghe Children Rights Protection (OECRP) childsund@yahoo.com,
12 Mr. A. Muditha Organization for Environment and en_
Children Rights Protection (OECRP) childsund@yahoo.com,
13 Mr. Upali Munasinghe National Federation for Conservation of sririce@yahoo.com
Traditional Farmers and Agri Resources
14 Mr. Abdul Razak Rural Women’s Front – (RWF) srwfg18@sltnet.lk

15 Mr. Priyantha Piyathilaka SARVODAYA priyantha@sarvodaya.or

g
16 Mr. T. Thevathas Rural Women’s Development Forum,
Vavuniya

3
17 Mr. Thushara De. Silva Centre For Public Service Media
(Southern Development Transport
Project-STDP)
18 Mr. Saman C. Liyanage Centre For Public Service Media samanmedia@gmail.com
(Southern Development Transport
Project-STDP)
19 Ms. Damitha Peiris Women’s Bank womenscenter@sltnet.lk
20 Ms. Jayanthi Women’s Bank womenscenter@sltnet.lk
Chandralatha
21 Mr. Sunil Shantha Chief Secretary, Movements for National sarathfdo@sltnet.lk
Lands and Reforms (MONLAR)
22 Mr. Rosha Salinda People's Secretariat on Climate Change
sihildiyatha@greensl.net
23 Mr. Janaka Withanage IFI's Watch Program
ifiswatch@greensl.net
24 Mr. Banduranga Natural Resource Conservation and
Kariyawasam Management Program bandu@greensl.net
Academic
25 Mr. Dileepa Witharana The Open University of Sri Lanka, (OUSL) dileepawitharana@hotmail
.com
Trade Union
26 Mr. D.A.D.N.C. United Labour Federation
Wimalaratne
INGOs
27 Ms. Rishani Wijesinghe Advocacy Coordinator - Oxfam Australia rishaniw@oxfam.org.au
28 Ms. Mala Liyanage Executive Director, Law and Society Trust mala.liyanage@gmail.co
m
29 Dr. Fredrick Abeyratne Senior Programme Annalist United
. Nations Development Programme(UNDP) fredrick.abeyratne@und
p.org
30 Mr. Sashee de Mel Programme Coordinator - Advocacy
Transparency International Sri Lanka sashee@tisrilanka.org
31 Mr. Jeewan Thyagarajah Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies
(GTE ) Limited execdir@cha.lk
32 Ms. Soira Benedict The Europion Union soira.benedict@ec.europa.
eu
33 Mr. Christian Raite The Europion Union
34 Mr. Bhathiya Practical Action
Kekulandala
35 Mr. Marikkar FORUT mariks@forut.lk
Multi Lateral Banks

36 Mr. Patrick World Bank resource person pvandenbruaene@world

Vandenbruaene bank.org

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Highlights and emerging outcomes and impacts of the discussion
ƒ Although repeat requests were made to the government officials
responsible for aid effectiveness to attend the meeting, they were very firm
in their refusal stating that the PD was not something that was either
popular or high on the agenda of development effectiveness as far as the
government was concerned.

ƒ The terminology of “Aid Effectiveness” was contested and it was stated

that the entire mechanism was one of validating the plunder of richer
countries and that engaging with the discourse on the part of CSOs will
legitimize the effort when there is no “aid” as such that is delivered but
rather loans which need to be paid back with interest. There should be a
parallel discussion going through which can highlight this issue and
aggressively engage the richer nations to agree not to “aid” or “loans” but
for compensation for their earlier exploitative sins. Therefore, entry into
these discussions should be on equal terms and not on terms and agenda
that are dictated to us by outside entities and richer countries.

ƒ The richer nations are not able to retract their exploitative socio-economic
systems and they are unable to find any rational solution within those
systems for the energy, food, climate and financial crises. However,
without any aid, most of the poorer and more marginalized communities
will be able to find far more sustainable solutions to all of these problems
and this approach should be actively pursued. Therefore, the so-called “aid
receivers” are on a better footing to find solution to these issues and they
therefore have the right to ownership of genuine development processes
and use compensation to arrive at solutions not only for themselves but
also for those who have caused the damage.

ƒ One of the core problems is differentiating whose agenda is the civil

society agenda when there are many different people purporting to speak
for all of civil society in contradictory terms within terms of engagement
that work at cross purposes to each other. Generally, the agendas of small
countries such as Sri Lanka get blown over against the international
agenda.

ƒ The ability of CSOs to engage in meaningful debate is severely curbed due

to the majority of them lacking knowledge of local and global aid and
development politics and many of them are still talking a language that is
no longer in vogue and suggesting recommendations based on ideological
stances that are no longer relevant.

ƒ As such, there is a serious dearth of creative thinking amongst CSOs and

there are few new ideas or strategies coming out of civil groups and their
relevance to development can be rightly questioned by the citizens of the
country and they will be found wanting..

ƒ Due to civil sector organizations being guilty of some of the same

aid/development crimes that they accuse other sectors, they have
compromised their right to question mainstream development. Therefore

5
 there is a critical need to clean up CSO processes, develop strong
management systems and work towards building up the credibility of the
CSOs.

ƒ Whatever changes there are in governments, whatever promises are given,

whatever policies are set in place, the process that has been established
for an exploitative “aid architecture” geared for the profit of rich countries
and rich businesses interests has not, and will not - change.

ƒ The existing aid architecture will never support a system that will empower
the people, ensure sustainability and regenerate the environment since
“aid” is an investment that is used to make a profit and when profit is the
motive, exploitation of human being and resources is a necessity

ƒ The example of the problems facing those who attempt to mainstream

effective response to the climate crisis highlights the daunting challenges
of overcoming resistive forces arrayed against policies and mechanisms
that ensure ownership of processes by the people of the country, their
needs, their ideas of sustainability and their overall wellbeing and future
security

ƒ Despite the existence of policies, the fact that the government is obtaining
funds from so-called “new emerging donors” has resulted in many of these
policies and safeguards being completely ignored to promote the agenda
of the government despite serious concerns for long term damage of such
action.

ƒ Priorities of action should not be based purely on ideal scenarios for

engagement but rather, reflect the current realities of Sri Lanka.

ƒ Exchange Credit Agencies are now contributing far more aid than the
traditional agencies and the argument the government uses is that it does
not have to be “nice” to these donors nor listen to lectures. However, there
are no safeguards or accountability mechanisms built into these loans and
they are completely opaque to the public eye.

ƒ With the abolishing of the Ministry of Plan Implementation, many of the

excellent monitoring systems that were in place within this ministry have
also disappeared.

ƒ There is currently too much focus on projects and no program based

approaches and these results in large transaction costs and lack of
cohesion and collective direction.

ƒ North-East development is not being done according to any plan and there
currently exists only a list of projects and the attendant secrecy has
resulted in funding for these projects not coming through.

ƒ Local authorities do not allocate funds for post implementation

maintenance of infrastructure and they are happy to live with problems
rather than find solutions for them.

6
ƒ Issues critical to Sri Lanka that seriously undermine the goal of meeting
development results are not captured by the 12 effectiveness indicators
that have come down to us from the PD and OECD. They are relatively easy
to measure but they are not what matters to Sri Lanka. They fail to trap aid
at the crucial point where it transforms into services for lifting people out
of poverty or to create social equity.

ƒ Civil society does not want to nor does it have the skills required to engage
the government at the policy level. They may work very well at the grass-
roots level with grama niladharis or rural development planning officers
but when it comes to influencing policy and working with the secretaries to
the ministries, they don’t know how to do that and they generally leave it
alone and this needs to change.

ƒ The PD is of no relevance to us anymore because it measures aid

effectiveness at the point at which it comes into the country but it doesn’t
help us measure development effectiveness. For this, the pacific countries
have gotten together and formulated principles of development
effectiveness. We need to sit with the government and develop a set of
indicators that measure what we think is meaningful.

ƒ Civil groups need to be very transparent in their accounting, engage the

government and gather political capital and be visible to people as being
institutions that are genuinely helpful to the country.

ƒ The aid architecture in Sri Lanka has changed over the years and most of
our aid is not coming in from OECD countries and there is no requirement
anymore for the government to be in line with the surveys and evaluation
criteria of OECD donors. However, the government does take cognizance of
the fact that these parameters are important.

7
The way forward
ƒ It was determined that subsequent meetings will be held to complete the
task of formulating citizen priorities for Seoul 2011. This has already been
tentatively planned for the month of November.

ƒ CSO effectiveness based on high levels of transparency and responsibility

became a key issue towards building strength to engage the government
under a relatively suppressive regime and a roadmap is already in place to
implement some of the recommendations.

ƒ Research is planned into effective development examples and other

research is being set up to determine who best to move forward in
engaging the government and other sectors towards achieving an effective
development paradigm.

ƒ A framework and tentative roadmap over 2011 is currently being prepared

The Sessions
Session 1 – Keynote address

Accra to Seoul – Realities and Challenges (Input presentation will outline key
outcomes of the Accra summit, strategic possibilities and work plan)
Ms. Ava Danlog, Country Outreach Officer for Asia Pacific, IBON/Reality of Aid

The talk was designed to

take the forum through
from aid effectiveness to
development effectiveness
and the history of this
evolution over a period of
time, why the forum was
convened and the
expectations and finally the
challenges and
opportunities. Additionally,
the role of CSOs in the
international aid system
was to be highlighted and the challenges that they face in engagement and
inclusiveness in this dialogue and process.

Official development assistance has been around for over 50 years with the WB
and IMF has been around for a long time and the first assistance was disbursed
through the US Marshall Plan in 1947 to help recover the ruined economies of
Europe. In 1996, the OECD (The Organization for Economic Corporation and
Development) summarized the aid models to that point as a success citing the
green revolution, decrease in diseases and improved infrastructure as factors that
supported this view. However, during the same period, official statistics clearly

8
showed that poverty and social inequity had jumped significantly with more than a
billion people having no access to safe water, sanitation and education. The
pertinent question therefore was: “Aid works, but for whom?” There were
arguments put forward by “experts” that poverty reduction was never a part of the
goal of aid and that its purposes have been mainly mercantile and political. It
continues to be an instrument of political influence and state graft. 40 years of
aid has been used mainly to contain communism and destroy the Soviet social
system. In a nutshell, aid has not achieved development results on the ground
and in many instances it has even increased and/or produced poverty. For
example, aid has been used to fund large scale energy projects in Africa and
Asian and they were established to serve their own business interests and not
those of the countries since they were not accompanies with meaningful
redistributive reforms such as land reform, social services etc. and only result in a
large debt burden for developing countries. Subsequent dialogue only led to
promoting neo-liberal reforms such as privatization etc.

Therefore, the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD (OECD-DAC)

established the working party on aid effectiveness to improve the management,
delivery and complimentarily of development corporation activities to ensure the
highest development impact. The Working Party on Aid Effectiveness (WP-EFF) is
the one organizes high level meetings at a global level to focus on the debate and
discourse on aid effectiveness. The first meeting for aid reform that was organized
by this working party was the one that was organized in Rome in 2003. CSOs were
critical of this because it focused on technical and procedural aspects instead of
conditionalities and tied aid. Additionally, there was no temporal commitment on
donors to commit a specific percentage of their income to aid. Therefore, the WP-
EFF organized a second meet in Paris but again the CSOs were critical of this
because it focused on management and delivery of aid and not the political,
social and economic issues that were the root causes of poverty. However, one
clear outcome of the Paris meet was the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness
(PD) which was signed by 141 countries, the EU and 27 donor organizations. The
declaration commits signatories to ensure aid effectiveness against the five
principles of ownership, harmonization, alignment, mutual accountability and
management for results. These principles are very technical, very procedural and
only focus on management and delivery of aid. The PD focused on country
ownership as the overarching key principles of aid effectiveness. However, CSOs
were critical on the grounds that the PD focused only on delivery not on alleviating
poverty or reducing social inequity and that it failed to address the core
development goals of human rights, social justice, equality and sustainability as
part of aid and development policy. The WP-EFF then organized what is so far the
biggest meeting on aid effectiveness in Accra, Ghana in 2008. One key outcome
of this meet was the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA). This builds on the PD but ads
key commitments. One major achievement of the AAA was the recognition of CSOs
as an independent development actor.

Despite the commitments of the AAA, the CSOs still argued that the AAA failed in
the overarching principle of ownership since it did not do away with policy
conditionality and tied aid which are major issues in Development Corporation.
However, for aid to achieve good results certain development goals need to be
achieved and the question is how development effectiveness is different from aid
effectiveness. Additional principles including empowerment, justice, sustainability,

9
independence, soverignty, accountability and responsibility are needed in order to
ensure development effectiveness. CSOs therefore, argue that development
corporation must support empowerment and inclusion of those that are the most
marginalized such as women, disabled, children, youth etc. Secondarily, justice is
needed to reduce the differentiation between the rich and the poor of a country
and the rich and poor countries. There should be adequate access of the
resources of a country to its people and allow them to claim ownership over their
productive resources and must support participatory governance mechanisms for
the people. Next, sustainability and Development Corporation must not support
ecologically damaging projects. Next, to ensure sovereignty, aid should be
delivered according to the needs and priorities of developing countries and not
the strategic interests of donors and it should respect the democratic rights of
people for participation and self determination. Against this backdrop of issues,
all eyes are focused on the high level forum to be held in Seoul in 2011 and how
the world proposes to address the plethora of issues that need to be rectified for
true development effectiveness.

CSOs will monitor the progress of signatories in terms of implementing the PD and
AAA, identify their strengths and weaknesses and come up with new global aid
architecture that governs the flow of aid from donors to recipients. What
opportunities do CSOs have to influence the outcomes of the Seoul Agenda and
ensure that the voices of the marginalized are put on the table? At the global
level, one main process we have is the working party on aid effectiveness which is
the principle forum on the aid and development discourse. The CSOs can engage
this working party through the better aid CSO platform which is a loose network of
over 700 CSO members of which the GMSL is part. The coordinating group
comprises of 21 CSOs. The chief coordinating individuals are members of the
working party on aid effectiveness. CSOs can also participate in other high level
forums such as south-south corporation and on the forums on the evolving aid
architecture in South Korea. CSOs also have a parallel dialogue on CSO
effectiveness. There is also the capacity development facility at the Managing For
Development Results (MFDR). At the country level, two important processes can
be considered. One is the PD evaluation phase II and effectiveness of
implementing the PD as a qualitative assessment. The other is the survey to
monitor the progress against quantitative indicators in the PD. The ROA program
working with 169 organizations for catalyzing broad implementation of the PD and
AAA is another channel for engagement through development capacity of CSOs for
engaging in aid and development effectiveness based on the context of their
countries and capacity of the particular CSO. Yet another is the shadow report
where 69 countries will be coming up with a monitoring report and presented at
the high level forum. Two monitoring tool kits have been developed for this
purpose. The last medium of engagement is a casebook where CSO engagement
in country level and aid and development effectiveness can be recorded.

CSOs do play an important role in development effectiveness as grass-roots

workers and those who can raise the voices of the poor and marginalized
communities despite being marginalized in mainstream effectiveness dialogue.
Some of these CSO actually do not have the capacity to engage the government,
lack access to information etc. Funding is always a challenge in such processes
as well.

10
There is no quick fix for development effectiveness and it entails political
corporation at the international level in democratic processes and participatory
governance. Towards this process, CSOs are legitimate spokespeople for
marginalized groups and must work together at national and regional levels
leading up to 2011 in order to participate as equal partners in development.

Session 2 – Post Accra A&D realities for civil society

Civil irresponsibility – The questionable road traveled by civil groups in aid

delivery and development
Suranjan Kodithuwakku, Convener, Public Campaign on Aid and Development
Effectiveness

The process has been in place for over

10 days now and the dialogue had, at
times, reached rather confusing
proportions. Already, people are angry
with me and will probably be even
angrier when I talk about the
shortcomings and weaknesses of CSOs.
However, we need to understand why we
do this. What is clear through three
dialogues over the last few days is that
over the last 2 ½ decades, we have been
fighting within a framework for ensuring
social equity for the peoples of the earth.
Development is viewed through this
window. The global exercise and the
regional realities on aid and
development effectiveness were
discussed earlier in the morning.

On one side we talk of effectiveness and on the other we are asking why we need
effectiveness at all and who or what should be effective against whose set of
rules and guidelines. This has led to confusion. In responding to the various
issues and crises that are there, there is one school of thought that tries to work
within a framework of engagement while others take the stance of rejecting
everything completely and starting alternative dialogues and action agendas
independent of so-called mainstream thinking. This has been one of the pet
responses of CSOs. However, we need to be deeply knowledgeable of all debates
and engage in them all if we are to formulate effective alternative strategies and
plans.

We can use the aid and effectiveness dialogue to step towards achieving social
equity as informed and aware individuals. Forums such as these can be either be
used to develop our own capacities to engage positively or just sit out such
gatherings and leave without much having been achieved. The reason why we
wanted this dialogue in Sri Lanka is because it has become critical that we talk
and act on this issue given the challenges we face. However, we need new
thinking and creative responses in order to be effective and our traditional
stances are either no longer valid or rapidly becoming outmoded and

11
marginalized across the spectrum of global thought and local perspective. In fact,
even the victories that CSOs have achieved were relevant only at those times
within those political and economic realities and are now, no longer as important
or significant due to the rapidly changing global and local political scenarios.
Currently, we are also facing suppression as CSOs with the defense ministry
overseeing the activities of our sector.

Therefore, we need to know clearly, where we stand, truthfully, against this

backdrop. With the authorities ready and able to latch on to the slightest
misdemeanor on the part of a CSO to censure it or even cease its existence, we
are at a point where we need to take a deep look at what we do, how we do it and
in what areas we have weaknesses.

Therefore, before we point fingers at others, we need to criticize ourselves. While

we were all at one point very clear about what we should and shouldn’t do in
terms of what we perceived to be sustainable and effective CSO intervention for
development and even INGOs working with us and assisting us with funds were in
agreement with high quality value systems, when the country faced large scale
crises, there was a tendency to throw all of these out of the window. This became
very apparent during the tsunamis when both local and international CSOs were
guilty of massive violation of some of the key principles of engagement for
effectiveness and those who stuck to their principles found themselves helpless
to stop this tide. It is well and good to criticize the government and others while
saying that we say we speak for civil groups, we say that we are stand for social
equity and that we are independent organizations. However, our organizations are
also in existence because of international donor organizations, we are at times
politically aligned, we pay only lip service to social equity and in some instances
even have been guilty of selling “poverty”, “marginalization”, “disaster” etc.
Additionally, we are also subject to the changing and shifting patterns and
agendas of donor agencies. We need to understand this reality.

Let us recognize that we are dependent and that we are also victims of the
dependency syndrome. In turn, those that we call beneficiaries are dependent on
us and we have a linkage of dependencies that overall affect the impact,
effectiveness and sustainability of all our efforts. Against this backdrop, we need
to determine how we can be independent and effective development actors.
We started clean, with clear ideas and good plans and values. However, over a
period of time, reality has dictated a shift in priorities that are not necessarily
altruistic. “I anger a lot of people when I say that I am a very good businessman
who knows and understands the aid market and works towards ensuring that my
organization is able to continue its work for the people by targeting specific funds.
While I have my dream world of equity, social responsibility and conservation, I am
realistic and truthful when I say that such concepts don’t always “sell” with donors
and I find funding towards my goals through other means for which donors do
provide funds. This is strictly not clean but I am truthful and sober when I state
this as a reality I confront every day. Despite this, I do not compromise my
principles and this is one area where many CSOs are lacking in insight and
direction”.

Currently, there are at least 4000 CSOs in Sri Lanka that are not currently of any
importance to civil society. If we continue to act as we have in the past, we will all

12
become progressively useless to civil society and the country. An personal
example is the Sethusamudram intervention of the GMSL. The movement, going
with the CSO strategies for this action at the time, we brought many civil groups
from threatened communities to Colombo to march to the Indian high commission
to hand over a petition against continuing the Sethusamudram. However, what
was laughable was that at least 50% of those who marched with us didn’t have a
clue about what we were marching despite our earnest assertions to the contrary.
However, when it comes to water privatization, we managed to educate the
people very well. This shows that we need to formulate very strong and bullet
proof strategies and not only talk the talk but walk it. Knowledge is crucial
amongst CSOs if they are to continue to be able to engage as effective
development actors. Despite the fact that we criticize multinationals, their
management styles for any project are of high quality regardless of their
exploitative worldview and the damage they cause people and it is important that
we take an example from these and use such techniques to increase our own
efficiencies and synergies. We must recognize the fact that CSOs have very little
management knowledge and work mostly off the seat of their pants and this has
led to cross inefficiencies, lack of sustainability of action and waste of resources
that goes against the very grain of what we say we stand for. We need to
understand that we must challenge ourselves to achieve these types of good
governance and things like the PD and AAA will become important to all of us.
However, lack of knowledge of what these means and what we need to do in
order to work within our reading of what these principles and agendas should
mean for the people is critical.

Despite Sri Lanka being a leading voice in the aid and development effectiveness
debate from 2005 onwards, the government is now rejecting the entire process
completely with all core individuals involved in these processes scattered and not
even engaged in the debate anymore. In fact, the government has called the PD a
joke. It has gone to the point that organizations such as the WB, JICA who have
worked within the PD are being rejected by the government with funding being
obtained by the authorities through so-called “new emerging donors” with no
safeguards. For example, there are no feasibility studies or EIAs for the Uma Oya
project or the Sampoor coal power plant.

On aid effectiveness, after 30 years, the areas of the North and East are now to
be developed. However, large organizations are engaged in a massive land grab.
We need to strengthen ourselves to work for the good of the people and work
towards ensuring that. However we need to expand our knowledge and worldview
in order to do this and stop talking the same shop that we talked for years on end.
We must also realize clearly that we are not the only ones making decisions and
we need to know who else is in the frame and what their strategies are. The world
doesn’t revolve around us but rather, we revolve around the world. We need clear
plans, clear and inviolable value systems, truthfulness, accountability and
responsibility to be able to work towards development effectiveness.

13
Changes in Sri Lankan aid architecture, human rights and their impact on jobs
and livelihoods
Mr. Sarath Fernando - Secretary – Movement for National Land and Agriculture
Reform

“Aid Architecture” refers to plans,

strategies, decision making
mechanisms and implementation
processes for obtaining and
delivering money. The facts to be
outlined may not all fall within the
frame of reference of that general
description of architecture but they
are significant nevertheless.

As stated earlier, “aid” is not aid,

but rather loans that carry interest
and burden the recipient with debt.
If there is a differentiation between
“aid” and “loans” it is based on the
amount of interest and the time set
to pay it back but without exception
all of these funds that are obtained
incur debt. When donors wish to make the recipient fall into a trap, there are even
instances where aid is given “free”. The “Community Water Supply and
Sanitation” project is one such, where 80% of the funds are given by the World
Bank and will be used to create so-called “infrastructure” in the form of storage
tanks and pipes to tap naturally occurring water supply systems and distribute it
to people. However, this system merely provides an infrastructure to meter the
water and charge for it and thereby deprive people of the right to free water and
further the concerted and aggressive effort of global players to privatize a
resource that is a fundamental right of the people. Therefore, one must be even
more wary of “free” funds than loaned funds because this is more dangerous. The
“Samurdhi” program is another, where it is stated that over 21 lakhs of people
live under extreme poverty but this is a false statistic. These people are given a
very small amount of money (sometimes only around Rs.500 a month) and in
order to continue to obtain this meager amount of money, the recipients are
forced to align themselves politically with the party providing the funds and
engage in canvassing, putting up posters and attending meetings of politicians.
This is not a process of providing aid but rather a process of creating political
slaves. In a nutshell, “aid”, therefore, is a terrible system that promotes even
greater exploitation and produces even more poverty amongst a majority of
people living in developing countries.

We need therefore to start by understanding how “aid” became an awful reality

across the poorer countries of the world. As we all know, after the Second World
War, those who had hitherto engaged in exploiting land and other resources by
force realized that they could no longer continue doing this and in order to
achieve their ultimate goal, started the institution known that subsequently
became the World Bank. This was done with the leadership of America. America
owns over 16% of shares in this institution and poorer countries with less money

14
to put into the bank have less than 1% and by its constitution, an American
should always head up the bank. Then we have the largest industrialized nations
called the G8. Then we have the OECD and these have the next 24 industrialized
nations. Therefore, we can clearly understand that the entire process of aid is in
the hands of the industrialized nations.

Therefore it is clear that what was earlier gross exploitation of resource rich
southern countries is still being carried forward by the same parties through the
establishment of governments, mechanisms of engagement and funds or “aid” to
carry out tasks on behalf of the richer nations, not for the good of the people of
these countries but for the profit of those who have been guilty of raping the
resources of those countries in the first place. We cannot therefore use this aid
for the benefit of the country.

At first the World Bank gave “aid” to projects when such projects fell in like with
their loan recovery and profit making agendas. This changed over a period of time
and went so far as to change the policy direction of entire countries to further the
goals of richer nations through the provision of “aid”. Subsequently, when fiscal
problems beset the richer nations that were providing the aid, they bank
increased the interest payable on loans that had been provided earlier. This was a
crazy system of giving loans and in many cases; this increase was beyond the
capacity of the recipient to pay. When countries such as Mexico stated they could
not pay it, the richer nations, knowing that they would be in trouble if the
recipients refused to pay, responded by “giving time” to them to pay it. ODA is
such a system where the loans are long term and was a result of the debt crisis
where not only were loans given but “advice” was given which needed to be
followed in order to obtain the so-called “aid”. Now, the project oriented system
was superseded by a system where the economy of a country was taken as a
whole and advice given how to plan it so that optimal profit could be gained by the
richer countries through such “economic reforms”. This was tantamount to unfair
and negative conditions being imposed on the loans but the donor merely called it
“advice”. The Macro-Economic Stabilization Program which was the outcome of
such manipulations was simply a measure of whether or not a country could reply
a loan with the interest – nothing else. Therefore, systems were suggested
regardless of the stability of the lives and livelihoods of the people and in many
cases such as Haiti for example, their entire agricultural livelihood was completely
destroyed purely for the sake of paying back loans. To some extent, this has also
happened in Sri Lanka. This mechanism was furthered by the so-called “structural
adjustments program” where the entire economy was turned on its head.

Since we talk about good governance, we must view the “structural adjustments
program” against this. Here, the basic issue is that the economy of a country must
necessarily change according to the advice of a donor or loans would not be
possible. In Sri Lanka, since 1977, the government of Sri Lanka voluntarily
subscribed to this. With the Paris Aid Group dictating the conditions that needed
to be adhered to, the upshot of this process was that the entire aid providing
block became united on a common agenda to engage in large scale exploitation
of the resources of the country. What must be made clear is that the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund were created precisely for this reason!

15
The result of taking this advice, we needed apparently to increase “growth” and
since the Sri Lanka marketplace was small, we needed to export. However, our
businessmen were unable to do this because they did not have financial strength,
technology or access to markets. Since overseas investors did have these three
“core factors” it was decided to get foreign investment into the country. In order to
do this, it was decided that political stability was ensured through changing the
constitution and the establishment of an executive presidency. These days there
is a debate to increase the duration of the executive presidency. The real issue is
not that but whether or not to even continue with the executive presidency and
that was the debate that has been around for years and is the more critical one.
While earlier, distribution of resources was in the hands of a parliament that could
be changed by the people, now, these same resources could be given to anyone
purely at the whim and fancy of the executive president. The Greater Colombo
Economic Commission and other such instruments were set in place to sell the
resources of the land with massive tax holidays and other incentives. This
subsequently expanded to the BOI whereby any area of the country could be an
area where foreign investors can grab and use resources that by right belonged to
the people. Many other such instruments have subsequently being set up to
increase private enterprise and even privatize government institutions and
organizations in energy, education and every other sector imaginable. It should be
also noted that despite the change of governments, those officials who were at
the back of bringing about this damaging environment for the people of Sri Lanka
during the Jayawardhane regime, continued to enjoy the same powers and
perpetrate the same sins since they were the favorites of the International
Financial Institutions.

Therefore, given the above, whatever changes there are in governments,

whatever promises are given, whatever policies are set in place, the process that
has been established for an exploitative “aid architecture” geared for the profit of
rich countries and rich businesses interests has not, and will not - change.

Currently, each man, woman and child is currently in debt to the tune of Rs.
175,000.00 and every years, our budgets have to be made taking this massive
debt into consideration and in order to reduce the budget deficit, the government
is forced to enter into dialogue with donors and they have to subscribe to further
conditions. Regardless of the government in power, everyone has been forced to
agree to water privatization and land ownership policy changes to allow small
groups to own large tracts of land. The result of these moves has been that the
youth of Sri Lanka, seeing the deprivation that they face have fought the
established on no less than three occasions with much bloodshed and
destruction and this anger can clearly be laid at the door of the existing “aid
architecture”.

Now we must attempt to change this. As was stated earlier, as CSOs we need to
know how to position ourselves. What we need to do is look at development
effectiveness and not aid effectiveness. In fact, we should change that word
“development effectiveness” to “survival effectiveness” and this is necessary
across the world because our entire world system and its ability to support life is
threatened. This is clear if the existing forecasts that 90% of the world’ population
will be hungry by the year 2050.

16
In order to do this, there are things that Sri Lankan citizens can do and should do.
Unlike many other countries, we have the opportunity to obtain food for free from
our environment. For this, we must reject input driven agriculture and revert back
to natural systems that will reduce or eliminate use of agro-chemicals that require
“aid” to procure. Every single citizen of the country should have knowledge of how
to live off the land and understand clearly that development is not the
“exploitation” of the resources of a country but rather, a regenerative process that
exists as a harmony of the human-environment interface. We need to teach our
children such values and bring back subjects such as “social studies” and launch
island wide programs that will work within such holistic principles of engaging
with, regenerating, and living off nature. If we look at this sort of future plan
against the backdrop of aid, we must clearly understand this: “The existing aid
architecture will never support a system that will empower the people, ensure
sustainability and regenerate the environment since “aid” is an investment that is
used to make a profit and when profit is the motive, exploitation of human being
and resources is a necessity”.

Therefore, we need to understand that in order to create processes that are

socially and economically equitable, we need to obtain these funds not as “aid”
but as “compensation” for the destruction and damage that has been caused
over centuries to our ability to live contented lives.

What we must know is that we should not attempt to capture political power in
order to do this because if we become politically powerful we will be required or
forced to subscribe to the same servitude that successive governments have
succumbed to. Civil groups should position themselves at the point where they
are able to dictate to any government that is in power how they should run a
country for the benefit of the people if true democracy is to be practiced. Towards
this, CSOs should unite and work closely with all citizens of the country to create a
groundswell and create a people’s movement for ensuring that development
effectiveness goals or rather, the survival effectiveness goals of the country and,
by extension, the planet – are met.

Realities of mainstreaming climate change into the national A&D agenda

Mr. Nayana Mawilmada (Strategic Planning Specialist, Climate Change)

The topic did come up a

couple of times in the
previous discussions.
Climate change is a reality
and there is pretty strong
international consensus
that it will contribute
significantly to the way
human beings live. In this
context, Sri Lanka
contributes very little to the
problem and is negligible.
Our per capita emission
rates are roughly about
1/20th of the equivalent of

17
an American citizen and 1/3rd of that of an Indian citizen and therefore our
contribution is miniscule. On the other hand, we face huge problems because of
climate change and the threats to our country are quite dramatic with more
intense and more frequent floods, droughts, erosion etc. and these impacts are
becoming dramatically less “ignorable” than they have been in the past. This is
true despite the fact that it has not been our fault and these threats are going to
get much worse in the very near future.

Mahathma Gandhi said that “the future depends on what we do in the present”
and in the Sri Lankan context, how well we respond to the threat of climate
change will determine how well we are able to face the future and “survive” as
was mentioned earlier.

If we take a step back and look at Sri Lanka, we must understand that we are at a
pivotal point in our history. We are seeing an unprecedented scale of investment.
It’s a scale that is mind boggling but a greater percentage of the country seems to
want this. If you look at the government development plans of the ministry of
finance, there is 600 billion rupees in human resettlement planned over the next
10 years, about 160 billion on urban development projects, about 160 billion on
roads and railways, over 120 billion on irrigation and drinking water, targets for
2.5 million tourists and 35,000 hotel rooms etc. The list goes on and on. Without
going into where this money is coming from, this is the path that we as a nation
seem to be determined to pursue.

What is worrying is that right now, we do not factor in climate change into the
national development planning process. This in a way is an opportunity because if
we insert it into the planning process we can build greater resilience into
development initiatives. However, if we do not, we will end up with a huge
problem of attempting to fix things post-action which will be far more difficult.

A couple of key findings on the scale of the problem based on the preliminary
findings of ongoing research are that 872,000 people live in areas that are
vulnerable to drought historically with 219,000 housing units and 75% of them
are dependent on ground water for their survival. Over a million people live in
areas historically vulnerable to floods and 25% of these households are
temporary structures. If you take areas like Kalpitiya which is highly vulnerable to
sea level rise, the majority of houses are temporary. 85% of the houses in these
areas are dependent on ground water which is in turn threatened by saline
intrusion. Across the board therefore, it is the people who are already highly
vulnerable that will face the brunt of the effects of climate change. Additionally,
vector borne deceases are increasing in incidence to a level that we have never
seen before and this also can be directly linked to global warming and climate
instability. These are also linked to settlements that we are rapidly developing.

Take food security for example. A study in 2009 by the Medical Institute states
that 20% of the households of Sri Lanka are food insecure. 22% of those under 5
years are underweight, 19% are stunted, and there are major disparities with the
North and East data indicating that the situations in those areas are
comparatively much worse than the rest of the country. With over 350,000
hectares of land in areas susceptible to drought of which 51% is for growing
paddy, climate change will necessarily have a major negative impact on the yield

18
of that critical food resource and around 51,000 agricultural livelihoods/jobs in
these areas will be threatened. Additionally, there are about 151,000 hectares of
paddy lands within 5km of the coast that are vulnerable to sea level rise although
a saving grace is that there is only about 6000 hectares lie below the 2 meter
contour line of the coast.

Looking at natural resources, the amount of data and solid research on eco-
systems in Sri Lanka is very limited and mostly speculative and we really don’t
know much about these issues. The international consensus is that the
adaptability of eco-system services will be increased if their in-situ resilience is
increased and right now from a Sri Lankan perspective, our eco-systems are
threatened already and their ability to provide services will be greatly reduced
under climate change threats with reduction in gene-pools compounding the
problem in a vicious cycle. Further, with most of these eco-systems being
fragmented in Sri Lanka, even greater pressure is put on their ability to survive.

If we look at the key economic indicators of the country, 50% of the hotel rooms in
the country are in just 11 DS divisions on the coast and deemed highly vulnerable
to sea level rise. 30% are in DS divisions that are highly vulnerable to floods.

If we look at the roads sector, about 400 km of the main roads (A and B roads)
are within 500 meters of the coast and 90 are below the 2 meter contour line.

These statistics all indicate the scale of the problem if climate change becomes a
greater threat than it already is. In all likelihood this will in fact, become a reality
very soon.

Taking a step back from the individual sectors and thrusts, climate change is not
considered as of now not considered in national planning by and large and most
of the climate action that exists is ad-hoc and there is no united front from which
impact driven efforts can be initiated. Overall, there is a not of fatigue and
confusion as a result of this with respect to what is happening and how important
it is to Sri Lanka and the citizens of the country. Currently, there is no clear source
of valid and authoritative information that any citizen can easily tap into and quite
apart from the fact that this results in an under informed or misinformed general
public, many opportunities to access funding to respond to climate change are
being missed.

The key challenges, building on what was discussed this morning are based on
the fact we have been the victims of a larger global agenda and we must agree
with this because the focus on climate change in Sri Lanka so far has been on
mitigation such as reducing green house gases but we are a negligible player in
this space and we spend much resources and money engaging in discussions on
this when the real focus should be in protecting the people and the country’s
resources from the potential impacts of climate change. Therefore, adapting to
climate change should be our area of focus. However, to participate in the
process at the international level we must play the game of mitigation and most
times we get lost in those agendas. What we should therefore be doing is pushing
our own agenda for adaptation much more

19
There is currently a significant lack of awareness of the impacts of climate change
on national development strategies. There is very little information on what is
important and most people think, “Yes we need to reduce emissions”. Yes, that is
correct but, we face much bigger threats that we must prepare to deal with at the
community level.

The fatigue and confusion is clearly apparent in the fact that most individuals who
engage in this debate see an endless merry-go-round with no practical or
practicable plans coming out of them. This can be called “analysis paralysis” or as
a colleague stated “NATO – No Action, Talk Only”. We certainly talk a lot about
climate change but we really do need to move quickly to a much more action
oriented footing.

And of course, we are only scratching the surface of tapping the massive
resources of our rural communities and the strength and purpose that they can
bring to adapting to climate threats at the national level.

The ground realities that we face are not pleasant in trying to get climate change
on the radar of the national development planning agenda. To put it simply, it is
really really tough. There is a lot of confusion again with people asking if this is
real and if we are really under threat or of this is just another bunch of “donor-
speak” or fad. As a result, there is not a lot of buy in as we probably should have
for a crisis as critical as climate change. In terms of the larger problem, it is about
how this will affect us as a people and how it will affect our survival as a nation.
There is very limited public discussion or debate on this. Granted, there is quite a
lot of dialogue on emission reduction etc. but almost nothing on how we can
adapt to the increasingly significant and increasingly apparent threats.

Given all that happens in the volatile social, political and economic environment
of Sri Lanka, climate change tends to get drowned out by more pressing issues. A
recent survey of public perception ranked environment and climate change
around number 7 or 8 on the list of priorities among the general population.
Therefore, it seems that people have more problems about how to feed
themselves for example and tend to push issues that may affect their
grandchildren on to the back burner.

Another big issue is “who owns climate change”. Everyone wants to own it mostly
because there is money in it. There is therefore a lot of duplication and stake
holder confusion similar to other sectors as well and most of us are not really
aware of what others are doing because there is neither a coordination of effort
nor a hub of information that can be used by all. What we need is a united effort
to respond effectively to a problem as large as this. Otherwise, we will face, as we
have done in the past very big problems in effectiveness, sustainability and
optimization of effort.

There is also a great lack of resources and we need a fair bit of resources to
ensure that our people are able to built resilience and these resources include
money, technology and expertise. While we do have many resources, most of
them are not mobilized in areas in which they need to be to help us all survive.
Adaptation resources that have already been allocated are negligible and can be
written off to all intents and purposes.

20
The question of who should provide these resources: should it be the treasury, the
people, donors, compensation funds etc. is in the air, but we need to have a
debate and reach consensus on who can (and should) provide some or all of the
resources that we need. There is a whole other debate on who can and should
use these resources and ensure the achievement of goals and targets. Is it civil
society? Government? The Private sector? These questions also need to be
answered and this dialogue is as complex and knotty as the one that preceded it.
A third question is who should be “big-brother” and who should monitor action
and results and report this to the general public. Again, we only have questions
and setting aside answers, processes that can yield answers are also still not
properly addressed. Lack of information as earlier stated, is a huge problem. Even
amongst government divisions this is an issue and there is right now no effective
means to collate and disburse information on climate change action, research
and other sector/thrust related interventions. Currently, in is a haphazard system
and anyone diving into this space can easily spend months trying to determine
who has what report and/or information and how important it is to the overall
picture. Therefore a central source is sorely needed and some people are working
on this right now.

Now, if we do get the resources etc. can we absorb these resources effectively?
We come back to the aid effectiveness issue again and the great debate that is
ongoing about aid, development, survival relevance of resource optimization.
Basically, it is just another pot of money with a different label but essentially with
the same issues tied to it. The biggest challenge is how do we keep climate
change out of its own silo where it doesn’t mix with anything else or any other
process or plan without turf battles erupting across the spectrum of the
development effort. We need to ensure that the effort is spread out and truly
integrated into the county’s governance.

Another key issue is how to reach the range of people who need to be mobilized
from the very top to the very bottom who are affected by this and this is a huge
number of people and their responses are crucial. All politicians are needed on
board and these people need to understand that their development plans are all
under threat and these threats need to be addressed as part of the planning
process. As an example of how far behind we are in terms of up to date
information, urban planning and drainage systems is based on rainfall intensity
curves and these have last been updated in 1984 and we are essentially building
on 1984 data. With such outdated information still in use, there is an implied
conclusion that even such globally accepted issues such as climate change are
being marginalized. However, we need to be tactful in getting such issues into the
national agenda and make responses as inclusive and broad based as we
possibly can. Towards this, we must all do our little bit and ensure that the future
is secured for Sri Lanka.

The presentation was closed with another quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “What we
do is insignificant, but it is very very important that we do it”.

Moderator: Like with every other development action, effectiveness of our

response to climate change and the assistance that we get to do this needs to be
based on the ownership of this process by the people of the country, their needs,

21
their ideas of sustainability and their overall wellbeing and security well into the
future and this is as daunting a challenge as the issues that have been discussed
earlier and highlights the resistive forces that are arrayed against such holistic
action.

22
Sessions 3 and 4 – Effective aid mechanisms - Formulating and consolidating
citizen priorities

The forum split into

two groups of civil
organizations and
one group of INGOs
and others who work
with civil groups and
donor agencies.
Citizen priorities were
discussed at length
and there were many
areas that needed to
be worked on further
in order to formulate
a firm and collective
set of priorities
leading to the 4 HLF. The forum collectively decided that the dialogue was not
th

complete and further work needs to be done at a later date to complete it.
However, existing CSO issues as well as issues related to inclusiveness and
ownership were discussed and consensus reached.

CSO issues and priorities

Public Campaign for Aid and Development Effectiveness (PCADE)

CSO issues:

1. Challenges that civil groups face:

a. Internal Issues
i. Structured dependency
ii. Continuance planning
iii. Aid market economics
b. External Issues
i. Negative attitude of all other sectors to CSOs
ii. Rapid decrease in inclusiveness in national aid and
development agendas
2. Outcomes of the problem
a. Non-sustainability of effort
b. Increase in “margins” for self-sustenance
c. A reduced ability to engage and integrate action with external
sectors such as governments, businesses, media, academia etc.
d. A reduced ability to productively sustain CSO networks
e. Politics taking precedence over statesmanship
f. Chaos taking precedence over governance
3. Ways to resolution
a. Return to the root causes for the existence and success of CSOs
b. Identify and make genuine efforts to clean up the mess that “aid”
has created

23
 c. Establish some of the core principles of Aid and Development
Effectiveness
4. by..
a. Establishing a standard against which the quality and capacity of a
given CSO can be measured
b. Ensuring equality across race, gender, religious, caste gender and
ability differences
c. Working within community owned needs and aspirations
understanding that they are the primary owners of our efforts
d. Be truthful, accountable and transparent to our target beneficiaries
and to donors
e. Being committed to service to the nation, work to collectivize efforts
and remove all requirements for self-worth and self-esteem
f. Ensuring social fairness, be exemplary in conduct and be sensitive
to others
g. Establishing and working within a vetting framework for donor
agencies

Issues in inclusiveness:

1. Policy in place to severely curb the mobility and independence of CSOs

2. Mostly ignoring inclusiveness principles of international agreements such
as the PD
3. Lack of access to critical information
4. Resistance /reluctance on the part of a large number of delivery CSOs to
participate in policy debates due to lack of understanding of importance
5. Resistance /reluctance /unwillingness on the part of many CSOs in
engaging in any exercise where there is no financial support/reward

The issue of ownership:

1. The right to formulate development strategies should be in the hands of

the people through a process of consultation and recognition of people
priorities
2. Indigenous techniques and indigenous knowledge should take precedence
in the formulation of such plans
3. External resources should only be used to enhance and strengthen citizen
established development strategies
4. There should be civil involvement from planning through implementation to
completion of any development activity
5. The rights, culture and dignity of all groups and communities should be
upheld as a non-negotiable fundamental in the formation of any
development paradigm, plan or implementation strategy

24
Recommendations to CSOs
Personal points of view from individuals with an experience of working for donor
agencies

1. Impact of development projects is key. Focus should be on impact not on

amount of funds received.

2. In order to ensure positive change, continuous constructive engagement is

essential. Whether funding is received or not, remember to remain
engaged with the donor, community and government. CS has the
opportunity to play a more constructive role with the state than donors,
especially in the current context. If CS remains engaged with government,
they have the possibility to influence the way things are done, because the
government is more open to local civil society groups.

3. Present clear community priorities is essential to show that the CSOs are
prioritizing community needs

4. Adequate knowledge is necessary at a CSO and community level. CSOs

may have a more clear and important role to play than the community
realizes. This is often also misunderstood by the community.

5. CSOs should be a watchdog of all aid work that goes on. They should keep
an eye on other organizations’ engagement also. Formulate some kind of
standard to grade CSOs which is created and maintained by the CSOs.

6. From the CS side, make sure work is culturally and socially sensitive. Often
the true needs of the communities are not really respected because CSOs
focus on donor priorities.

7. It is crucial that civil society makes a concerted effort to cooperate and

coordinate. This is difficult because there is no umbrella organization to
coordinate all groups.

8. Many CSOs are unknown and hidden, so donors are not aware of them.
Therefore publicity is very important.

9. The relationship between CSOs and smaller group should be more

inclusive.

10. Regular engagement with potential donors is important, even if the CSO is
not currently being funded by that donor.

11. CSOs must be more open. Some CSOs work only with members of their
group / sector. However, the most vulnerable and excluded groups are
often excluded from the CSO work. CSOs should be conscious of the fact
that if they want to work effectively, they should not work with a
homogenous group. Don’t focus on your members – look at who really
needs the support, and what support is needed.

25
 12. Campaign work should not be done with donor money – it should be done
as voluntary actions. If those who are participating in an action really
understand the cause they are more likely to engage and engage others.

13. Mechanisms or strategies should be employed which are conflict sensitive.

Using a conflict-preventative approach is essential because although the
conflict is over but strong and clear divides are still there.

Session 5 – Instruments of governance and their relevance to an integrated A&D

model

Ms. Ava Danlog ran through the outcomes of the preceding day for the benefit of
those who had not been there for the previous day’s sessions.

Aid Effectiveness
Ms. Mala Liyanage

It was two years ago that we

met in this very room toe
prepare for Accra. Then, we
worked with the Ministry of
Plan Implementation. Now,
that Ministry no longer
exists and I am heading up
a civil society organization
very much like you.

Just before the Ministry of

Plan Implementation was
abolished in April this year, I
was engaged in a survey of
how effective aid was in order to advice the ministry on how we can improve
effectiveness. There were plans then to prepare a project on how best to utilize
aid once if flowed into national systems. Information for this study was obtained
from the Ministry of Finance and Planning and all bi-lateral donors but before the
survey was published, the Ministry ceased to exist and the study report is still with
me so you will be the first group of people who will hear what I have discovered as
part of that study.

ODA funded projects account for over 80% of development and the contribution of
aid to development results cannot be underestimated. In Sri Lanka, the project is
a primary vehicle for transforming ODA into development outcomes. The Ministry
of Plan Implementation used to monitor the utilization of all resources (both
national and ODA) by conducting periodic reviews of high value projects. So, they
had an electronic system which the project managers will fill in and report on the
status of ongoing development activities. Whenever a project was stuck, all the
stakeholders involved in the project such as the government ministriesm donors,
project management etc. would be invited to the ministry and asked what was
going on and this became a very effective way of solving problems. Much of the
study was influenced by what was learned by sitting in on these review meetings

26
as well as information that came from the ministry of finance and planning and
the donors. Data obtained from the donors and supported by the department of
external resource both point to the fact that aid is, indeed, very effective when it
comes in to the government programs and it does meet the effectiveness criteria
to a large extent.

Still many questions remain on how aid contributes to what really matters which is
producing sustainable benefits for reducing poverty and creating social equity. Sri
Lanka officially became a middle income country in January 2010. Despite this,
pockets of poverty persist throughout the country’s 19 million people. Although
the original purpose of the survey was to find out how effective aid was, it became
clear that the question we needed to ask was “how effective is aid in contributing
to development results”. A related question is “is the PD and the 12 indicators
sufficient to measure how aid contributes to development effectiveness”. In order
to place these questions in context, we need some information and this is what
we will talk about and this relates to what type of aid we get and from where.

Aid commitments and disbursement recorded their highest levels in 2008. The
total foreign aid commitment made by bilateral donors, multilateral donors and
export credit agencies was USD 2067 million. The previous highest level of
commitment of aid was after the tsunamis. Both aid commitments and
disbursements improved in 2008. The figures indicate a 23.5% rise in aid
commitments and 8.7% increase in disbursements compared to 2007. Now, here
one must pay attention to the fact that the greatest increase was in the form of
export credits. Commitments from ECA’s had increased by 48% while
disbursement of funds from them had increased by 90%. What this means is that
the huge rise in disbursements and commitments can be attributed to one
source, namely, export credit. Commitments from bilateral donors increased by
USD 209 million or 12% over 2007 while commitments from multilateral donors
increased by 5% or USD 77 million. The major, traditional development partners
of Japan, the World Bank and the ADB, together counted for USD 724 million or
35% of the total commitment made in 2008.

Export credit agencies are agencies in a creditor country that provides insurance
guarantees on loans provided for goods and services. They are private or quasi-
governmental institutions that act as intermediaries between national
governments and exporters. So basically, these are banks in the creditor country.
When a country such as ours has a development plan or proposal and we do not
have the money to implement it, we use to go to donors but now we approach
these ECAs or even before we approach them, they approach us and in some
cases they go with the “Mahinda Chinthana” and even write up the proposals. So,
what happens is that a bank in a given country provides loans at concessionary
rates to the Sri Lanka government to hire an institution/organization/private
enterprise/supplier/vendor of services or equipment in the country of that bank.
Although there is a debate on whether one can call this type of funds “aid” in the
strictest sense of the word, this is the type of funding that has increased in the
country by 50% to fund the government commitment to eliminate regional
disparities by improving infrastructure development and seeks to mix funds from
traditional donors to those obtained from ECAs and which funds they have sort to
actively mobilize. Now this is the growing trend within the government. The

27
argument is that one does not need to be “nice” to donors or adhere to their
conditions but assured funding can be obtained by these ECAs.

The country’s middle income and emerging market status has not only shaped the
way in which it mobilizes aid and influences relationships with development
partners but also dictated who they are. South-South Corporation has brought in
new partners who have provided generous funding on concessionary terms which
include 40 year repayment periods with only a 2% interest and a 15 year grace
period. The funds we obtain from China fall into this category. It is almost a grant
in the format it is provided. This is also aid without any conditions attached. It is
hassle free aid. It is “aid without the lectures”. While aid policies are not written
down, the direction is clear to anyone who cares to look at the key data emerging
from the Ministry of Finance and Planning. The south is a new direction for
building development partnerships. Public finance management reforms are
aimed at maximizing fiscal space for increasing investment in areas which are
lagging behind as against systems such as procurement for developing donor
confidence in government institutions and processes while pursuing export credit
for placing infrastructure development on the fast track.

The influence of ODA as an instrument of political leverage has eroded. There is

rapid growth in infrastructure driven mega projects financed by export credit
which bypasses the national procurement system. So, we have a very good
national procurement system that is harmonized with the multilateral system. It is
the same system that is used by the WB and the ADB so it’s very good but export
credit does not go through national procurement services.

So now we come to the central question. How effective is aid funded

development? Aid is very effective but how effective is aid funded development?
One of the first issues that I realized was that there was a proliferation of projects.
There are 687 development projects valued at over Rs. 50 million. A major portion
of these are donor funded and over 1000 projects valued at under 50 million that
are funded by the government of Sri Lanka. Every project in monitored by a
ministry that executes that particular project in addition to the projects over Rs.
50 million. Earlier, the ministry of Plan Implementation used to monitor projects
over Rs. 50 million and I hope that the Department of Foreign Aid and Budget
Monitoring which was absorbed into the Ministry of Finance and Planning
continues to still do so.

The project by project, donor by donor approach takes the place of a policy driven
engagement of donors and development partners. While there is no definite
directive favoring this approach at the policy level this practice has permeated the
engagement of the respective institutions that engage with donors and influenced
the manner in which development interventions are designed and the way donors
are approached. This increases the transaction costs for both parties.

Another factor that I noticed was the absence of program based approaches.
There are 678 projects and a lot of duplication because there are no programs.
There are elements of a sector based approach in the education and health
sectors and in the reconstruction of the north. However, sector result frameworks
taking shape which identifies key sector indicators and support linking sector
results to resources is another reason for development sector programs. Now

28
these sector indicators were developed by the Ministry of Plan Implementation
and each major sector had a set of indicators and the proposal was to have
resources linked to results. However, I don’t know what the situation is now (since
April). It was an excellent program and I personally would feel sorry to see that it is
no longer in existence.

There needs to be a comprehensive framework for northern reconstruction. Now,

this is very alarming. There is NO such comprehensive framework at the national
level. There are now plans that are not plans at all but rather, a listing of project
ideas which the Presidential Task Force created at the end of the war as a
possible two year plan for the region. However, the plans are not given out to
anybody. These are very secret plans that are left in drawers and not given out to
donors so naturally, hopes for funding have not been realized. In fact, these plans
have not even been given out to the government.

The core reason why mega development projects are not effective is weak project
design, bad planning and poor management. The project is the lead modality of
utilizing ODA. Improving project design and implementation as well as ensuring
that they contribute to development goals should be a priority. They often fail to
deliver sustainable benefits due to the three issues highlighted. The problem is
clearly seen when, at an informal survey in a roomful of project managers, there
was no one who had had any training in project management. So these project
managers that run our country’s development investments are not trained in
project management. This I felt is an important intervention if we could focus our
attention on this, we could see a huge improvement in the way projects are
managed. There are large cost overruns and losses linked to these failures.
Pressure from people affected by projects and a failure to nurture a positive
engagement with local leaders creates problems for project administrators which
they do not know how to solve and this holds back project implementation and it
ads to the cost.

Additionally, local authorities do not allocate funds for maintenance of

infrastructure and this is a huge problem. For example, community centers and
clinics that had been built with funds had not been used because they have not
been officially declared open by politicians. While every project had a steering
committee, there were tendencies within such committees to contain the
problems instead of solving them. These people seem to be more able to live with
a problem rather than solving it.

On the issue of indicators for monitoring aid effectiveness: none of the above
issues that seriously undermine the goal of meeting development results are not
captured by the 12 effectiveness indicators that have come down to us from the
PD and OECD. They are relatively easy to measure but they are not what matters
to Sri Lanka. They fail to trap aid at the crucial point where it transforms into
services for lifting people out of poverty or to create social equity.

So, what is the role of civil society in aid for development effectiveness? I see a
role in actively engaging in development planning done by the government. I think
I said these two years ago as well that civil society does not want to nor does it
have the skills required to engage the government at the policy level. They may
work very well at the grass-roots level with grama niladharis or rural development

29
planning officers but when it comes to influencing policy and working with the
secretaries to the ministries, they don’t know how to do that and they generally
leave it alone and I think that this needs to change.

Civil society needs to advocate for a program based approach to consolidate the
678 development projects. The fact that for each of these 678 projects there are
678 project administrations incurring a huge cost should be reason enough to
validate such a stance. The CSOs in the north and east should demand a planning
process is transparent and benefits the poor and the marginalized. I am very
afraid that through these mega projects, we are sowing the seeds for the next
conflict. We must ensure that these projects are planned and contractors hired
through a participatory process. The core question is: what are we doing to
mainstream the marginalized and poor of the north and east who bore the brunt
of the 30 year war? We need also to monitor the inflow of funds from export
credit and see where this money is going. Even though I don’t have the evidence, I
state that the costs of export credit are inflated by a factor of 10-12% and this
adds to the development debt of the country and the debt to GDP ratio is currently
at 85% and this is very serious. Civil society has a right to ask questions on where
these monies are coming from and what they are being used for and how. If the
right to information act is ratified in parliament, this can be invoked to demand
information from the government on why the citizens of the country are getting
into debt and the advantages there are for them in doing so.

Forum question 1: If the PD is not being thought of as a valid way of measuring

effectiveness from the perspective of the government, what is their stance on how
to measure it?

Answer: I agree with the government and with Mr. Jayasundera that the PD is of
no relevance to us anymore because it measures aid effectiveness at the point at
which it comes into the country but it doesn’t help us measure development
effectiveness. For this, the pacific countries have gotten together and formulated
principles of development effectiveness. We need to sit with the government and
develop a set of indicators that measure what we think is meaningful. Other
countries such as Vietnam are going in that direction and that we should do the
same. Aid is in fact very effective but what happens afterwards is what we really
need to know about.

Question 2: You state that CSOs should get involved in monitoring projects for
effectiveness but with CSOs under the ministry of defense, any probing questions
could very well result in those organizations being stopped from functioning at all.
Under such circumstances what do you think should be our strategy given the
backdrop of the concerns that civil organizations face?

Answer: This question concerns me a lot. The Law and Society Trust is an
organization that deals primarily with human rights and law so we are in the front
row of organizations that challenge the government. They way I see as a way out
of these problems are to establish very good accounting practices. You don’t fool
around with your finances. Whenever the government has tried to “get
somebody” they have succeeded by looking into their books. Therefore these
need to be straightened out as a matter of priority. You have to have very good
human resource practices. You don’t fire anyone without cause or do anything

30
under the table where people are concerned because they will go and complain to
the government and they can shut you down. Therefore, everything has to be very
transparent and very correct and very clean. You don’t get into money laundering
engagements. Your funding sources and the destination of your funding needs to
be excellently managed and fully transparent. Additionally, and most importantly,
you must have an engagement with the public. If by any chance the government
succeeded in pushing you down there will be hundreds of people getting up and
saying “no you cant do this because this organization has been around and been
doing such and such work over this period of time, they are good, and they
represent us”. Also, it doesn’t hurt for the head of an organization to try to create
some political capital, not necessarily with politicians but with senior public
officials in ministries and they will be able to vouch for you in the event of a witch
hunt or worse.

Question 3: From your presentation I conclude that it’s an aid delivery

mechanism where the process is missing. You also took an example from China
that the loan is almost tantamount to a grant due to the long payback period and
low interest. The main point here is the limitation of participation of CSOs.
Sometimes, CSOs are even politically divided. Concerning CSOs engagement in
policy, it seems as if it’s still in a dormant state for two reasons. One is that there
may be active CSOs who are unable to go in and speak on behalf of rights and the
other is political alignment with the government that prevents them from
questioning some of their policies. Since you have government and CSO
experience, do you have any comments on how to proceed further as a
consortium of CSOs when, as you say, infrastructure that is already built with
donor funds are still not functioning?

Answer: Frankly, I don’t know what the people in these communities are doing.
When a hospital or clinic or market is built for the people and these are useful
things, why are they remaining silent? What I say is find out. Get information.
Work with community groups at the ground level and build their capacity to
respond to such problems. Try to revive people’s organizations and agitate. What
institutions like the ADB say is that unless the building are opened right away, the
next installments will not be given because they have become increasingly more
responsible donors.
Question 4: A statement was made by you that mega projects can hold the seed
for the next conflict. What sort of conflict do you envisage?

Answer: According to information I get and press reports, according to the

Hansards etc, there is a massive land grab for mega projects. However, these
people who live in those areas have no idea whether these projects will increase
their wellbeing and economic wellbeing and they are living under great
disappointment and uncertainty and there is reasonable evidence to state that
this discontent could lead to a renewal of the conflict. Additionally contracts have
been given to supporters of politicians from the south of the country to
reconstruct the north. This is not a good thing but in the future it could be a
reason for another violent conflict.

Question 5: Disabled people have been lobbing for over twenty years for policies
to address their needs. Now, some policies are there but there is very little action
that is taken during the building of new infrastructure to take into consideration

31
the issues and problems that are being faced by disabled persons. Is there any
way we can sort this out that you know?

Answer: The social services ministry does have some funds for this as far as I am
aware but they are way behind in practical action even though the need is very big
and I am not able to tell you anything that is helpful at this point. Even though it
may seem as if the question may not be related to the discussion it, in fact, is. Sri
Lanka has legislature in place for dealing with the concerns of people with
reduced mobility and standards have been set up. People need to be aware of
this legislature and when building infrastructure people should be able to set up
facilities and even donors need to be aware of these things. Its not easy but if
tools available are used, then a start can be made towards addressing these
concerns.

Observation 1: Due to lack of information, and due to the recalcitrance on the part
of the government to query civil society when legislative processes are in place
such as EIA processes, civil groups find it increasingly difficult to either respond to
issues or have those responses taken seriously. Even when civil groups have
taken matters to courts as was the case with the Moragahakanda project, the
court process gets postponed day by day and project activities are moving on
regardless of these processes. It is therefore clear that even as a Colombo based
CSO with deeper penetration into the government, are space for engagement and
our space for inclusive process and engaging in due legislative processes result in
almost no practical results and this is a very disheartening scenario and a very
resistive environment in which our advocacy work has to take place.

Response 1: I understand and I agree completely with it but I do not have a

solution to this.

Observation 2: The issue is related to what extent the government is willing to

accept public participation in policy. How do we convince the government to
participate in their development projects? The challenge is to improve how grass
roots level communities; especially those negatively affected come together and
voice their concerns. We need to initiate a dialogue through a rights based
approach. How do we build relationships with the ECA for example? How do we
access them?

Response 2: To be fair to the government, the public officials that I have met have
no animosity towards the CSOs. However, they are afraid. Recently I was reading a
report from a person in the Wanni-Mullaitivu area about how they went to look at
some complaints about kidnappings and killings in resettled communities. This is
not a racially biased situation. There are gangs of criminals abducting people for
random. However, when it happens in the north it is much more serious because
these crimes are being perpetrated by Sinhala speaking people. They also do this
with the support of the military and police. Someone went to interview these
people was a planning officer attached to a divisional secretary’s office and was
very helpful but she was terrified that these people might put her into trouble.
They want to help but these officials are stuck in situations where they are
helpless as well. So do not think badly of them.

32
Bi-lateral and Multi-lateral aid – opportunities and pitfalls
Mr. Patrick Vandenbruen (Facilitator for development Consortium of donors),
Dr. Fredrick Abeyratne (Director – United Nations Development Fund)

Dr. Abeyratne shares some

of the experiences of the
UNDP in working with the
government on aid
effectiveness. This term
was a relatively new term
that came into vogue a few
years ago and OECD
should be credited for their
work on this matter and
came up with a list of
parameters. There have
been various surveys have
been put in place to
measure aid coming in against these parameters. However, the aid architecture in
Sri Lanka has changed over the years and most of our aid is not coming in from
OECD countries and there is no requirement anymore for the government to be in
line with the surveys and evaluation criteria of OECD donors.

However, the government does take cognizance of the fact that these parameters
are important. However results are mixed. On that tone the UNDP has been
engaged with the government in trying to make the aid coming into the country to
be more effective since 80-90% of our capital budgets are aid driven. So, on the
request of the government we supported their agenda for result based
management. So, the government has identified that it is not just building roads
hospitals, schools, etc. but rather what it does for the people of the countries. So,
the government has come up with a plan where every ministry must come up with
performance indicators. This is a start and even in countries such as America it
took over a decade to establish these things. For example, an indicator for the
Ministry of Agriculture might be the increase of paddy yield by 25% in the next
year.

The government even went as far as linking it to the budgetary process where, for
the first time in Sri Lanka, in 2010, when a ministry requests funds these
requests must be linked to the performance indicators. The same sort of
directions has been given to the provinces as well for devolved action in sectors
such as health. Although nothing is perfect and no one is stating that aid is 100%
effectively used, the government has made a start and these needs to be
nurtured. The government is also working with some of the parameters of the PD.
For example, alignment is an area where the government is working. Any aid that
comes into the country should be aligned with the national development agenda.
Whether it is right or wrong, we do have the Mahinda Chinthana as a
development agenda and at least in theoretical terms we have a mechanism
against which we can align aid.

However, on ownership, it is not very clear where aid coming into the country is
using systems established by the government such as methods of procurement,

33
systems of recruitment etc. However, one cannot say that development aid is
going through these systems. Most donors state that these systems are too
cumbersome. Here there are areas when donors and the government must
engage in dialogue to iron out issues.

Harmonization is where aid coming into the country is optimally utilized with no
waste etc. but there is absolutely no such system in place currently. Donors each
have their own agenda because they have commitments to their own
governments and other issues. Much more work is required in this area.

Mutual accountability again does not take place if it is not tied to development
results. So the MFDR process that the UNDP is supporting the government is also
trying to ensure that mutual accountability takes place over time.

Mr. Patrick Vandenbruen stated

that he had very short notice and
this also highlighted the way in
which we have to work these days
with very little time given to come
up with our ideas or confer with
colleagues.

According the Ministry of Finance

and Planning, External Resources
department, foreign financing for
the year 2009 amounted to about
USD 1.6 billion. This included
about 1.3 billion worth of loans and over 324 million dollars worth of grants. In Sri
Lanka we have about 15 bilateral donor countries and the biggest in 2009 was
still Japan in terms of disbursement. One must be clear about pledging and actual
disbursement. Japan disbursed USD 311 million and China followed with about
USD 297 million. Both these countries were similar in 2009 but Japan provided
more of their funds as grants. The next was the Netherlands with USD 85 million
and then the United Kingdom with USD 74 million.

Amongst the multilaterals, the ADB was the biggest last year with USD 284 million
and the WB USD 202 million dollars and the UN family with USD 110 million. The
central reports state that foreign aid accounted for 20% of government spending
in the year 2009. Additionally, foreign aid accounted for 36% of government debt.
Now, in 2010, it is possible that China becomes the biggest provider of aid to Sri
Lanka. However, we must see what India will provide. In last year India committed
USD 100 million and 50,000 houses to the north. This year, they committed to
provide concessionary lines of credit for USD 1 billion for northern railway
infrastructure and a coal power plant in Sampur. Iran also is coming into the
picture and they have already committed USD 450 million in aid but we must see
if this will be delivered.

A few weeks ago, at a meeting, Dr. Amunugama, the deputy Minister of Finance
was telling a large group of government officials and donors from the region that
aid architecture in Sri Lanka is changing. Every single dollar he said, that Sri

34
Lanka obtains, must be for infrastructure and not for conception. He said that Sri
Lanka was no longer dependent on the World Bank or the EU or USAID. He also
said, interestingly and perhaps provocatively, that all assistance from the World
Bank is not “peanuts” compared to what the government is getting from India and
China.

Now, I must speak about some opportunities and challenges in terms of the PD
but looking at Sri Lanka. The so-called recipient country is supposed to have a
development framework and the development partners should align with this
agenda. The message from the government is very clear: “We lead, you support”.
These were the very words used at the last development meeting in Galle in
2007.

Now, this is in line with the declaration of effectiveness when you look at
ownership and alignment but now, one of the challenges is on the definition of
that word ownership. As civil groups, the forum might believe that ownership is
that the people of Sri Lanka and civil society must own and maybe government
officials might think that the national authority should own because they have
been democratically elected by the people of this country. Now one of the
challenges to donors is see where ownership should be. What about the sub-
national level? How far ownership should be at the central level and how far
should it be devolved to sub-national levels. At each level, donors hear different
ideas of requirements etc. and this is a challenge for us. For example, Dr.
Amunugama was very clear when he said “we want hardware. We don’t want
software”. Most certainly, if we work within the framework of the PD, we must
listen to the government authorities. At the same time, based on our international
experience and from civil groups, we strive to have a people centric approach. So
is there a way to reconcile this amongst all stakeholders.

In terms of alignment, Dr. Abeyratne was very open about this. Let us be realistic
that when donors come and give money to Sri Lanka even if they like the PD and
alignment with the Mahinda Chinthana, in reality, how far can it be done?
Speaking to the head of USAID, she said “look, I am not the one making the
decisions. This is decided by congress back in the US. Do you really think that I
can sit here and modify that position to fit the requirements of Sri Lanka?” This is
not a challenge but a serious problem and even perhaps for the UN agencies, this
is a very real issue. How far should they shelve their agendas, values, and ways of
engagement etc. for a while in order to fit into the structures and mechanism of
the recipient nation’s development policy and plans? These are the realities of
working as a donor and make aid effectiveness a reality.

Now the PD has a very unfortunate name. I was not involved in it but if I was, I
would never have called it the “Paris Declaration”. It straightaway gives a
“western” sort of flavor. Therefore please do not use that phrase. Use something
that is more relevant to Sri Lanka when engaging in this debate for effectiveness.
With development effectiveness taking precedence of aid effectiveness, it is up to
the forum to come up with an alternative name and process based on results. I
know that within the government there are many who think this PD is a western
led thing with western concepts and that is a pity because the principles are
basically very good and they are universal and very dear to people espousing good
governance such as those in the forum.

35
Following up on what Dr. Amunugama said, the government likes to engage
bilaterally. Currently, it does not bring people from different countries together
and allocate areas where each can work. How it works now, and I am not making
a judgment on this, the Ministry will call the USAID, ADB or some other agency and
speak bilaterally. Maybe we were at fault for making things too difficult for the
government when we were in the same room. Maybe when we have a large group
of donors and these are not coordinated properly, it makes things very difficult for
the government. What is clear is that the government finds it much easier to come
to agreements with individual donors. We don’t have a set of common set of
principles, standards and values in terms of aid. This is a challenge and an issue
if we want to promote the idea of aid effectiveness.

Speaking of the war, the end of the war is a huge opportunity. A reason article in
Business Today, Dr. P.B. Jayasundera states that the export sector, tourism are
both recovering and inflation is kept modest and this is all good news. What are
the challenges for donors and development partners? He said that a number of
donors saw the government involved in a war with the LTTE and saw them as
parties to the conflict. Sri Lanka’s government does not subscribe to this stance
and state “we are the government of Sri Lanka dealing with a terrorist problem
and that is it”. However, for many international organizations, because they strive
to be neutral and impartial, they always talked about “parties to the conflict”.
Now, one of the issues that I see is that some of these organizations still view the
government in the same light and it is very difficult for some of them to change
this mindset despite peace times even if all issues are not completely neutralized
and the government has a responsibility to look after its citizens and if we want to
engage in aid, well, we must engage with the government. Otherwise, we have no
business here. Some of you might question how the government was elected and
so on and so forth, but I will not go into that. As far as we are concerned it is duly
elected and we must engage with them.

However, there were many human rights issues in the war and a lot of countries
are still looking at these issues and from their perspective these issues are not
sorted out. These are very challenging issues for donors. It takes time to heal and
transform our mindsets but certainly this is an issue. In this article of Dr. P.B.
Jayasundera, he says, now that we have won the war, we have an economic war.
This is interesting. Now, is the government taking an equally strong stance on
economic war and it is clear that this is indeed so.

On the predictability of aid, this is a key issue that was identified in Accra. In Sri
Lanka, with the war, this is even less certain. Many bi-lateral donors are looking at
devolution of power; media freedom, human rights etc. and they are therefore
opening the aid tap slowly because of these issues. Therefore it is difficult to
predict aid.

People centered development is considered important by donors and this needs

consultation processes at lower levels not at national levels and this is a key
challenge. The level of how far donors can engage at sub-national level is difficult.
Donors are in a bit of a limbo with respect to this so it is difficult for us to commit
to working with people. However, we can only go back to the GA which is the
lowest devolved level of the central government and the government is not

36
encouraging us much to engage with civil groups at the sub-national level. We
must find ways to reach out and be open and civil groups should also take an
initiative to engage with the donors and ask them about any concerns you have.

I will conclude with something that could be construed as being a bit controversial
and provocative. Two years ago I was in this very room and Dr. Amunugama was
here and he complained about two much consultation. He said, listen you people,
we had such a lot of delays. The government knew what as good for the country.
Electricity is so expensive. Everyone is complaining. But civil society and church
organizations complained so much that we lost two years on Norachcholai. What
about the Matara highway? What about the problem of access and regional
disparity? Uva and Sabaragamuwa are far behind the western province so we
want to build highways but you people are stopping it all and there was a couple
that managed to delay a project by at least two years. Do you want development?
Or, do you want democracy? One gentleman stood up and said “Sir, we want
democratic development”! That was a beautiful answer. I was asked to speak
about opportunities and challenges and this is a key challenge.

In conclusion what we need is continued engagement. Perhaps the room for

maneuvering and space for creative engagement might be limited in your view but
civil society has an important role to play in this whole debate. For donors, we
need to listen to you and have humility. I don’t think we should lecture Sri Lanka
but rather, should help empower, be modest and provide assistance and work
together as donors to bring added value and work collaboratively. So, I hope that
in this way we work towards development effectiveness not necessarily
effectiveness according to the PD.

Integrating multi-stakeholder agendas towards a common development

paradigm
Mr. Jeevan Thiagarajah (Director – Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies)

A few brief words on the

common development
paradigm. Looking at the PD
and the OECD-DAC guidelines
there are some very important
guidelines and that is that a
country must determine its
own development agenda. To
fast forward, what I found out
after the tsumanis amongst
those who were affected was
that they may have been cash
poor but skills rich. This is true
across the board unless of course, we make people feel poor and this is
something that many people try to do in many ways. Another point is that
language keeps us apart even in Sri Lanka. Many people here may feel that we
are English speaking and that we don’t relate to Sinhala or Tamil speakers issues
and that is also a divide. There is additionally a traditional difference in the way in
which governments look at us and how we look at governments. However, things
are changing; things are improving but more needs to be done and some of us

37
who can provide the requisites for sorting things out should continue to play that
role. I know that many CBOs and NGOs feel that there is a very large distance
between Colombo and themselves and between them and those who make
decisions in Colombo that is an additional gap and which we need to work on to
compliment what you are doing.

The topic was “a common development paradigm”. There are many issues. To me,
the environment is critical and without it life cannot be sustained. We are now
searching for water on the moon these days but what we should do is switch it
around and ask how we can sustain life if there is no water (for example). We
need to work on environment, work on dignity and work on empowerment of those
who have made decisions to develop. These are all issues that come under
challenges.

One of the things we always fight for is funds and access to resources. As
mentioned by previous speakers there is a shift in the aid architecture with some
saying that we are a middle income country etc. However, the future for the non-
profit sector is in social investments and social enterprises.

If you look at fund raising, Warren Buffet is one of the richest in the world and he
has got about 40 of the richest in the world to come together with cash for his
fund. One of the interesting things he has done in the USA is to have an Initial
Public Offering (IPO) for charitable purposes. By using the same model, given the
fact that Colombo’s population is about 2.2 million (by night about 1.5 million), if
say 750,000 of us lend Rs. 1000.00 at 1% interest, the resultant number is quite
significant. That amount is enough for all the NGOs to work in this country and we
really don’t need any more money from anyone else. We can do this in this
country and we do not need any aid to do this. This example shows that we must
look differently and more creatively at how we can use resources. This is the point
I made about social investments and social enterprises. It should be remembered
that 750,000 is a very small part of a 22 million population. With Rs. 75 million, I
am sure that you can raise Rs. 1.5 billion rupees from the banks if you want
against this security. There are many many such opportunities and possibilities. I
think that is the kind of agenda that I would like to work on. We may be cash poor
but we are resource rich and we can leverage these for our own benefit. So let us
open are eyes to these options and how we can support each other in a serious
way.

Question 1 (series of questions): Whether the Mahinda chintana was accepted by

the people and what mechanisms are there within it for people to comment and
monitor progress on the development plan, is it possible to actually monitor
progress of projects through the MFDR system, how one can reconcile the conflict
of what the PD dictates and the problems of donors who have their agendas set
already by home countries that may be in contravention with alignment with
recipient agendas, what mechanisms are in place within the PD for monitoring the
donors themselves.

Answer: (Fedrick Abeyratne) On the Mahinda Chintana, the government might say
the people gave a vote on the program when they elected the present government
into power and that it will be reviewed once every five years when it is taken back

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to voters at the point of the next election. Currently, there is no other review
process that is available.

On the MFDR system, the government is currently monitoring all 678 programs
that are valued over USD 50 million. 90% of these are foreign funded. The data
that goes into the system is from the project management itself. There is no
question about not understanding the system and it is to be linked against key
performance indicators. Maybe the public at the lowest level may not understand
it but the government at least has a system that will provide the required
monitoring for effective implementation of large scale projects. Of course getting
results based management to the lowest level is always a challenge and it’s a
common issue with even some of the more well run entities. What is important to
recognize is that despite problems the government is working towards a mindset
change where results take precedence over hardware delivery or spending
money. As I said earlier, even in countries like the USA, it took decades to
establish such systems.

(Patrick Vandenbruen): When I said that the PD was excellent was with reference
to the principles and values enshrined in the declaration. However, I like your
question. One has to be realistic in relation to what can be changed easily, what
can be changed with effort and what is unlikely to be changed. We know that
donor countries have their own priorities, international strategies, business
strategies etc. Therefore, in that sense, as representatives of the aid community
must not be critical of this and we are also accountable to every franc, euro or
dollar given by the taxpayer there. Reconciling these two is difficult. There maybe
areas within these different agendas of donors and recipients where the two can
meet. We all need to therefore meet and discuss areas where we can collaborate
and make a difference in terms of effectiveness.

Additionally, what should be in the aid effectiveness agenda is partnership with

private sectors. We haven’t been very good at doing this. This includes a number
of donors. Some are trying to do that and obviously they are profit oriented but
they also have an approach that is based on corporate social responsibility and
there is space to engage the private sector. Civil sector should also have a system
based on some sort of “business plan”. Perhaps there is also an opportunity for
civil organizations to go into a strategic alliance with like minded private sector
entities and thereby increase the space for engagement in effective development.

Question 2: Despite 37 years of aid from organizations such as the World Bank,
Sri Lanka has not taken a single step forward. In fact, in a report of the bank in
2009 they admit that their policy was wrong. However, in 2010 they have taken
yet another about turn.

Answer: (Patrick V) About the WB loans, the loans are highly concessionary with
long payback periods. In terms of the agriculture, the government of Sri Lanka is
setting the priorities with respect to agriculture and what was said was interesting
and correct. The issue here is that Sri Lanka should be setting its priorities.

(Patrick A): I reject the premise of the speaker that Sri Lanka has not taken a
single step forward. Development is not measured by the length of a road or the
height of a building. It is measured against things like the MDG goals and I am not

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afraid to state that taking all of those indicators, Sri Lanka is in the forefront of all
south Asian countries.

Concluding statements
Suranjan Kodituwakku

As is usual, at the end of these sessions those that remain are those that have
always remained. The things that were discussed some of you might think that we
shot ourselves in the leg by exposing all of our weaknesses. However, this was
something we had to do as a cathartic exercise before this particular meet a few
days back. This has stood us in good stead against the existing backdrop of
suppression of the civil voice.

While we point our fingers at politicians for creating “political dynasties” of their
families, the same thing occurs in civil organizations and goes against the very
grain of good governance that we advocate. These issues came out today only
because we engaged in a CSO development effectiveness exercise. However, the
PCADE was established with the minimum agreement that we will maintain our
respective ideology, individuality and uniqueness while working on areas of
common concern and interest to all of us in the areas of social equity and poverty
reduction and it is on those terms that the aid and development effectiveness
issues become focused.

There were many facts and information that we obtained through the discussions
that we had today and much inside information that civil groups lacked were
provided for us by participants from outside agencies and by individuals working
on aspects of development and development effectiveness.

It should be clear by now that despite declarations and promises on effectiveness,

there can be instances when individuals and organizations are forced to defend
themselves if they are attacked by external agents. This is true of UN
organizations, IFIs, CSOs or any other institution. However, this sort of ad-hoc,
reactive throwing of stones at each other has not really resulted in anything
positive or useful. Additionally, we must understand that any victories that we
have won were obtained at times when our opponents at the time were
weakened. Taking Norachcholai coal power project for example, I have always
maintained the fact that I was the chief accused in pushing this project back but
as a result of my action, much good in terms of compensation, resettlement and
monitoring were established for the good of the people of that area. Despite the
fact that the country seems to be going down dark paths in its search for
development and equity, and despite the suppression of CSOs and the gross lack
of access to information, we cannot sit back and say that there is little or nothing
we can do. We must find ways and means of engagement as part of our due
responsibility to civil Sri Lanka. However, I reiterate the fact that face-to-face
confrontation is not an option and is not going to be effective within the current
political environment because our opponents are very strong now. Therefore we
need to have project by project strategies to respond to the issues.

Our pet “desire” if you like, is to point fingers at opponents. This is an easy path. It
is very easy to stay with the “blame game” and go around the world loudly
articulating the problems in Sri Lanka. However, we must understand that our

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view should be stated much better and should be stated against solid internal
mechanisms and soundness of principles and responsibility to the people.
Therefore, this exercise is critical in our transmission period to something better
because as they exist now, within the environment and attitudes they have
created and the “CSO eco-systems” that have been established, we have
managed to paint ourselves into a very narrow biological niche that is highly
susceptible to even the smallest of external influences and as such, CSOs are a
threatened species in Sri Lanka. The dialogue that we have commenced here is
one that needs to be carried forward if it is to prevent such an eventuality.
Starting with such instruments as the PD there is much further work to be done
not only towards Seoul in 2011 but across the country and within civil society as
well. Therefore, do not look at this as just another conference but as a milestone
in a greater process to find a system that will work for us and work for the people
of this country.

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