When a person got to know of a certain organisation working in both developing and developed countries for a certain specific area, such as, agricultural development, and understood that the organisation is trustworthy, it is quite natural a feeling that more money should be given to the organisation especially when he saw a situation in which one of their projects has been suffering from insufficient funding to implement their "credible enough" interventions at site.
In such a case, in the observer's belief, the more money provided to the organisation, the more positive changes in people's lives can be brought about.
There are plenty of examples like this all over the world.
In the arena of international development cooperation, people are most likely to come to think about "who will provide the fund?", then, they talk about advocacy, evaluation to prove trustworthiness, accountability, transparency, and so on and on,,,
While someone knows that the organisation is trustworthy, potential funders in most of the cases don't.
On the other hand, it is also likey that people will agree that doing nothing knowing that somebody's life is being threatened is evil, and, some of them may agree to provide their money on trial and error basis without demanding complete evidences of trustworthiness which are normally very costly.
(A critical assumption about sense of just or moral obligation has already appeared,,, but, still continue...)
But, for the case of public funds, funding on trial and error basis is very unlikely,,,
In addition, public funding needs almost always to consider fair share between individual beneficiaries spreading all over the issues to be addressed.
(Another issue about sense of justice or fairness,,,)
We have been discussing this for a long time already,,,
Some innovative actions need to be taken, actually. But,,,
(One of my suggestions may be to set up a system in which number of funders and/or amount of fund received is counted as dependent variable to trustworthiness of an organisation,,, but,, it seems to require other sophisticated supporting functions, such as, certifier or evaluator regarding actual performance,,, instruments to overcome the issue of discretionary budget allocation,,,)
Anyway, what I'd like to problematise here is not anything about aid system, but, practices being performed in international development cooperation both in developed and developing countries.
More specifically, I'm interested in how people are talking.
I have an impression that people working for international development cooperation talk more than those working for other fields.
Act of talk is important because it relates to our motivations towards maintenance of coherent identity; and it can generate power to define relationships with others.
It has already been known that as long as we assume the system of resource transfer as current international development, nobody can escape from talking about both aid givers and aid recipients.
- People on the side of aid giver talk about aid recipients to other aid givers.
- They also talk about aid givers to other aid givers.
- They also talk about aid givers to aid recipients.
- They also talk about aid recipients to aid recipients.
- People on the side of aid receiver talk about aid recipients to aid givers.
- They also talk about aid givers to other aid recipients.
- They also talk about aid recipient to other aid recipients.
- They also talk about aid givers to aid givers.
2.,3.,5., and 7. might be of less problem because they talk about themselves or what they can relatively easily assert that they know better.
4. and 8. can be thought of some situations in which both sides are exchanging understanding on the other.
6. will be some internal discussions in recipient organisation for example for developing strategies on how to approach different aid givers.
1. will be internal discussions held on the aid givers' side.
My focus will be directed to 1. and 6. because in these cases people talk about others to those who may frequently be more unfamiliar with the subject matter.
In other words, in the case of 1., they are supposed to represent aid recipients and the ways of representation tend to be of their discretion. They will be able to make judgement on what should be communicated or not.
Further more critically, such judgement depends upon how they constitute their own identities between representatives of aid recipients and aid givers.
Such identities can neither be stable witin respective individuals nor universal among them.
Each and every individual is knowledgeable enough to improvise on case by case basis how to talk in order to maintain positive identity for herself and also for those to whom she is talking.
The observer shown in the example above says that what is lacking is just money, but, I do not think that potential funders or intermediaries to encourage funding to "credible enough" projects would accept what the observer says.
This is firstly because the observer's words do not show sufficient considerateness to potential funders or those who are in the position of gate-keepers of any kind of money.
Differently put, the observer's words may threat identities of potential funders or gatekeepers who must have known that there are lots of examples in which just increased funds can bring about even more positive changes.
Even if the observer's words aim at provoking argument to innovate funding mechanisms of aid, ambiguity concerning representation needs to be clarified, that is, whom and what the observer tries to represent, the organisation, the organisation's opinion that all it needs is money, or, that money is just one of the problems for it???
By its nature, representation necessarily involves some abstraction from lived experiences or reality of those who are to be represented.
Talks involving abstraction or something not present in front of those who are talking require very careful treatments because such talks usually assume common level of understanding about such abstraction.
Simply put, such talks are likely to be held between those who they think have already known about it.
In the real world of international development cooperation, however, it is very unlikey that those who have been involved share some universal levels of abstraction because there exist too many different roles borne by them in the so-called aid chain.
But, they talk about what is not present in front of them.
Why is it possible?
This is because manipulating abstraction does not cause any serious problem to those who are talking.
Put it differently, it is more important for them to be able to talk each other than sticking to what they think real as long as their identities are not threatened.
More importantly, we talk for ourselves.
Even when representing others' voice, the man who is talking is talking for himself.
Yes, all these things are minute things, thus, rarely discussed in the international development cooperation.
However, we should know that all these minute things are bearing structures or maintaining system of current aid since structures and systems do not emerge from thin air.
Being satisfied with discussing "big" issues without reflecting on day-to-day practices is definitely arrogant and something to be avoided if we dream about "innovation" of aid system.
