Date: 2025-02-05 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00026565
EVENT ... Thursday, April 18, 2024
CDG: Navigating Change: Development Cooperation in a Shifting World
CGD's DC office, 2055 L Street NW, Floor 5
9:00 - 10:00am ET
CDG: Navigating Change: Development Cooperation in a Shifting World
CGD's DC office, 2055 L Street NW, Floor 5
9:00 - 10:00am ET
CGD's DC office, 2055 L Street NW, Floor 5, 20036, Washington, DC
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
I had my first exposure to the world of 'international development' more than 60 years ago. At the time, I was training in London with Cooper Brothers & Co (CB&Co) ... now PwC ... to become a Chartered Accountant and was assigned the task of assessing the reality of some World Bank cost estimates for the completion of the Kariba Dam. Before accounting 'articles' with CB&Co I had studied engineering and economics at Cambridge and done a 'management training' course in the real world of heavy engineering. My conclusions about the World Bank cost estimates were that they were almost an order of magnitude wrong. My analysis suggested that the cost to complete the Kariba Dam would be twice what the World Bank was thinking it was going to cost.
I was an 'articled clerk' for Brian Maynard, the partner in charge of the CB&Co consultancy practice. My conclusions were not what anyone was expecting and I was challenged vigorously by the CB&Co partners who after two days eventually concluded that my work was CB&Co quality and they would stand by it! My conclusions were officially transmitted back to the World Bank who adjusted their cost projections and associated financing appropriately!
I did not engage with international development in my subsequent corporate career until the mid 1970s when I became CFO of a US company operating shrimp fishing trawlers in some 25 different international jurisdictions. This was a difficult time for the industry because of the 1973 oil shock and the new economics of the fishing industry that resulted. At the time, I argued that our banks should give us financial support even though we were in an immediate profit and cash crisis. I argued that we would survive because we were more efficient than most of our global competitors and quite soon there would be price changes that reflected the new energy cost realities! I was proved corrent and the company survived this crisis.
In 1978 I transitioned from corporate employment to independent consulting. This did not go quite as I hoped, and instead of doing work for cutting edge corporate organizations I started to get work associated with international development in its various manifestations. More interesting, but less financially rewarding!
I was surprised in many ways by what I learned about management in the international development organizations ... or perhaps, more accurately, by the lack of 'management'. Yes ... there are a lot of procedures and protocols ... but not so much about operational performance and value for money! Where the business world would have an accountant, the international development world would have an economist. They are very different, and if you have to choose one, please choose the accountant!
I was popular with some of the people working in the field of development ... more those working in the field than those working in the various organization headquarters. Eventually my reputation as a critic of development performance meant that I got fewer and fewer assignments ... and aggravated in part by my advancing age and the retirement of the rather few people that been using me.
At this point in my life I want to speak up in support of the field of international development and specifically to have more people understand that international development is vital in order to have global peace and prosperity. Yes ... there has been fast growing economic prosperity for the past four decades, but it has not been shared equitably. The 'trickle down' talked about by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan turned out in practice to be a powerful 'sucking up' to a fast growing small group of rich and privileged.
But it is worse than this ... by a lot! The modern information flows are using all sorts of algoriths and worse to attract 'clicks' and rather little of the emerging ultra-powerful technology has much focus on what truly is needed for a 'better world'.
Long ago, I used 'accounting' information to plan in the business world. Later in my work on various aspects of international development and humanitarian assistance, I augmented financial accounting with my early thinking about 'social accounting' and 'environmental accounting'. Everything I have done since around 1980 ... more than 40 years ago ... has had some thinking and some crude 'numbering' related to social impact and environmental impact. This was many years before the 'Triple Bottom Line' gained some popularity.
In the financial accounting world, everyone thinks in terms of 'double entry', 'profit and loss', and 'assets and liabilities' ... a framing that goes back to Queen Victoria's times. My thinking about social matters and environmental matters has similar thinking around the need for 'double entry' and looking at and analyzing both the 'pros' and the 'cons' about both social activities and environmental impact (natural and industrial).
There is a growing interest and use of ideas like ESG, sustainability reporting and the like ... but I do not sense that these initiatives are having much impact on the actual behavior of political, financial and corporate business actors. Why is this?
And my answer is that a lot of powerful people and organizations and big money interests simply don't want it ... they do not see it as a positive for wealth growth ... personal or corporate!
The upcoming CGD event in Washington probably won't get to address the concerns I have referenced here. However, the panelists are all affected by much of this. In my view, many of the goals they are trying achieve require an order of magnitude increase in the funding that they are getting. I do not expect this to be achieved unless there is a substantial improvement in the quality, quantity and timeliness of the reporting that is used by international development and relief community ... and that is unlikely!
Peter Burgess
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Thursday, April 18
9:00 - 10:00am ET | 2:00 - 3:00pm BST
CGD's DC office, 2055 L Street NW, Floor 5, 20036, Washington, DC and virtual
About the event
What will define the next era for development cooperation? In the current global landscape, marked by rising geopolitical tensions, significant humanitarian challenges, and widening gulf between needs and finance, Official Development Assistance (ODA) budgets are coming under increasing pressure. Development agencies and multilateral development banks are being asked to scale-up support for global challenges and emergencies, while advancing partner country development priorities. The role, legitimacy, and efficacy of ODA are under intense scrutiny, and the global architecture for development finance, of which ODA is but a small yet crucial part, requires a profound rethink.
In the margins of the 2024 World Bank IMF Spring Meetings, the Center for Global Development is set to convene leading development policymakers to discuss the implications of the changing landscape for ODA and explore how—and on what—to use it most effectively.
If you have questions for our panelists, please submit them to events@cgdev.org, tweet @CGDev #CGDTalks, or submit your comments via YouTube.
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Featuring
Speakers
- Bård Vegar Solhjell, Director General, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad)
- Amanda Glassman, Executive Advisor to the President, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
- Antón Leis García, Director, Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Aecid)
- Rémy Rioux, CEO, Agence Française de Développement (AFD); Chair of the Finance in Common Executive Board
- Mikaela Gavas, Managing Director, Europe and Senior Policy Fellow, Center for Global Development
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