Owen Barder has an interesting post on this, setting out why he says little about Ethiopian politics. In brief, his view is that Ethiopians’ views rather than his should be listened to and that to give more weight to outsiders views is “unconsciously racist”, and that his time is more appropriately spent helping to fix the policies and practices of his own country’s government.

I agree with much of what Owen says in relation to this. First, the idea that citizens of developed countries have a particular responsibility to try to get their own governments to act in ways that are better in terms of development – to address issues that are, in Owen’s words, “properly mine to help fix”. Second, that the ability of outsiders (eg. me, with much worse Amharic than Owen!) to understand Ethiopian politics is limited and therefore our views should not be given very much weight. And I would add, outsiders should not be seeking to impose inappropriate context-insensitive normative models about how things should be.

However I do think that the phrase “properly mine to help fix” (or my “particular responsibility” phrase above) should be unpacked as states and sovereignty are socially and politically constructed. That is, they are not natural givens and one might argue in some instances, and to some extent, that other principles/norms – for instance in relation to human rights, or justice or accountability – trump that of sovereignty (as in the notion of the responsibility to protect, or the universal declaration of human rights).

I also wonder what Owen would make of statements on the electoral process put out by the EU Election Observation Mission or the UK Government. Are they unconsciously racist? Is reading them unconsciously racist? If a Government that provides aid to country X is concerned to ensure and to assure its own citizens that that aid is not supporting a repressive regime, is it reasonable – or unconsciously racist – of that Government to make an assessment of the political system in country X and the impact of aid on that political system (and of the the impact of that political system on the effectiveness of aid)?

And what of calls by groups within Ethiopia for outsiders to be more vocal in their criticisms? Are those calls unconsciously racist, even if those calls are made by Ethiopians who understand the politics very well?

It seems to me that that things are – and should be – more complicated than a simple “outsiders should shut up, should not be listened to, and should concentrate on problems that are properly theirs to fix”.

Globalisation after all does blur the borders between inside and outside. Should people from developing countries who are affected by UK policies on migration, or climate change, shut up too, or are they stakeholders with a legitimate interest/right in saying what they think and seeking cross-border accountability?

Globalisation goes beyond the borders. So too should and do concerns with rights, justice and accountabilities. The challenge is to find the appropriate balance between putting into practice that principle – of global social justice – and the principle of country-ownership/non-interference/not talking about stuff that is not ”properly yours” to talk about or fix.

Putting budget documents on-line and enhancing transparency about aid are great things to have done/be doing, and the work of AidInfo is very useful, but these sorts of initiatives do leave me pondering some questions or issues. As does Tim Berners-Lee’s motto of “Raw data now!” or AidInfo’s “Liberate the data”.

Anyway, three sets of issues:

1) To make sense of “raw data”, one needs a theory. I think that this sometimes gets forgotten as if one can just make sense of massive influxes of data, without some framework of/for understanding. A variant of this problem is when the theories that are shaping how “raw data” is selected, connected and interpreted are left unexamined as if they were value-neutral. At risk of straying into one of my gripes about mainstream economics, I’ll leave that one there …

2) To make the “raw data” or transparency deliver something useful – policy and practice that is better because it is based on better evidence, for instance – requires that there are structures and processes in place, let’s call them “accountability systems”. So – as well as not neglecting those - when people are trying to “liberate the data”, it’s important that they also think about how the data might best be used and whether that might make a difference to what data is liberated and how. I expect that the AidInfo initiative is doing this, and would be interested to know more.

3) I guess this is related to 1 and to 2 and at the moment I won’t say much about it, but it’s important to understand the political economy of data (including how the workings of accountability link to the generation/circulation/use of data). That is, to get your head round the system of data flows and to contribute to making it work better, you need to understand the political economy and the power dynamics of the production, distribution and consumption of data. It ain’t – despite the pretense of those who talk about evidence-based (rather than informed) policy - a politics free or value free system; to understand it – and change it – requires a clear recognition of that. If information/evidence/data is “the currency of accountability“, then a political economy perspective ought to have considerable value.

Ooops, sounding like a marxist again

PS: I am coining a new term. Bloggybacking. Currently with only one google hit in the whole googlyverse. Promoting one’s own blog on the back of someone else’s better known efforts. Thanks Owen. And others!

My thinking on this has been stimulated by David Roodman of the Center for Global Development. David is in the process of writing a book about micro-finance and posed a question about definitions of development.

That reminded me of a piece of work I led for the Gates Foundation on “Exploring ‘development success’: Indicators, stories and contributing factors” and the train of thought that that rather frustrating piece of work – we were too quick to go along with the client’s slightly confused request (such are the delights of consultancy) – stimulated. David’s thought-provoking post and my comment is here, but the thrust my comment was:

***

I agree that making explicit one’s conception of development, and assessing interventions with the help of a theory which sets out how one might expect to move towards that conception of development is useful and doesn’t happen as much as it should in international development.

That setting out one’s theory – surely one of the foundations for anything pretending to be social science or anything with aspirations to being part of evidence-informed policy – doesn’t happen as a matter of course is, I would suggest, a large part of the reason why we (folks who work in international development) don’t really know what we’re doing, and are making little progress towards having a better idea. And that, along with a lack of accountability, is a large part of why what we do often doesn’t deliver the results that are hoped for.

I guess what I’m saying is that while your insight shouldn’t be that novel, I’m afraid that it is, and am keen to join forces to push its implications! I might start asking “what’s the theory?” (and “where’s the evidence?” and “who’s accountable?) 100 times per week, including of myself.

That you need to ask “are there other useful definitions of development” should give us all pause for thought, particularly those of us who work/have worked at places such as the Center for Global DEVELOPMENT and the Overseas DEVELOPMENT Institute.***

Since posting that response I’ve been thinking some more about the probability that without a theory of what it is you’re trying to do, it will be very difficult – and perhaps impossible – to make an evidence-based assessment of whether you’re succeeding, or to have effective accountability.

I’ve also remembered that I wrote about this nearly 10 years ago, in a report for the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee where I talked – drawing on analysis by David Booth, Howard White and the National Audit Office – about the  ”the missing middle” in DFID’s Country Strategy Papers which “state clearly DFID’s poverty reduction objectives and DFID’s planned spending, but lack analysis of the causes of poverty and strategies to break into these causal relationships.” Saying that there is a “missing middle” was a polite way of saying “you don’t know what you’re doing”.

Will I still be writing about this in another ten years’ time. Please no.

Challenging the borders-up mentality prevalent in many developed countries certainly gets my vote (although the benefits of immigration in the rich world do tend to go to rich people, which complicates matters). And it’s good to question the conventional wisdom that the out-migration of skilled people is always bad for developing countries. But ….

… installing another generalisation – that brain export is good for developing countries – is not a good idea.

Whether migration is good or bad for development (or poverty reduction) depends on how context – in this case the specifics of the place of origin and place of destination – shapes the nature of migration, the costs and benefits it generates, and the distribution of those costs and benefits. Not rocket science is it?

This is what the report on migration and development I did for the UK Parliament several years ago said, a report which – despite being on a hot potato political issue – had the support of a cross-party committee of MPs. (I fondly remember the chair of the committee talking about the report on  TVand sounding more of a global socialist than his conservative constituents would have thought possible!)

My oar is more comprehensively stuck in here

At some point I might rant about economists (OK, some economists …) and their enthusiasm for making context-free generalisations that conform to their models! Or maybe I should set up an Economist-watch web-site to complement the Bill Easterly-watch one.