Uganda is typically a low-income country with low levels of domestic revenue. 48 % of the government’s expenditure is provided through donor aid. Despite this high level of dependency, networks of trust between government officials and their donors have allowed the Ugandan government to have a control over the country’s development process. Uganda’s growing reputation for sound economic management and commitment to poverty reduction has also helped to achieve this. Can other countries draw lessons from this experience?

Relations between developing country governments, donors and civil society are often characterised by mistrust and lack of clear and easily understood rules, reports, etc. (i.e. transparency). The inability of donors to work in agreement with the national governments often affects the ability of local officials to define and implement their own development agendas. A civil servant from Uganda’s Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development reports how Uganda has worked around these constraints and has taken control of its development framework despite its various donors.

Uganda has taken the lead in shaping the way donors contribute to development. It has been determined to ensure that donor assistance fits within its own Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) and has coordinated sector-wide approaches to ensure donor and civil society participation in determining public expenditure priorities. In education, health and agriculture sectors formal networks operate to ensure coordination. A locally-initiated participatory poverty assessment has obliged the government and all others to take notice of the voice of previously marginalised Ugandans.

Experience in Uganda and elsewhere shows that:

• The reason for government officials' disinterest in initiating radical changes is often due to their reluctance to coordinate aid: the state of affairs often serves the interests of both donors and recipients.
• Individual civil servants may be unwilling to lose the power and influence they have as a result of personal relations with particular donors.
• Developing country governments which are proactive and include non-state actors in development processes can lead the direction of their country’s progress by staying ahead of the ‘experts’ from powerful donor organisations.
• If countries are determined about it, they can ensure that donors commit themselves to joint appraisals, a standard procedure for distributing aid, uniform rules, discontinuing the practice of funding isolated projects and increasing the salaries of local staff.
• Donors still have to attribute achievements to their own support and are therefore anxious of failures that reflect negatively on them.

The local communities and organisations in Uganda are very active socially and politically. There are over a thousand registered charities, many faith-based organisations (such as church organisations), trade unions and private-sector organisations with an interest in development. But the capacity of many of these organisations to represent poor people is limited. This is because many citizens are illiterate and information does not flow freely. To further strengthen the voices of local people, it is important to:

• remove imbalances in influence between donors and recipients and not ignore them
• allow more people to participate in the decision-making processes and not limit social interactions only to those people that either donors or governments already have established relations or are comfortable dealing with
• establish uniform procedures for payment and reporting in order to minimise transaction costs for aid recipient states
• ensure that staff of donor agencies involved in country programmes trust and respect those receiving the donations
• ensure that donors and partners do not disregard internationally agreed goals and programmes – the US withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change is an example of the kind of opting out which hinders the spirit of partnership.

Uganda has made great advances in establishing partnership principles which define the roles, responsibilities and expected behaviour of various development practitioners and policy-makers. This provides a good example of how donors can reduce their power and modify their in-country staffing levels in accordance with national government demands.

Source(s):
‘The donor-government-citizen frame as seen by a government participant’ in ‘Inclusive aid: changing power and relationships in international development’, edited by Leslie Groves and Rachel Hinton, Institute of Development Studies, pp 87-96, by Margaret Kakande, 2004

id21 Research Highlight: 21 November 2004

Further Information:
Margaret Kakande
Poverty Monitoring and Analysis Unit
Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development
P.O. Box 8147
Kampala
Uganda

Tel: + 256 041-234700/9, 235051/4
Fax: + 256 041-230163
Contact the contributor: mkakande@hotmail.com

Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development

Other related links:
'Aid, public expenditure and Millennium Development Goals: is collaboration possible?'

'The Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper: the right approach?'

'The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper in Mali: a matter of donor-recipient relations?'

'Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers in Africa: are they really making a difference to policies?'

'More donors, less help: the cost of receiving aid'

Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure (CAPE), ODI, UK

'Aid, conditionality and debt in Africa' from ELDIS