report on sri lanka multi stakeholder meet on development effectiveness

8/7/2019 Report on Sri Lanka Multi Stakeholder Meet on Development Effectiveness

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

Sponsored By

:

From Ac c ra t o Seoul – Road Mappi ng Civ i l

Pr ior i t ies in to t he Nat ional Agenda for A id and

Development Ef fec t iveness, Sr i Lank a

5 t h – 6 t h Septem ber 2010

The Reality of AidAn Independent Review of Poverty Reduction and Development Assistance



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REPORT

Prepared by

Ar juna Senevi ra tneFac i l i ta to r

Aid and Development Ef fect iveness Consul ta t ions



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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 thatlooked 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 Center for Environmental justice ( CEJ) [email protected]

2 Ms. Dilhara Jeewanthi Center for Environmental justice ( CEJ), [email protected]

om 3 Ms. J.H.S. Malakanthi Vikalpani National Women’s Movement [email protected]

4 Ms. Menu Nilukshika Vikalpani National Women’s Movement. [email protected]

5 Mr. Gamini Ruberu Community and Environmental

Development Foundation,

[email protected]

6 Mr. Lionel Thilakarathne SANGRAMA [email protected]

7 Mr. M.C. Mendis Community Challenge Technicians

Association

[email protected]

8 Mr. Vincent

Bulathsinghala

Janawaboda Kendraya [email protected]

9 Mr. Piyasoma Bentota The Committee For the People's Rights [email protected]

10 Mr. B.U.R. Rajapaksha The Committee For the People's Rights [email protected]

11 Mr. Ranjith

Wickramasinghe

Organization for Environment and

Children Rights Protection (OECRP)

en_

[email protected],

12 Mr. A. Muditha Organization for Environment and

Children Rights Protection (OECRP)

en_

[email protected],

13 Mr. Upali Munasinghe National Federation for Conservation of Traditional Farmers and Agri Resources

[email protected]

14 Mr. Abdul Razak Rural Women’s Front – (RWF) [email protected]

15 Mr. Priyantha Piyathilaka SARVODAYA [email protected]

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

Vavuniya



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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

(Southern Development Transport

Project-STDP)

[email protected]

19 Ms. Damitha Peiris Women’s Bank [email protected]

20 Ms. JayanthiChandralatha

Women’s Bank [email protected]

21 Mr. Sunil Shantha Chief Secretary, Movements for National

Lands and Reforms (MONLAR)

[email protected]

22 Mr. Rosha Salinda People's Secretariat on Climate [email protected]

23 Mr. Janaka Withanage IFI's Watch [email protected]

24 Mr. Banduranga

Kariyawasam

Natural Resource Conservation and

Management Program [email protected]

25 Mr. Dileepa Witharana The Open University of Sri Lanka, (OUSL) dileepawitharana@hotmail

.com

Trade Union

26 Mr. D.A.D.N.C.

Wimalaratne

United Labour Federation

INGOs

27 Ms. Rishani Wijesinghe Advocacy Coordinator - Oxfam Australia [email protected]

28 Ms. Mala Liyanage Executive Director, Law and Society Trust [email protected]

29 Dr. Fredrick Abeyratne

.

Senior Programme Annalist United

Nations Development Programme(UNDP)[email protected]

30 Mr. Sashee de Mel Programme Coordinator - Advocacy

Transparency International Sri Lanka [email protected] Mr. Jeewan Thyagarajah Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies

(GTE ) Limited [email protected] Ms. Soira Benedict The Europion Union [email protected].

eu

33 Mr. Christian Raite The Europion Union

34 Mr. Bhathiya

Kekulandala

Practical Action

35 Mr. Marikkar FORUT [email protected] Lateral Banks

36 Mr. Patrick

Vandenbruaene

World Bank resource person [email protected]



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Highlights and emerging outcomes and impacts of the discussion

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.

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.

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.

One of the core problems is differentiating whose agenda is the civilsociety 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.

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.

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..

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



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there is a critical need to clean up CSO processes, develop strong

management systems and work towards building up the credibility of the

CSOs.

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 countriesand rich businesses interests has not, and will not - change.

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

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 futuresecurity

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.

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

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

Exchange Credit Agencies are now contributing far more aid than thetraditional 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.



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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.

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.

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 developmenteffectiveness. We need to sit with the government and develop a set of

indicators that measure what we think is meaningful.

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.

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.



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The way forward

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.

CSO effectiveness based on high levels of transparency and responsibilitybecame 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.

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.

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 effectivenessand 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



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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 socialsystem. 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 thehighest 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. Thedeclaration 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 CSOsas 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,



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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 theirproductive 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 aidarchitecture 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 ForDevelopment 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.



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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 theshortcomings 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



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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 becamevery 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 donorsand 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



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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 tounderstand 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 clearplans, clear and inviolable value systems, truthfulness, accountability and

responsibility to be able to work towards development effectiveness.



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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 aresource 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



15

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 richsouthern 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 bankincreased 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 bepossible. 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!



16

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 thereis 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 andorganizations 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.



17

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 thatexists 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 contributesignificantly 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



19

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 andconfusion 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 onthis 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



20

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 whoengage 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 isreally 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 changearound 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 andoptimization 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.



21

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 beanswered 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 mobilizedfrom 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 futureis 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,



22

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.



23

Sessions 3 and 4 – Effective aid mechanisms - Formulating and consolidating

citizen priorities The forum split into

two groups of civil

organizations andone 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 prioritiesleading to the 4th HLF. The forum collectively decided that the dialogue was not

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 Issuesi. 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



24

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 differencesc. 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



25

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.



26

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 wemet 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, Iwas 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 Ministryof 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



27

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 isproducing 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 andexport 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 or35% 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/privateenterprise/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



29

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 todeliver 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 mattersto 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



30

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 tovalidate 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 theright 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 formulatedprinciples 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



31

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 andsaying “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 inpolicy, 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 torespond 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 thatthis 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



32

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. SriLanka 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, thecourt 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 toparticipate 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 becausethese 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.



33

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 thegovernment 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 inSri 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 withperformance 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,



34

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 eachhave 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 dayswith 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 actualdisbursement. 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 toprovide 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



35

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 PDbut 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 thechallenges 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 andalignment 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.



36

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 groupof 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 stanceand 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 topredict 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



37

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 formaneuvering 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 cashpoor 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



38

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, Iam 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 setalready 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



39

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 keyperformance 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 yourquestion. 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 numberof 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



40

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 havealways 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 UNorganizations, 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 dueresponsibility 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



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 athreatened 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.

report on sri lanka multi stakeholder meet on development effectiveness

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