Strengthening civil society from the outside? Donor driven consultation and participation processes in Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSP): the Bolivian case



government and the donor community. They are in senior positions in donor
funded programs and funds, find a niche in the few non-politicized organi-
zations like the Central Bank, they work as consultants for the government,
or find a job in some of the intermediary NGOs in positions funded by do-
nors. Some of them go into politics, like Vice-President Jorge Quiroga who
dealt with the donor community on behalf of President Banzer, or Ronny
McLean, a former Minister of Finance and Mayor of La Paz who ran an
unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in the 2002 elections. For succes-
sive governments the reliance on this small class of technocrats has been a
way of shielding themselves and the donors from the disadvantages of an
otherwise highly politicized bureaucracy where few people are nominated
because of their intrinsic competence. However, it is not a solution for the
problems of ordinary Bolivians who depend on one of the most inept public
sectors of the continent for many of the services that are essential to their
well-being. In this sense, the strenuous efforts at civil society participation
were cleverly manipulated by the government to satisfy the donor commu-
nity while minimizing the effect on the underlying political mechanisms of
Bolivian politics. It is in this sense that we argue that the sting was taken out
of the participation process.

2.4. Ownership

Ownership has become a very fashionable concept within de-
velopment practice. Donors for instance insist that receiving countries have
more “ownership” than in the past over macroeconomic and other reform
programs. Several conditions must apparently be satisfied before the “own-
ership” label can be awarded. The Government must have the analytical
capacity to produce a coherent reform program (rather than it being written
by, say, international consultants or World Bank and IMF staff), the locus of
initiative must be in the Government (rather than in Washington), key policy
makers must be intellectually convinced (rather than sign under duress in
order to get access to much needed donor cash), there must be public support
form the top political leadership (rather than the President letting Cabinet
Ministers do all the negotiation, so as to be able to turn his back on the
agreement once painful policy decisions have to be faced), and there must
be broad-based stakeholder participation. How broad-based participation
contributes to ownership has apparently to do with the consensus it is sup-
posed to engender: “The Government, therefore, needs to consult widely and
build consensus internally - drawing on democratic structures as appropri-
ate - with other parts of society, including civil society, the private sector
and the country’s external partners. The purpose of such consultation is to
draw out ideas, knowledge and opinions and to promote consensus on the
strategy expressed in the long-term, holistic vision” (World Bank 2001a:5).
It is in practice not easy to judge whether ownership in the above sense has
been achieved. The President and senior Cabinet Ministers may profess their
full agreement with the macroeconomic and social policies prescribed by the
IMF and the World Bank, but how genuine is their conviction?

22 • IDPM-UA Discussion Paper 2002-05



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