Intro: The debate about using Country Systems. Why did I spend so much time on this issue?
Whether to let the countries learn and develop on their own in their own way and assisting them by freely giving some of the very scarce resources or whether to impose some conditions on how they are to manage these resources is one of the most difficult balancing acts of any development policy.
There must be thousands of examples of how development funds have been squandered to no avail by bad governments and crooked politicians, and certainly there are thousand of examples of how good-intentioned agencies have, in a quite similar and yet opposite way, squandered these scarce funds by imposing absolutely misplaced rules and conditions.
As I never believed that you could create good artists by having students practice painting by numbers, this little spot number 17 blue, and as those wanting to impose more and ever stricter conditions on the borrower were in the clear majority, my devil’s advocate instincts and my normal tendency of siding with the weaker inspired me to take a very strong position in favor of allowing for a more frequent use of the countries’ own systems.
Let them bike
Friends, listening to your exhaustive list of concerns, I was reminded of the moments when I had to teach my daughters how to ride their bikes: I heard their mother’s anxious calls in the background; I felt my own nervousness; nonetheless, I just knew I had to let them go.
One could find and read thousands of manuals about how to put a bike together safely; about all the safety implements a kid should wear, such as helmet and wrist-guards; about all the precautions he or she needs to take, not going downhill or out on the main road; but nowhere can you find even a single manual that clearly and exactly instructs you how to learn to ride a bike. Left leg up, right leg down! Or was it right leg up first?
We need to understand that development is a bit like learning how to ride a bike and, at the end of the day it is something that must be done on one’s own. In fact, no matter how much we could help in the preparations, we will not stand a chance to achieve lasting results if we are not willing or do not know how to let them go.
It is not easy to let go, I probably even closed my eyes for fractions of seconds after letting my girls roll away on their bikes, but I let them go and they know how to ride a bike now.
So, my colleagues, in these discussions, not as caring parents but as caring development partners, let us try to act accordingly, letting them go, always remembering that, at the end of the day, countries need to do it on their own. What else could ownership mean?
Of course, anyone might fall trying, but that is exactly the risk we need to be able to take if they are going to achieve real sustainable development results and, if they fall, there is probably nothing more to do than to help them rebuild their confidence so that they can just have another go at it.
Moreover, if you try to hold the bike while they ride it, the bike might not really behave like a bike, and so they might never get the hang of it. What we really should be concerned about is that they have what is most needed at the time of trying: sufficient confidence in themselves. In fact, what unwillingly might be the first victim of all our other secondary concerns is precisely that, their confidence.
So, my colleagues, let them go, again and again and again, learning to ride their bike, and as they believe a bike should be ridden.
P.S. I know it is not as easy as it sounds and in fact I would only give someone the freedom to try it on their own whenever he or she convinces me she or he is ready for it and is sufficiently confident.
