The Foreign Service Journal, January 2004

58 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 4 he U.S. Agency for International Development and other aid agencies have carried out literally thousands of international development projects in the Third World over the years, in addition to their ongoing assistance programs. Such projects are generally ad hoc efforts lasting from six to 24 months carried out by expatriate specialists, who use limited funding to achieve specific short-term objectives Often these projects work very well, as far as they go. But even the best of them tend to share one serious flaw: they don’t pave the way for institutions that can prevent the problems the project addressed from recurring or apply the approach to address other needs. And certain problems, such as helping children without access to schools or assisting expectant mothers who lack prenatal health services, are best addressed institutionally. This can be done through creating a new organization on the ground or a new capacity for an existing agency to provide goods and services to unserved citizens. However it is done, such “institution-building” is central to a country’s social and economic growth. To make this outcome more common, we have to think differently about how we design, implement and evaluate assistance projects. Let me illustrate this by giving some “lessons learned” from a five-year USAID-sponsored edu- cation project I worked on as chief of party in the Dominican Republic during the 1980s. From speaking to professionals working on social projects, it is clear these issues still pose difficulties. Project Design It is crucial to begin with an accurate definition of the problem the assistance is meant to remedy, rather than relying on the answers provided by models, experts, stud- ies, and local government officials and bureaucrats. The best way to accomplish this is to talk to the people who live there and will be affected by what’s done. If it’s an educa- tional project, start with the teachers and parents. If it’s an agricultural project, start with the campesinos who farm. If it’s a water project, start with the people who need the water. Instead, we tend to impose an extant “model” — a par- ticular technology or methodology — that has worked else- where. (In education, it may be team-teaching, pro- grammed instruction, radio education, or audiovisual instruction, to name a few.) The trouble with this approach is that even models that have succeeded in simi- lar places may not suit the physical, cultural or social real- ity in which they are to be applied in the recipient country. It is also important to realize that the host-country min- istry helping to implement the project may know as little about the realities of life in an impoverished rural area as the foreigners do. I discovered that our Ministry of Education counterparts in Santo Domingo had never even visited the southwest region of the country where the pro- M AKING I NSTITUTIONS O UT OF P ROJECTS A D HOC AID PROJECTS OFTEN WORK VERY WELL . B UT EVEN THE BEST ONES USUALLY DON ’ T PAVE THE WAY FOR LONG - TERM SOLUTIONS TO DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS . B Y J AMES O LSEN T James T. Olsen is an international consultant currently liv- ing in Mexico. He has been an editor-in-chief at McGraw- Hill Publishing, an educational expert for the Organization of American States, and a chief of party with USAID in the Dominican Republic. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in 17th- century English literature from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in international education and economics from The Union.