The Foreign Service Journal, January 2004

have to take place. Cost considerations are also para- mount. The institutional budget should factor out expat salaries and initial capital expenses but should fac- tor in recurrent costs. I remember once reviewing a development bank’s capital expense budget for building schools. No one had factored into the loan document the recurrent costs of maintaining and repairing the struc- tures, which run about 10 percent of the capital costs per year. I pointed out that under the prevailing eco- nomic conditions, there was no way these countries could afford to pay back the loans and keep the proposed new schools in repair. Silence greet- ed my comment and we moved on to other matters. Clearly, the develop- ment bank school construction loans were going to be made even if the countries couldn’t afford the upkeep. Economic decisions are often made by politicians who have other agen- das. Defining Success Evaluation is the great stepchild of all assistance projects. Why spend money finding out how successful you were ... or how you miserably failed? Yet if routine assessment measures were integrated into our project designs, we would have a much better idea as we go along of what is working and what is not. That would allow us to make the nec- essary adjustments, or extend the project’s scope. Alternatively, after 50 years of con- ducting so many pilot projects, we already have a sufficient research base to launch large-scale programs that have the potential to change people’s lives in a number of sectors instead of small-scale pilot projects. One of the most brilliant series of evaluations ever done in the field of development, I believe, came from the Center for Development Information & Evalua- tion. This compilation brings together 18 studies, ranging over every type of conceivable project. That an agency could critique itself so incisively and so thoroughly is a remarkable achieve- ment — and that knowledge, experi- ence and institutional intelligence are there to be used. Part of the problem is that one- time projects can be swept under the rug while big, expensive programs receive publicity that can put profes- sional careers on the line, and per- haps even damage the bilateral rela- tionship if they don’t succeed. And there are certainly many ways for them to fail: the subcontractor who uses the staff and money of one funded project to write the proposal for another one; the development bank official whose career depends on how quickly he can push the money out; the program officer who would rather smooth over problems than directly address them; the over- ly hierarchical, top-down structure of development organizations, which often pre-empts the very staff partic- ipation urged for the developing country; the artificial dichotomy between people who think (design- ers) and people who do (technicians in the field); the emphasis on risk- averse, academic types to run pro- jects rather than entrepreneurial ones; the embassy staff person who is more concerned about his own career than about how effective U.S. assistance programs are; the Third World official seeking to plunder the project’s resources. The list goes on and on, suggesting we need not new techniques or even new ideas so much as a new ethos to inform and give meaning to what we do. On the other hand, we have smart, committed people working in our government who have the skills and the background to accomplish some remarkable things. So these initiatives can succeed, creating broad constituencies for the project’s benefits. And if we focus our atten- tion on comprehensive strategies to deliver those benefits, rather than one-shot “quick fixes,” we could weed out those countries that really don’t want change anyway and focus on those desperate and smart enough to make a genuine commit- ment. We could have a real partner rather than someone just along for the ride. Only a thorough evaluation will make that possible, however. Usually, the U.S. embassy in the country is best suited to conduct such an assessment and do the nec- essary follow-up work. In the Dominican Republic, our in-country USAID program officer was our greatest support the whole way through. He visited the project, saw the benefits and identified the prob- lems, and personally resolved some of the pressing political issues that could have destroyed us. To institu- tionalize a program, you need this type of professional support. Even with his strong backing, it took us close to a year to convince his colleagues in the embassy that our project could succeed and obtain their backing. But it was worth all the hard work. When embassy rep- resentatives and Dominican Repub- lic government officials came and visited the communities where we 62 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 Part of the problem is that one-time projects can be swept under the rug while big, expensive programs can damage careers.