Toxic technical assistance in conditions of state fragility: Field notes from Iraq

Abstract

The toxicity of a single project of US ‘technical assistance’ to Iraq is demonstrated: first, by virtue of its unilateral design and implementation and hence its violation of state sovereignty and basic norms of well-intentioned development; second, by its support of a strong form of decentralization, which risked inflaming an already volatile political condition that its sponsors had helped to create and that could have contributed to the destabilization and fragmentation of the state; third, because the commercial interests of the US implementing firm seemed likely to drive the project along its toxic path at the greatest possible speed; and fourth, because, while the dysfunctional management of the project seemed likely to impose severe constraints on the achievement of its stated objectives and the speed at which it could progress, it nevertheless constituted a bad example of governance and one that seemed likely – whatever its objectives might have been – to do more harm than good. This constituted a striking instance of wilful violation of national sovereignty under the guise of development assistance, one that was perpetrated knowingly in the gravest of national circumstances and by the same hand that had created the crisis in the first place. A method of managing development assistance that gives greater control to the host government is suggested.

Whose resources are they anyway? ‘Development assistance’ and community development agreements in the Mongolian mining sector

“…These qualities contrast sharply with those of many, perhaps most, other resource-rich developing countries where low education levels often combine with a multiplicity of ethnic sub-populations, producing inter-ethnic and/or religious tensions and centrifugal forces for partition that can threaten the integrity of the state. For example, in Indonesia and Iraq, the management of ethnic and ideological rivalries puts great pressure on the state, weighs heavily in national political and policy calculations, and impinges significantly on questions of development management (Blunt, 2012;. an extreme example is the resource-rich nation of Papua New guinea, which probably has the world's highest levels of ethno-linguistic variability and inter-ethnic violence.…”

Development Undone: Weber, Kafka and the Organisation of Supply-Side Vested Interests

“…There are three ways in which the data from this study (Blunt, 2012) illuminate the nature of bureaucracy on the supply-side. First was the unilateral decision made by the donor to implement aggressively, and without any consultation with government, a project on the politically sensitive subject of decentralisation that was clearly at odds with the needs and wishes of the country, research findings (e.g., Blunt & Turner, 2007; Blunt, Turner, & Lindroth, 2012a, 2012b) and the advice of its own ‘expert’ employees. There was simply ‘no tradition of demand for decentralization in Iraq…indeed, the reverse seemed more likely to be the case’ (Blunt, 2012, p. 342).…”

“…First was the unilateral decision made by the donor to implement aggressively, and without any consultation with government, a project on the politically sensitive subject of decentralisation that was clearly at odds with the needs and wishes of the country, research findings (e.g., Blunt & Turner, 2007; Blunt, Turner, & Lindroth, 2012a, 2012b) and the advice of its own ‘expert’ employees. There was simply ‘no tradition of demand for decentralization in Iraq…indeed, the reverse seemed more likely to be the case’ (Blunt, 2012, p. 342). Nevertheless, the corporate contractor for the project held steadfastly to the line the donor wished to pursue and ignored the ‘frequent recommendations to project management concerning the necessity to obtain government approval and to involve government in project design and management’, which were made by the author ‘to no avail’ (Blunt, 2012, p. 349).…”

“…Its reporting was ‘designed to create an impression of progress when there was little or none and generally to put a positive “spin” on anything that was reported’. All discussion of ‘political realities’ that questioned the ‘legitimacy of decentralization or its rationality in present-day Iraq’ or reference to problems was simply ‘censored out of such reports by the implementing firm’s head office’ (Blunt, 2012, p. 349).…”

“…The nature of this enterprise, and its success or lack of it, clearly depends greatly on why the assistance is given—and received—in the first place. Not contested these days, nearly as much as it used to be, is the conclusion that elite self-interest rather than altruism predominates on both the supply- and the demand-sides of the development assistance equation (e.g., Blunt & Lindroth, 2012; Blunt, Turner, & Hertz, 2011; Blunt, Turner, & Lindroth, 2012a, 2013; Chang, 2002, 2009; Chomsky, 2006; Klein, 2008; Roy, 2003).…”