Has Swedish aid injected realism into public financial management reforms in development?

Matt AndrewsHarvard Kennedy School

Observations informing this work

• Many reforms in development are limited• Clear to see in PFM domain– Three D’s: De facto, Downstream, Deconcentrated gaps

• Better laws, not better practice• Better budgets, not better execution• Better central agencies, not better deconcentrated agencies

• Why is this the case?– One argument: Reforms lack realism• Not enough attention to the realities of getting things done

– Politics, capability constraints, uncertainty, etc.

What can be done?

• Change the process of aid and support– More adaptive processes

• Anchoring reform in context, allowing reforms to emerge and adapt to contextual realities– Doing Development Differently, PDIA

• A greater emphasis on learning about the realities of doing reform– Peer learning

• IN PFM through PEMPAL, CABRI, ESAAG, and more– Donors who leverage their own country experience?

A ‘realism comparative advantage’

• Various authors suggest that bilateral donors might enjoy a comparative advantage in areas where their countries have tacit experience– Like PFM reforms in Sweden– Having been through reform means:

• There is know-how, experience, etc. with fostering change, in complex political and administrative setting– Including persuading authorizers, choosing reforms, experimenting and

learning, and more

• Do donors like Sweden leverage this experience when supporting reforms in developing countries?

Study approach: Examine experience to see if Swedish aid worked in this way, or was more

normally technical

Looking through time, using systematic process analysis at global level, in Mozambique, and in Cambodia

Findings

• There are efforts to inject realism into PFM reform– But these tend to be driven by Swedish development experts

working in a more DDD process– Less so through bringing Swedish experience into the

discussion• Although there are examples of this in Mozambique and Cambodia,

especially earlier in the trajectory

• The space for realism seems to have declined over time, in development generally– More focus on generic reform scripts, dominance by larger

donors

How you inject realism in

development:

Swedish lessons point to 4 roles1. Own-country

experts with tacit lessons;

2. Adaptive development

specialists;3. Strategic

country counterparts4. Technical

experts

Conclusions• Limits of the work, method, sources, etc.• But an interesting story line emerges

– About how a donor like Sweden engages, builds on its own experiences, fosters realism

– About how the development arena allows realism (decreasingly so)• With recommendations

– Build a lore of Swedish experience (in providing the various roles, and in its own reforms)

– Foster communication across boundaries in govt.– Establish its comparative advantage where possible (possibly

narrow and focused, like audit in PFM)