Word of the Day: Mittelabflussproblem

Mittelabflussproblem (n.) - From German. Literally meaning "the problem of fund disbursal". Could also be transliterated as "means drainage problem". This describes the problem faced by almost all development agencies in which project expenditure is always less than maximum project expenditure. This creates a problem for the project, because if it fails to meet expenditure targets, this will result in one or both of the following:

1. The donor will assume that if the money is not spent, the work is not done, and therefore contractual obligations are not being fulfilled.
2. The donor will assume that if the money is not spent, it has over-allocated the budget and will cut the amount of funding available in future years.

The development project will attempt to reach the (usually impossible) target of 100% of the maximum available budget being disbursed by implementing one or more of the following actions:

1. Buying additional office equipment or project vehicles that may or may not be useful for future years.
2. Assigning a consultancy contract for a study that is interesting, if unessential.
3. Less careful spending on existing activities.
4. Better budgetary planning.

An alternative definition of "Mittelabflussproblem" proposed here is : The problem of focusing on on fund disbursal rather than on project impact.

Word of the Day: donor state

donor state (n.) – A donor state is one in which development aid plays such an important role in the national economy and state budget, that donors wield significant influence in the nations politics and economy. Symptoms of a donor state include large proportions of foreigners working in and for government ministries, a tendency to promote government programmes over private sector development, a high production of “sector studies”, high inflation and/or high interest rates, an impotent banking sector and a weak private sector. Countries that could currently be described as donor states include Rwanda, Afghanistan, (South) Sudan, Chad and many others. The long-term success of these countries' economies depends on their developing into independant economies and institutions before their dependence becomes institutionalised and permanent. Such quasi-permanent donor states are particularly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.

Word of the Day: donor-dumping

donor-dumping (n.) - This is when a donor or development agency introduces products below the market price in competition with local businesses. Due to their financial resources, donors are able to out-compete local businesses and force them out of the market. Examples of products that are commonly “donor-dumped” on developing markets are: EU/US clothes donations, EU/US food aid, policy consultancy services, financial services and UNIDO infrastructure projects. Donor-dumping is widespread amongst all development aid organisations. In simpler, grass-roots development initiatives, donor-dumping tends to be directly visible in the form of goods or services sold at dumping prices. In more complex development projects, such as grants for infrastructure, donor-dumping can only be seen in the indirect effect on the price of services delivered by the subsidised infrastructure.

Donor-dumping not only leads to competition with local businesses. In cases where subsidies go to social infrastructure such as health centres and hospitals, donor-dumping can also lead to unfair competition with state-run infrastructure. In a heavily donor-funded state, this leads to a parallel state-system run by donor/NGO funding and management structures.

Almost all donor-funded projects have activities which can be classified as donor-dumping. This is a result or poor project design and the Mittelabflussproblem (the use of cash disbursement as the main success indicator for development projects).

Word of the Day: development tourist

Development tourist (n.) – An intern or short-term employee on a contract of up to 1 year, who wants to “experience the developing world” and “help out”, and who will afterwards leave the country, leave Africa and/or even leave development aid work altogether. By some estimates, development tourists make up over one third of the white population of Rwanda.

Word of the Day: Donorbabble

Donorbabble (n.) - Language used by organisations working for or with the donor industry to make their work look clever. A typical example of donorbabble would be: “We will organise a multi-sectoral working group to plan the development of a sector-wide capacity building master plan.” In standard English this roughly means that a big group of people will talk about planning a plan to train people in everything. Donorbabble is used by the donor industry itself, by development consultants and also by poor country governments who "speak the language of the donors".