IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SKILLS REQUIRED
OF DFID STAFF
56. Direct budgetary support has implications for
the skills required from DFID's staff. DFID has over many years
built up expertise in country teams with highly skilled project
managers as well as education and health specialists. On the face
of it, a significant increase in the provision of direct budgetary
support may suggest that a greater emphasis should be placed on
financial management and auditing skills. Suma Chakrabarti was
at pains to stress that the need for a policy dialogue with recipient
countries meant that sector specialists were still essential but
that they had to develop new skills around influencing policy
and engaging in a policy dialogue.[66]
Mark Lowcock added:
"Putting money through budget does not mean
that we are not interested in the sectoral outcomes. On the contrary.
So the nature of the role of our education or health specialists
is changing. What we are asking them to do is look at—for
their sector or for the country as a whole—whether it is
making progress towards the MDGs. What we are not asking them
to do so much is to look at a relatively small project and whether
that is effective. In that sense what we are doing is scaling
up; we are trying to look to the horizon, not just in the little
narrow thing that we are financing. So there is a long and productive
future role for our sector specialists in this. Those are the
areas where we are trying to achieve outcomes."[67]
57. Budgetary support throws up new challenges for
DFID staff. There is a danger that DFID offices could become unduly
focussed on financial accountability and contacts with recipient
governments. DFID is well aware of the danger and of the need
to maintain contacts and activities in areas outside government;
civil society and the private sector are also vital partners in
development. We hope that the development of an effective common
audit approach by recipient countries' State Audit Institutions
will avoid the need for too great a change in the skills mix
of DFID country teams.
58. Provided DFID is able to balance the benefits
with the risks, we support the move towards budget support
where suitable partners can be found, and outcomes—closely
aligned to the MDGs—can be reliably predicted. The willingness
to withdraw or temporarily suspend support demonstrates that there
is no open-ended commitment to giving budget support[68]
It is also reassuring to hear that decisions on where to move
to budgetary support are, as with the PRSP itself, part of a collective
process of discussion with other donors. There are however some
outstanding areas of concern. DFID tries to engage in those countries
where it sees itself as having a comparative advantage. It is
difficult to see how it is possible to talk about comparative
advantage in countries where a number of donors are simply collaborating
on pooling contributions to an education department. In a similar
vein, where budgetary support is pooled, the ability to attribute
outcomes to DFID spending becomes even more difficult. We would
like to see more information on the use of budgetary support contained
with the annual Departmental Report and suggest that next year's
Departmental Report provides a breakdown in the bilateral allocations
between money given through direct budget support and allocations
for programmes and projects.
59. We were interested to hear about DFID's decision-making
processes as regards involvement in all the cases mentioned; Latin
America, the Sahel, Nigeria, Russia, Mozambique, Uganda and Kenya.
We would welcome the inclusion of similar material in future Departmental
Reports. Such information improves DFID's accountability by demonstrating
the link between DFID's objectives and spending plans, and by
making more explicit DFID's overall strategy. In addition, by
facilitating open discussion and learning about what works, a
move in this direction might help to improve DFID's effectiveness.
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