Andrew Mitchell the Shadow International Development Secretary has said that an incoming Tory government would radically shake up DFID (The Department for International Development), which I have to say is a fantastic thing.
One of the judicial reform projects I've been working on in Nigeria was originally DFID funded, DFID have sunk a huge amount of money into a project that from its inception has never worked and rewarded contracts to companies who have failed to deliver time and time again. They've also totally failed to spot that the real issue in the project has been local capacity of staff not technology. The situation has in fact got so bad with the project that the Lagos State government have decided to effectively forgo ongoing DFID funding and selected their own suppliers and will be self funding the project moving forward.
Some of the key areas that Andrew Mitchell has said he will be looking at is inviting in outsiders to review projects and funding, transforming the kind of work it does and how it operates (more business focused or even civil service focused over it's current NGO style) and carrying out proper reviews not just of spending but out outputs.
If any of this had been happening then I'm sure that the project I'm working on would not be in the state it's in, so a review and radical shake-up of DFID's work can only be a good thing
Showing posts with label nigeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nigeria. Show all posts
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Lagos, dealing with politics of a different kind
I'm in Lagos, Nigeria for a week working very intensely on a project to automate the high courts of Lagos State. Internet here is pretty erratic at best so my blog posts and tweets might be a bit sparse or irrelvant to those back in the UK.
Much of this week is being taken up dealing with internal politics, not the grand national or local level politics, but the hierarchies and political maneuvering that happens in any organisation and seems to happen even more so in the civil service of any country.
The organisation I am working with has been drafted in to basically make good a workflow and document management system that entered development nearly 6 years ago and launched nearly 4 years ago but today is barely used. The original project was funded by DFID through the British Council's Strength, growth and Justice programme and focused mainly on technology although there was some business process re-engineering done, all by an American company.
The technology itself has not really been the failure, it's technically a good system, but it fails to take into account the people. For it to be implemented properly working practices had to change, business processes had to be modified and this just hasn't happened. The internal politics weren't taken into account in the implementation phase so it's stalled.
This inertia to change is largest in the so called frontline staff of the civil service (anywhere in the world), the people who actually carry out the processes and use the IT system, middle managers and senior managers will go along with it but people at the bottom seem to hate change. This issue will I think be one of the largest to be overcome by an incoming Conservative government that is determined to cut the deficit through efficiency savings.
Much of this week is being taken up dealing with internal politics, not the grand national or local level politics, but the hierarchies and political maneuvering that happens in any organisation and seems to happen even more so in the civil service of any country.
The organisation I am working with has been drafted in to basically make good a workflow and document management system that entered development nearly 6 years ago and launched nearly 4 years ago but today is barely used. The original project was funded by DFID through the British Council's Strength, growth and Justice programme and focused mainly on technology although there was some business process re-engineering done, all by an American company.
The technology itself has not really been the failure, it's technically a good system, but it fails to take into account the people. For it to be implemented properly working practices had to change, business processes had to be modified and this just hasn't happened. The internal politics weren't taken into account in the implementation phase so it's stalled.
This inertia to change is largest in the so called frontline staff of the civil service (anywhere in the world), the people who actually carry out the processes and use the IT system, middle managers and senior managers will go along with it but people at the bottom seem to hate change. This issue will I think be one of the largest to be overcome by an incoming Conservative government that is determined to cut the deficit through efficiency savings.
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