NN42, June 2009
A Safari Towards Aid Effectiveness?
Donor-Aided Reform of the Lao Education System ? the Role of Vietnam
By Valerie Emblen, University of Birmingham
Email: vemblen@hotmail.comKeywords
Lao; Vietnam
Summary
Using the Lao PDR as an example, this piece reminds us that aid partnerships between donors and recipients are influenced by many other factors than the two parties themselves.
This article is based on my doctoral study in the Lao People?s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), which has investigated the discourse of educational reform between donor and government.
In the article I argue that a simple area of negotiation between two powers is governed by many more factors than are immediately apparent. The point is not that a discourse is embedded in wider discourses, but that there are a number of discourses that don?t come to the partnership table and that donors may try to seek simple situations in what are in fact very complex situations.
In Lao PDR a lot has been invested in partnership. Following the model of the Paris Declaration, a Vientiane Declaration has been signed. Government/donor working groups have been set up with a series of sector groups. Donors are open about their commitment to increased transparency, democracy, and human rights; however they are also working on less well flagged-up agendas such as winning hearts and minds, establishing world financial systems and maintaining good relationships in South East Asia.
Lao PDR is a socialist state, highly centralised and run by a Politburo, with no pretension to human rights or free speech. The country has had a close relationship with their neighbour Vietnam, which has acted as a big brother for many years. 10 of the 11 members of the Politburo speak fluent Vietnamese - a measure of their long term relationship with Vietnam. It is a joke in Lao PDR that what Vietnam does today Lao does tomorrow, but one which is taken seriously. In discussion of education reform an official told me quite seriously; ?Mother tongue teaching isn?t in our plans yet, but it will be by the end of the year because Vietnam is piloting a curriculum now?.
While Lao works with bi- and multi-lateral donors to boost its economy, and raise standards of education and health care, it is also trying to avoid donor-imposed conditions for political change and transparency. Donors avoid confrontation; for example the words ?human rights? do not appear in donor/Lao documents, the word participation is used instead. At the same time, Vietnam and China are both investing heavily in Lao. A wide range of investment includes agriculture, mining, road building and dam construction for hydroelectric power; much of the work is not supported by bi- and multi-lateral donor agencies because of the likelihood of environmental damage. In the north of Lao PDR, Vietnam is covering the land with oil palm plantations. More worrying to the Lao people are the concessions of whole districts and even areas of the capital city to the Chinese. China has played the role of wicked step brother in the past but now is courting Lao. Education is an important tool for wielding influence and cultivating up and coming Lao leaders through scholarships and educational, vocational, ideological training that takes them to China. Vietnam also wields influence in education through low cost technical support, scholarships, model school building, and so on. Both China and Vietnam are listed as members of the education sub-group of donors or development partners, but their representatives have never attended. Importantly investment/aid from both China and Vietnam comes without overt pre-conditions.
Lao is subject to strong pressures from its neighbours but internal factors also give direction to development. One of these factors is ?Lao-ness?, a difficult concept to quantify but one exerting influence on the shape of development. In general Lao-ness refers to a set of values that Lao people see as defining them as different from the rest of the world. Foreigners become aware of it very quickly as they are measured against their closeness to Lao-ness. A consequence is that Lao people would rather work with Asian neighbours than European and American colleagues, because they are seen to be culturally closer and are more likely to be in sympathy with Lao?s situation, and by implication less likely to impose ?foreign? solutions. To illustrate this further I quote a conversation with several Lao MoE staff who have received considerable support from international technical assistance. I asked them, ?What makes good technical assistance?? Three answers were given: the first, knowledge of the Lao situation. Further probing revealed this means respect for the Lao ways of behaving. The second was the ability to communicate, meaning expressing ideas clearly and not making recipients feel stupid. Only third came good technical skills.
What can be concluded from this brief discussion? The asymmetry of partnerships between western donors and governments has been discussed in the literature of development (see for example Wohlgemuth in Norrag News 41). However, in looking closely at the dialogue between government and donors in Lao PDR we see, rather than a simple power imbalance, a number of actors whose agendas are influencing the partnership. Mason (Norrag News 41) links a shift in the theory of development cooperation from the imposition of ?best practice? by the North to the partnership mode ? from a modern perspective based in universals and absolutes to plural approaches which in turn, leads to a partnership model. I would argue that partnership in Lao PDR tries to straddle both modes of operation. Both actors are bringing their ?grand narratives? (Lyotard 1984) to a partnership mode - that is universals such as socialism, Laoness, western values.
There is a danger of trying to fit partnership into what Giddens calls ?reified mode? with the danger of ?the erasing of indeterminacy?. Effort may go into working on the partnership process as if it were an object, something that can be moulded, manipulated and perfected from within it, rather than acknowledging the many factors and actors influencing relationships between donors and governments. We may be looking for tidy solutions to development in what is in fact a very untidy situation.
References
Lyotard, J. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
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