By Douglas Gillison
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
Foreign aid consultants, typically costing $17,000 each month to provide their expertise to Cambodia and other developing countries, are part of a wasteful, discredited development model, the British NGO ActionAid said in a report released Wednesday.
Working alongside Cambodian civil servants who typically earn official government salaries of $40 a month, many foreign experts receive large salaries that amount to about half their income, with hardship allowances and compensation for travel, rent and school fees for their children accounting for the rest, according to the report, "Real Aid: Making Technical Assistance Work."
"All of these costs would presumably be saved if local experts were employed," observes the report, which examined aid to Sierra Leone, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Cambodia.
As the mainstay of assistance to developing countries, the system of consultants, research, training and instructing Cambodians in how to govern better "sits like a fossilized relic within the aid system," consuming money that could be spent alleviating poverty, ActionAid said.
Despite the consultants' high salaries, such costly assistance often fails, as these experts know that "their continued employment may hinge on the existence of capacity gaps" and so do not pass on their knowledge, according the report.
"In Cambodia, a number of interviewees observed that advisers often write reports that no one reads because they are long and in English," it says.
In its report, ActionAid claims that roughly half of all overseas development, aid, or $37 billion, is "phantom aid." Such money is not available for poverty alleviation because it is actually assigned for debt relief or is required to be spent in the donors' home countries.
Technical assistance represents a quarter of all global aid.
The report does not provide spending figures for individual countries, but globally at least $19 billion was spent on technical assistance in 2004, it states.
Government spokesman and Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said Cambodia was well aware that donor assistance was somewhat self-serving.
"Such assistance is better than none coming in," he said. "It’s normal that they should look after their citizens, too."
One long-term foreign consultant in Cambodia said on condition of anonymity that vast differences between the salaries of Cambodians and foreigners can encourage Cambodians to view their positions as an opportunity to take a slice of the aid pie.
"When [government officials] see that the expert's salary is so big, they say, 'Why shouldn't I take some of this money?' And when the expert sees this, they say, 'Then I should help myself, too, '" he said.
He added that there is a stereotype in Cambodia of foreign aid experts making a lot of money and doing little work.
"This is kind of a caricature, which is usually not far away from the truth," he said, adding that some advisers are genuinely inefficient while others do good work.
A second long-term foreign consultant in Cambodia said that consultants produce lengthy reports with plenty of background because the government and donors ask them to.
"Why don't they say in the job description, please don't write more than 10 pages?" he asked.
Consultants do sometimes do the work themselves rather than passing on skills to their Cambodian counterparts, he acknowledged.
"Many of these consultants have never functioned as teachers...so how do you expect them to teach their counterparts? On the other hand, the government counterparts don't necessarily have the capacity to listen," he said.
He also said that if the government and donors don't want foreign consultants, they can get rid of them, and that when it comes to the aid industry, it is consultants who actually do the heavy work.
"The staff of these [donor] agencies just have meetings. They don't do the work," he said.
(Additional reporting by Pin Sisovann and William Shaw)
Working alongside Cambodian civil servants who typically earn official government salaries of $40 a month, many foreign experts receive large salaries that amount to about half their income, with hardship allowances and compensation for travel, rent and school fees for their children accounting for the rest, according to the report, "Real Aid: Making Technical Assistance Work."
"All of these costs would presumably be saved if local experts were employed," observes the report, which examined aid to Sierra Leone, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Cambodia.
As the mainstay of assistance to developing countries, the system of consultants, research, training and instructing Cambodians in how to govern better "sits like a fossilized relic within the aid system," consuming money that could be spent alleviating poverty, ActionAid said.
Despite the consultants' high salaries, such costly assistance often fails, as these experts know that "their continued employment may hinge on the existence of capacity gaps" and so do not pass on their knowledge, according the report.
"In Cambodia, a number of interviewees observed that advisers often write reports that no one reads because they are long and in English," it says.
In its report, ActionAid claims that roughly half of all overseas development, aid, or $37 billion, is "phantom aid." Such money is not available for poverty alleviation because it is actually assigned for debt relief or is required to be spent in the donors' home countries.
Technical assistance represents a quarter of all global aid.
The report does not provide spending figures for individual countries, but globally at least $19 billion was spent on technical assistance in 2004, it states.
Government spokesman and Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said Cambodia was well aware that donor assistance was somewhat self-serving.
"Such assistance is better than none coming in," he said. "It’s normal that they should look after their citizens, too."
One long-term foreign consultant in Cambodia said on condition of anonymity that vast differences between the salaries of Cambodians and foreigners can encourage Cambodians to view their positions as an opportunity to take a slice of the aid pie.
"When [government officials] see that the expert's salary is so big, they say, 'Why shouldn't I take some of this money?' And when the expert sees this, they say, 'Then I should help myself, too, '" he said.
He added that there is a stereotype in Cambodia of foreign aid experts making a lot of money and doing little work.
"This is kind of a caricature, which is usually not far away from the truth," he said, adding that some advisers are genuinely inefficient while others do good work.
A second long-term foreign consultant in Cambodia said that consultants produce lengthy reports with plenty of background because the government and donors ask them to.
"Why don't they say in the job description, please don't write more than 10 pages?" he asked.
Consultants do sometimes do the work themselves rather than passing on skills to their Cambodian counterparts, he acknowledged.
"Many of these consultants have never functioned as teachers...so how do you expect them to teach their counterparts? On the other hand, the government counterparts don't necessarily have the capacity to listen," he said.
He also said that if the government and donors don't want foreign consultants, they can get rid of them, and that when it comes to the aid industry, it is consultants who actually do the heavy work.
"The staff of these [donor] agencies just have meetings. They don't do the work," he said.
(Additional reporting by Pin Sisovann and William Shaw)
3 comments:
This is outrage that most of aids monies have gone back to pay salaries of foreigners consultants who are mostly very low knowledge. THerefore it must re-structure all consultant income. We shall say in every 20 millions in aids per year, Cambodia governemnt must pay one consultant so it work out;
20 millions - (US$17,000 X 12) =
US$20 miilions-US$ 204,000=US$ 19,796,000.00 It mean every donation of US$20 millions, Cambodian received US$ 19,796,000.00 instead of US$ 20 millions Cambodian can receive only US$ 5 millions.
Because of the high salary the consultants receive, the rental prices of houses in PP are as high as in Paris or even higher!
That's only one of the problem. There are no bar set as to the maximum salary for foriegn aid.
Another way to look at this. Deflecting the real corruption from the government to foriegners.
Who wouldn't mind making $17,000.00 a month living in a country that lacks rules of the laws. A servant, a driver, a cook cost less than $100 a month.
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