International Assistance and Enterprise Development

Abstract

Immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain, a wide range of Western aid initiatives, governmental programmes and non-governmental organisations rushed in to shape political alliances and new markets, and to support social development in the former communist bloc. With varying missions and capacities these groups sometimes left positive marks but in many cases exacerbated already existing distortions and created new problems for the region. Consultants of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and others who advised on economic reforms knew little of the capabilities of the general population and of their governments. They instead used analogies with Eastern Europe and Russia and often applied the same prescriptions. They also failed to appreciate that the regions’ leaders understood almost nothing about how a Western-oriented market economy might operate for them. Consequently, ephemeral and disjointed policies led to confusion and a crippling lack of focus. The absence of any credible international engagements analogous to the role played by the European Union in Eastern Europe left the region without an anchored vision or concrete incentives about any transition. After almost two decades of engagement we now witness wariness on both sides. Western organisations and their experts who spent years in this vast geography express their pessimism about any ‘successful transition’ of, what they dismissively call, ‘the Stans’.

A Kyrgyz shepherd was tending his flock when a Land Rover sped up from across the high meadow. A well-dressed young foreigner jumped out and asked: ‘Tell me young man, if I guess the exact number of sheep you have here, will you give me one?’ When the shepherd agreed, the foreigner pulled out his laptop computer, connected it to his satellite phone, downloaded some NASA data, scanned the hillside region with his digital video camera and said ‘You have exactly 1,586 sheep over here’.

‘Indeed’, said the shepherd ‘now take your lamb’.

The man grabbed the nearest animal and carried it to his vehicle. The shepherd then asked: ‘If I guess your profession, will you give me the animal back?’

‘Alright, then’, said the man.

‘You are an international management and development consultant’, said the shepherd.

The foreigner was impressed, ‘Correct, but how did you know?’

‘Easy’, the shepherd replied. ‘First, you came all the way up here when nobody ever asked for you. Second, you demanded payment to tell me things that I already know. And third, you don’t know anything about who we are and how we live. Now give me back my dog!’

Adapted from Ferguson¹