Outside help: The true cost of consultants

This year, as the world political leaders reviewed and discussed the progress so far made in achieving the celebrated United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) there has been a lot of media attention paid to the MDGs. Generally, to a great extent, discussions of MDGs often reflect a worldview in which the MDGs are largely taken as a given. For the most part, it is generally portrayed that it is feasible to achieve the MDGs and that their achievement will automatically and most viably benefit the global South. Indeed, the MDGs have attained a status which makes them appear as though they were the absolute truth and that they have an intrinsic nature of being genuinely and purely philanthropic goals – with the rich countries of the global north being the philanthropists with a heart of gold. So, when I read a scathing critique of the MDGs by Samir Amin, a renowned scholar from the global south, I was jolted. Particularly so, by Amin’s revelation claiming ‘Ted Gordon, a…consultant for the CIA, drafted the millennium goals!’ Amin further asserts that the MDGs ‘were not the result of an initiative from the (global) south itself, but were pushed primarily by the triad – the United States, Europe and Japan – and were co-sponsored by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’.

Well, you might be asking yourself, so what if the MDGs were drafted by a CIA consultant and were sponsored by the triad? The relevance to Ugandan and sub-Saharan Africa as a whole is the link between the consultant, the policies (MDGs) and the intended ultimate beneficiaries of the policies (the poor, most of who are in the global south). In my view, the consultant is often on the side of ‘he who pays the piper’, but, I do appreciate that there have been times, though quite rare, when a consultant has differed from ‘he who pays the piper’. If we accept that the MDGs were drafted by a consultant (piper) who is on the pay roll of the CIA, then it is logically legitimate for one to ask the question, who really benefits from the MDGs?

Utilising the example of the MDGs, I would like to put a spotlight on Uganda’s obsession with outside help, usually in form of technical support through a certain kind of external consultants (we-know-what-is-good-for-you kind). Indeed, in most government departments and ministries, Ugandan officials are so keen to be seen as open to being ‘helped’ by outsiders; particularly so, in the eyes of their ‘development partners’ – funders and the financial institutions from which they seek financing (grants and loans). It is often the case that Ugandan government departments will seek ‘outside help’ from external consultants, of the we-know… kind, to ‘help’ them to pinpoint what problems Uganda is facing and how Uganda can go about solving the problems. Is the obsession with these consultants, as policy originators, a healthy one for Uganda? In part answer to this question, I am reminded of a lunchtime banter with highly ranking Ugandan executives, during which one of them joked that in his experience he has never come across a consultant who literally does not have two hands. You see, for the consultant it is always a win-win situation. She comes into your organisation, listens to you, repeats to you what you have told her, and presents to you multiple scenarios, prefixed with ‘on-the-one-hand’ blah, blah, blah and ‘on-the-other-hand’ blah, blah, blah. So, in effect, for each problem the consultant gives you at least two hands (‘on- the-one-hand’ and ‘on-the-other-hand’). In reality, therefore, whoever hired the consultant still has the duty of digesting all the consultant’s findings and then making a decision of which literal hand to adopt. The consultant remains with a very easy way out – ‘I advised them and they chose to ignore my advice’.

Sometimes, in hiring the consultant, government departments neglect to listen to the internal voices emanating from their own people. The internal voices are often consciously or in some cases unconsciously ignored and drowned by the deafening calls of ‘we need outside help from an expert consultant’. Considering that in most cases the consultant will be paid for saying a version of what the ignored voices have been saying all the while, it is fascinating how the ‘new’ ideas from the consultant are taken as a given, and are elevated, just like the MDGs, as the absolute truth. In fact, for a government official, challenging the findings of an expert external consultant can in some cases lead to one losing one’s job.

I am persuaded by those who opine that it might actually be less costly for Uganda government departments to take the time to listen to the internal voices of the people of Uganda and those of Africa in general. Internal listening can be facilitated by effective internal country communication systems, which should include regular face-face-meetings within and between government officials of government departments; between government officials and politicians; between government officials and ordinary persons; etc.

Internal listening can also be facilitated by hiring outside help of another kind of consultant, who appreciates that she does not necessarily know what is good for a particular government department or country, but has the skills to help the department or country to go through a process of self-discovery. Without careful listening to the internal voices, the government of Uganda will most certainly not be able to advance practical and useful policies that will be genuinely embraced by Ugandans at the grassroots.

Considering, as a matter of fact, that it is the norm that consultants will present their findings in the most general and in extremely vague terms that could be interpreted either way, the heavy reliance on external consultants as originators of policies can be detrimental for Uganda and African countries in general. For example, the time that the government spends on building internal consensus on and a common understanding of what the policies actually mean, what activities are appropriate, and how success should be measured, etc is a valuable resource wasted.

Some may argue, this is exactly the state of affairs that is facilitating and hindering the achievement of MDGs, with some of the nations registering major successes and others lagging far behind – they have each interpreted the MDGs differently. I am convinced that those countries that are doing better are those that are listening more to the voices within their own countries. I tend to subscribe to the structuralism point of view that it is pointless to make promises about what a policy is going to achieve without addressing the structural processes that facilitate the sustenance of the current status quo.

In the context of this article, the major impediment is that of insufficient listening, by government to the internal voices within the country. So, whatever brilliant ‘new’ ideas are advanced from whatever literal hand of the consultant, unless the government listens more to the internal voices, the success of implementing the new ideas will only be achieved through an uphill struggle at best, and probably never.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the case with the MDGs. On the one hand, for example, it is proclaimed that the whole world is in unison and is working to reduce extreme poverty and hunger by half; while on the other hand neoliberal policies – such as unregulated capitalism – that promote greed, and were responsible for the financial crisis, are forced upon the poorer countries of sub-Saharan Africa, further pushing the citizens of these countries into extreme poverty.

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* Norah Owaraga is a sociologist and the CEO of Executive Support Services.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.