ON CONTRADICTION

Along with Mike Waghorne and many others, I too have made earlier comments on the draft WDR. Perhaps unlike Mike I did not really expect that my comments would be reflected in the up-date, the reason being that the WB has an ordained agenda from which it cannot deviate in any significant way.

A critique of that part of the agenda which blames lazy public servants as obstacles to delivering services for the poor has long been identified with labor unions allegedly wanting to protect such workers from the harsh realities of a market economy where labor is a resource commodity like everything else. As such it is unlikely that the WB policy drivers will accommodate Mike's views, even though they might offer him a place on the board.

I too had noted that the earlier draft WDR had a lot of positive ideas when it comes to detail, pointing to successful development projects in so-called developing countries. As an education planner at the so-called chalk face in Vanuatu (given the unenviable status of least-developed country in the region), one feels like being the last link in a chain of command that emanates from metropolitan centers like Washington and Paris, telling me what is good for the development of Vanuatu and what is not.

Perhaps the contradictory messages one receives have something to do with huge organizations like the WB and PSI who claim to represent huge constituencies and whose so-called leaders make claims on their behalf. Contradictions at this level are hard to overcome because the fate of a vast number of constituents appear to be at stake, hence such contradictions lead to stasis or worse, to conflict.

History as well as the contemporary state of global affairs are littered with tragic examples (turning to cynical farce as history repeats). Of course, these very contradictions, played out at the highest global organizational levels, are repeated at grass-roots level as well, many times over and over again. However as these contradictions involve far fewer constituents, there is a much greater chance for some of the contradictions to be solved locally.

What's more, the very subjects of the WDR, namely the poor, can engage in solving contradictions at this level. As it stands, the poor don't have much of a voice, and as long as their whispers are drowned out by the clamour of top-down policy advice the cliche will continue: the poor are getting poorer while the rich are getting richer.

Hence my humble suggestion for the WDR from below: forget about chapters 1 and 2, and concentrate on providing much needed assistance at local level. Perhaps we can then discuss at outer island village level the ultimate contradiction in that the poor want to be rich, after we installed basic services such as clean water and quality basic education.

Submitted by: Wolfgang B. Sperlich -- April 15,2003
Country of Residence: Vanuatu
Country of Origin/Citizenship: Germany
Institutional Affiliation: UNESCO
Occupation: Education Planner
Language:

I am making these comments on behalf of Public Services International. PSI is the Global Union Federation which represents 20 million public sector trade unionists around the world. It has 612 affiliates in 149 countries. PSI is an autonomous body, which works in association with Federations covering other sectors of the workforce and with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). PSI is an officially recognised non-government organisation for the public sector within the International Labour Organisation and has consultative status with ECOSOC and observer status with other UN bodies such as the UNCTAD and UNESCO.

We have taken an active and, I think, positive role in several WDRs. We are obviously interested in this WDR because so many of our members – millions of them – work in the services covered by the report. We are also interested in the report because we are currently engaged in a five-year global campaign to promote quality public services. Improving the services which the poor (should) receive is one of our objectives since we see quality services as an important tool in reducing poverty.

We should be a natural part of the audience for this report. In fact, we have already met with one or other of the Bank's writing team in the last several months. People who have good ideas on improving the quality of public services (which we see not only as those delivered by the public authorities) should be natural allies for PSI.

So, can I state from the beginning that, although there are several balanced, nuanced and sensitive chapters in this first draft, the Bank is making it virtually impossible for people such as ourselves to make positive contributions because of the extraordinary way in which it has chosen to write the overview and chapters 1 and 2. Almost everyone to whom we have spoken after they have read this early material is appalled by the arrogance, the negativity, the sensationalism, the selectivity and the tone of the material. It is language which we do not expect to find from an institution which prides itself on being a professional bank of knowledge.

It will be very difficult to get more defensive people than us to read the good parts of this report if the first few chapters are not completely rewritten in a more open and receptive manner.

Let me explain why we feel this way.

In an earlier personal message to one of the Bank’s writing team I said that 'I have never seen people react so negatively to a draft report in all the years I have worked on them. People are describing it as 'tabloid journalism' at its worst: the impression some people are getting is that the team sees the vast bulk of doctors, nurses, teachers as lazy, incompetent, rude, abusive rip-off merchants (on the few occasions when they bother to turn up at work). It's pretty hard to take the few positive messages very seriously when there is such a barrage of attacks on such workers and the services they are trying to provide in pretty tough circumstances. Doesn't match very well with what we are seeing and hearing from Iraq where such people are dropping on their feet trying to cope when their hospitals are coming under attack from the very poor and powerless they are trying to help, with no protection from the 'liberators'; nor does it match the stories we hear about the huge number of nurses and doctors getting hit by SARS. One wonders how many Bank staff would continue to turn up at work under these circumstances, especially if their salaries were already several months in arrears.'

Now, that was a gross over-reaction to a partly read report but the Bank needs to understand how people feel when they see detailed documentation of failures laid at the door of pretty poorly paid and powerless staff in non-democracies followed by some non-specific motherhood and apple-pie sop that says that it is true that it is not all like this. But even those are put in a condescending way: Para. 1.18 starts 'Even if staff show up...'. The message is clear.

There are far too many unqualified generalisations: 'services' rather than 'many/some services'; 'Teachers' rather than 'some teachers', or nurses, doctors, public service workers. Unions are overwhelmingly described throughout the report in a negative way – they are virtually only ever seen as blocking, opposing, stopping, striking, bullying. Nowhere is there any recognition of the number of unions who work closely with their governments and public employers in promoting partnerships for quality: UNISON in the UK with its partnership with the NHS; COSATU in South Africa in its collaborative work with the ANC-SACP government; PSI's public sector union affiliates in South Africa which meet with the government on a sectoral basis in bargaining councils which address public sector reform; our Czech health affiliate which meets regularly with the government in non-conflictual forums to progress health service reform (replicated in Romania and Hungary); the NZPSA and its formal Partnership for Quality Agreement with the government across all parts of the public service, a partnership which is so valued by the government that it pays a premium to the union's members because of the value-added from the union's participation; hundreds of labour-management committees all over North America, where unions and public sector managers work together in solving the problems (and they are many) in service delivery, solutions cheaper than management had dreamt up on its own; union-owned companies in Sweden which market their services to municipalities to restructure work processes and structures so that services are delivered more cheaply, of better quality and in ways that make workers more proud of their work.

The WDR clashes even with the recent publication by the Bank of 'Unions and collective bargaining: economic effects in a global environment'. That book, in somewhat of a reversal for the Bank, notes the valuable contributions of unions to improving both productivity and economic growth. Not reflected is the tripartite work done by unions with employers and governments at the ILO in addressing many of the problems dealt with by the WDR; nor is the contribution that unions make to the work of the OECD in many of its programmes geared towards improving public sector management, productivity, quality regulation, etc. The ILO tripartite work is often replicated at the national level; and just in the last three years PSI has been the lead organisation at the ILO in joint meetings with employers and governments which have reached unanimous conclusions and recommendations on reforms in the public services, health services, public utilities and emergency services.

To give a blatant example: in para. 7.79 of the report, there is discussion as to whether teacher unions have too much power. The WDR concludes that: 'Both sides can marshal empirical evidence' and then goes straight into an example of how teachers unions (not 'some') in Latin America oppose reform emphatically, stridently, using strikes and violence. And the countervailing evidence? There is none presented. The message is clear.

In the Overview (para 28), teacher unions are seen as opposing giving panchayats hire-and-fire powers. Yet, in New Zealand -- whose now reversed 'reforms' of the 1990s are lauded throughout the WDR - it was not just teachers who rejected this: rather, parents resigned from school boards when they were told that this would become part of their role, because they had not volunteered to spend time on boards to get involved in this kind of conflictual management-style.

The Bank, which has long championed 'market-clearing wages' when it wants to reduce wages in easy labour markets now (para 30) rejects such an approach when it might call for higher wages in tight/non-existent labour markets in Irian Jaya. We might agree but how about some policy coherence? In the next para, by the way, the Bank is promoting a 'spy on your competitor' approach which it will be interesting to see applied to Bank projects.

We think that, even if the market can provide some real advantages in some service provision, the report is much too optimistic about the behaviour of corporations in delivering public services. In the utilities sector, the whole debacle of the Dabhol project involving Enron points to massive corporate abuse of the political process, including undue influence from embassies, Bank staff and corporate officers. This resulted in an untenable, unsustainable project which ultimately failed from its own weaknesses. But the Bank staff would probably blame the public sector!

There have been recent admissions from the multinational water corporations that they withdrew excessive profits from the Bank-assisted privatisation/partnership/concession process in developing countries before governments became aware of these abuses. These same companies now admit that they cannot deliver services to the poor, even if the public purse pays them all costs and healthy profits. They just don't have the capacity to deliver on the scale needed. And without the public purse, they will not deliver services to the poor. So, the market will not work in these circumstances. Furthermore, in cases of replacing public monopolies with private ones, the market forces don't provide the control accountability or regulation that the Bank assumes throughout the paper. In fact, the market leads to further distortions and even less accountability and control than even under less than ideal public services. This is compounded when you attempt to impose market dynamics in small, rural or isolated villages. Competition and choice simply don't exist at a scale that allows choice, control and voice.

One further problem: is this all worthwhile anyway? Will the Bank take any notice of what we all say in the e-discussion? On the evidence so far, we are not so sure. We were given an earlier draft of one section of the report on which the Bank said it wanted our views (what is now paras 2.1 - 2.8). A group of us spent some time in trying to put together a set of eight suggestions for some text changes. What is now there reflects not a single comment we made. We wasted our time. Why should others?

So, there's a lot of good stuff in this report; some of it is essential if we are to make a difference. But people the Bank needs to convince are not going to go beyond the first few pages: this is not a way to win friends and influence people and they are not going to contribute if they cannot see that the Bank is prepared to listen.

Submitted by: Mike Waghorne -- April 15,2003
Country of Residence: France
Country of Origin/Citizenship: New Zealand
Institutional Affiliation: Public Services International (PSI)
Occupation: Trade union official
Language:

I assume these are basic services like primary education, public health and immunisation, drinking water, sanitation etc. In this discussion, when it come to the level at which services are provided. what is the government's responsibility? Does it provie thses services itself, or facilitate the provision of such services? Do the service providers locally see themselves as agents for someone, or are they local governments?
clarity on this will help in design of working systems

Submitted by: Vinod Vyasulu -- April 15,2003
Country of Residence: India
Country of Origin/Citizenship: India
Institutional Affiliation: Centre for Budget and Policy Studies
Occupation: Economist
Language:

I am leading the moderating team for this e-discussion on the 2004 World Development Report and I would like to welcome everyone to what we hope will be a productive and at times passionate debate.

Judging by the opening statement from Mike Waghorne, of Public Services International, we do not expect to be disappointed!

Mike's remarks are much longer than we would generally encourage, but we think that, like the WDR 2004 draft itself, it contains much useful detail from a variety of countries that is worthy of your attention. PSI represents some 20 million public service workers and Mike feels that their commitment to their jobs and to overcoming the obstacles to bringing services to the poor is not represented in the report.

While acknowledging that there is 'lots of good stuff' in the WDR draft, he feels it is too negative about public service workers and too positive about the contribution market forces can play in public service delivery. He is also outspoken about multinational corporate providers of public services, which he says are incapable of serving poor people.

What do you think? Please join in the discussion and make your voice heard!

Submitted by: Brendan Martin -- April 14,2003
Country of Residence: United Kingdom
Country of Origin/Citizenship: Ireland
Institutional Affiliation: Public World
Occupation: Consultant
Language: