If I pay someone to wash my clothes, then it is with the assumption that the clothes will be clean after being properly washed. What I want to buy is not ‘washing’ but ‘clean clothes’. And if my clothes don’t get clean, I will blame the person who washed them.

When toilets don’t lead to decreased infant mortality, when smokeless chulos don’t reduce the cases of bronchitis, when literacy doesn’t lead to empowerment - when ‘development’ fails - who is to blame?

Usually nobody. The donor gave money for literacy training (for the washing) and a small NGO carried out the literacy programme (did the washing). That’s it. And in most cases nobody even bothered to measure the amount of ‘empowerment’ that came out of that (whether the clothes were clean or not).

But if we actually looked for the impact and if we found out that increased ‘literacy’ did not lead to ‘increased empowerment’ then what? Then it may be slightly embarrassing for the donor, which paid and the NGO that carried out the work. But not more than that. They are not the ones to wear the ‘dirty clothes’.

So when ‘development’ fails, who should we blame? Or said in another way - who is responsible? Using the washing analogy the donor which paid should blame the NGO which did the ‘washing’ without delivering ‘clean clothes’. That’s the market principles. Donors want the product ‘Women’s Empowerment’. Who ever can deliver this ‘good’ gets the money - the rest are out of business. Fair enough, isn’t it?

Most people will say ‘No’. But - fair or not - that is to some extent what happens. NGOs scan the market - that is the donors’ policy papers - to find out what is the ‘Development Model 2001’ that is most in demand? ‘Sustainable Development’, ‘Women’s Empowerment’, ‘Advocacy’, ‘Solidarity’, ‘Peace, Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation’, - and offer their services to the donors. What you look for mister, is what I have got here.

But of course we cannot use the ‘washing clothes’ analogy for various reasons. The most important is that the one who pays the money is not the one who wears the clothes. The donor is not the beneficiary - at least not the official beneficiary. Therefore the donor rarely notices if the clothes are clean - s/he just pays for the washing. And the second reason why the washing analogy doesn’t work is that while the assumption that ‘proper washing leads to clean clothes’ is quite simple and well tested, this is much less the case with ‘literacy training leads to empowerment’.

So what has all this to do with MS/Nepal and the NGOs that they co-operate with ? A lot.

The MS Policy Paper says that MS will start reporting on impact - they will start to check if the clothes actually get clean by all the washing. Fair enough. But the next question, that as least some will put, is : ‘and if not who is to blame?’.

There is no doubt that a lot of our partners are afraid that they will be blamed if all the washing doesn’t give clean clothes - if literacy doesn’t empower, if toilets don’t improve health, if …… And for that reason they don’t even want to know if the clothes are clean. And that’s the problem - the NGOs do the washing but MS rarely sees the clothes. They are too busy. And is MS clear on this? Who is responsible? Will MS blame the NGO which promises to deliver ‘empowerment’ but only carries out ‘literacy’? Will the ‘donor’ MS look for a more efficient ‘empowerment’ provider? Or is the assumption that literacy training leads to empowerment a shared assumption? MS talks about partnerships with shared values and visions. But maybe we ought to talk more about the ‘development’ assumptions.

If the many ‘donor-recipient’ relations that are called ‘partnerships’ are going to become more equal relationships, and if at the same time we are going to be honest about successes and failures in ‘development’ then it is important that assumptions are the responsibility of both. We - MS and the NGO - have to say: we have common vision and values and that is fine. But on the more practical level we have some common assumptions. Such as: we believe that if women participate in a literacy programme of such and such type, then their self-respect and the respect of others increase so as to enable women to influence village decisions, to get more control over household finances etc. Now if the literacy programme is carried out and if the women did not become empowered, who has failed? Well of course the women have failed, but MS and the NGO have together failed and they are equally responsible for that failure because they both were convinced of the ‘if - then’ assumption - the strategy.

Let us make it clear in discussions and partnership documents that, while most activities are the responsibility of the NGO, then whether the assumptions hold or not is a common thing. If they don’t, then both partners will have to sit down and discuss what this ‘experiment’ has taught us and which is the way forward based on new common assumptions about ‘doing development’.

And if they involve the people who ‘wear the clothes’, they have a much better possibility of ‘assuming right’ next time.