Foreign advisors and capacity building: The case of Kenya
| Published date | 01 December 1992 |
| Author | John M. Cohen |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230120506 |
| Date | 01 December 1992 |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, VOL. 12,493-5
10
(1992)
Foreign advisors and capacity building: the case
of
Kenya
JOHN M. COHEN
Harvard Institute for International Development
SUMMARY
Approximately
100,000
foreign advisors work in the public sectors of Sub-Saharan African
countries at an annual cost
of
more than
$4
billion. The numbers, range of services, and
costs of such advisors increased during the
1980s
while at the same time donors launched
new efforts to build professional capacity in the African civil service. Based on a study
of
advisors and their counterpart economists in Kenya’s Ministry of Planning and National
Development, this article addresses three important questions: what are the functions carried
out by advisors in the development ministries?;
why
is it
so
difficult to retain skilled
pro-
fessionals in the civil service?; and how does the provision
of
advisors affect the retention
of skilled government officers?*
INTRODUCTION
In the late 1980s some 100,000 donor funded expatriate advisors worked in the
public sectors of
40
Sub-Saharan African countries at an annual cost of more than
$4
billion, nearly
35
per cent of Official Development Aid to the region (World
Bank, 1989, p. 181). A few are highly visible, such as Mr Jean Collin, a former
French colonial servant who was presidential chief of staff in Senegal from 1981
to 1987 and Mr Antoine Cesareo, a Tunisian, who has served
as
director-general
of the Ivory Coast’s public works agency for the past decade. (Brooke, 1987, p.
1). But most are less visible economic policy advisors, financial management and
administration experts, and technical specialists serving the continent’s ministries
and para-statals.
Given the investments that governments and donors have made in national
universities and overseas graduate training programmes, as well as the financial
drain costly advisor services place on a country’s total foreign resources, the number
of experts should be declining. Yet, their numbers, range of services and costs rose
during the 1980s, largely because of increased donor pressure on governments to
address difficult development problems and the inability of those governments to
pay their own experts at salary levels that ensure their retention in the civil service.
Few studies explore the relationship between provision of advisors and constraints
on local professional capacity building. This article contributes to this limited litera-
ture by addressing three critical issues: what types of foreign experts are there and
what are their roles and functions?; how does the presence of advisors affect efforts
to build local professional capacity?; and why do African governments have trouble
*Dr Cohen is an Institute Fellow of the Harvard Institute for International Development,
I,
Eliot Street,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
0271-2075/92/050493-18$14.00
0
1992
by John Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.
494
J.
M.
Cohen
retaining competent professionals? In addressing these questions, the article draws
on a case study of advisors in Kenya’s Ministry of Planning and National Develop-
ment
(
MPND).
’
DEBATE OVER EXPATRIATE ADVISORS
IN
KENYA
In
mid-1985
it was estimated that of the
9,000
expatriates working in Kenya,
450
were in the civil service and
200
in other public institutions, such as para-statals,
universities, and technical institutes.2 This is a relatively small number given that
total civil service establishment at the time was
268,669
persons,
32,481
of
whom
held university or advanced degrees. (Republic of Kenya,
1987,
p.
227).
These resident advisors are submerged in a multi-racial country that serves
as
a major diplomatic and business center for Eastern Africa. Some
55,000
‘Europeans’
live side-by-side with an African population of
21.5
million (Central Bureau of Statis-
tics,
1990).
Because the majority live in Nairobi, the presence of advisors
is
not
immediately apparent. Yet, they are easily recognized in the halls
of
government
and are subject to much discussion
by
politicians, civil servants, donor staff, and
journalists. Some observers believe advisors are absolutely essential and others con-
tend they are unnecessary and hold back government efforts to Kenyanise. The
pro-advisor position
is
reflected by David Lamb, who argues:
‘If you look at the handful of African countries that have combined econ-
omic progress with political stability since independence
.
.
.
(they) use
a
large number of Europeans in the private and public sectors. By moving
cautiously in the “Africanization’ of their economies, the countries main-
tained a level of expertise in key positions and were less apt to be run
on a trial-and-error basis by untrained Africans.’ (Lamb,
1982,
pp.
295-6).
An opposing view is represented by Hilary Ngweno, the editor of a widely read
news journal. In an editorial criticizing the amount of foreign aid absorbed by advisors
he contends:
‘.
. .
there is a question of how expert the foreign experts are. It has now
become an acceptable fact, even to the donor community itself, that many
foreign experts are mediocrities whose level of skills would not qualify
them for comparative jobs in their own countries.’ (Ngweno,
1986,
p.
2).
Rarely do statements get more specific, which in part explains the inconsistencies
among them. Government officials, the press and donor representatives simply gener-
alize about advisors and their effects on African capacity building with little regard
for the fact that there are a number of different types of advisors, a range of reasons
why they are needed by the Government and funded by donors, and significant
~
’
The assigned functions
of
the Ministry are: national development planning, evaluation of economic
issues, rural development and district level planning, Central Bureau of Statistics, regional-cooperation
and preferential trade matters, and resource surveys and remote sensing. The current strategies, objectives
and projects of the Ministry are found in: Republic of Kenya (April
1992,
pp.
219-24).
‘Expatriate Workers: Time to
Go
Home?’,
Weekly
Review
(October
18,
1985).
p.
7,9.
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