Getting paid to attend a meeting or training for

one’s own benefit sounds too good to be true, but

in Tanzania and many other African countries this

is a daily reality for many. In this article Job de

Graaf narrates how allowances grew from an

incentive to a habit which went out of control.

In Tanzania numerous well attended workshops and

meetings are held every day which are supported

with funds from international development aid.

These include training for farmers, planners, health

workers, etc. and they cover a wide range of topics.

At first glance it is of course a good thing that such a

transfer of knowledge takes place, but

unfortunately there are other motives involved.

The donor culture of the recent decades has

resulted in a situation whereby most participants

give more importance to the financial compensation

they will get than to the expansion of their

knowledge or skills. A workshop in which no

allowances will be paid can be assured of a poor

attendance.

HISTORY

The use of allowances began in earnest in the early

'90s, a period marked by a significant change in

approach in the development sector, moving from a

top-down approach to a more participatory one.

The contribution of the 'target group' became a

high priority and their participation in the design

and implementation of activities was stimulated.

That period was also the beginning of a more

measurable and result-oriented approach. For this

purpose, a special planning tool was introduced that

originated in the U.S. Army and was first used by

USAID in development aid. The Logical Framework

is a very detailed planning methodology with

objectives, activities, resources and verifiable

results in one schedule. Naturally, the column in

which the results were recorded received the most

attention. However, results were often recorded in

the form of outputs (e.g. 100 farmers trained)

without the measuring of the impact of the training.

One does not need to have much imagination to see

that development organizations benefited from

having full houses at their workshops.

During the same period Dutch, German and

Scandinavian Aid supported District Development

Programs and also initiated large projects with a

focus on agro-forestry and traditional irrigation

improvement. Although these were new programs

for the donors, for many Tanzanians this was a déjà

vu. Most of them had grown up with Tanzania's

socialist development approach and its emphasis on

rural development. The Ujamaa philosophy resulted

in many large-scale development initiatives in the

1960s and '70s, most of which were funded by

foreign donors. One consequence of the poor

impact of these major programs was a form of

"development fatigue" emerging. The rural

population showed little interest in yet another

project that was most likely to fail.

In order to create good participation “attendance

allowances" were introduced with the aim of

enticing officials, local project staff and even

beneficiaries to meetings and workshops. The main

justification (as we were told) was that Tanzanian

officials and project staff were poorly paid and

subsequently had a low morale. The introduction

proved a successful formula and was widely known

as 'sitting allowance', one was paid to sit. Before the

meeting or training one signed the register and at

the end of the day one received his or her daily

allowance. For development organizations, this

approach resulted in catching two birds with one

stone: (1) there was good and controlled

participation and (2) the log frames could easily be

filled.

Ph

oto

: Ro

el B

urg

ler

SITTING ALLOWANCES

WELL PAID AUDIENCES

TALKING CULTURE

In the new millennium international political

pressure on development organizations to hand

over projects and activities to local partner

organizations increased. The direct result was an

rapidly expanding meeting and workshop culture

(under the name of capacity building), facilitated

and funded by development agencies. Again the

allowances played a major role in achieving these

objectives and full houses could thus be realized, a

phenomenon which can be best described as a self-

fulfilling prophecy. Tanzanian professionals with a

sense of humour will give a wry smile when the

word "capacity building" is mentioned, as for many

of them it is synonymous with an endless string of

lucrative workshops, trainings and evaluations.

Two decades after the introduction of the 'sitting

allowances' this phenomenon has become

institutionalized with far-reaching negative

consequences. First of all development work has

become more than ever a talking-culture in which

the majority of experts spend most of their time

attending meetings, trainings and workshops. So far

they still appear to be justifiable in project

applications, with little critical analysis by the

donors or organizations themselves on the

necessity and effectiveness of these meetings.

Tanzanian NGO workers in a popular sector (HIV,

gender, microfinance, etc.) can easily double or

triple their salary just by attending these meetings.

For many, it has become the most important part of

their professional life and they barely have time to

involve themselves in implementing their work. On

average 20-30 euro per day is paid to those

attending meetings outside the big cities, while in

big cities like Dar es Salaam and Arusha allowances

can easily reach 50-75 per day. In comparison, the

(very low) minimum monthly wage in Tanzania is

65 euros.

ON STRIKE

For those people who are motivated to do

development work the allowance culture has

become a huge obstacle, because without it hardly

anyone can be motivated. A good example is told by

Justin Lyatuu, an enthusiastic young man with a

degree in community development from a

reputable Tanzanian university. The water project in

which he works is funded by the World Bank and

managed by the District Council and the NGO which

employs him. His main task is to mobilize the

villagers for their active involvement in the project.

The first village meetings he helped to organize

were well attended, but this changed quickly when

the villagers discovered that no allowances were

paid to attend meetings. Simultaneously, he was

under pressure from District officials, who

constantly pestered him to give them day

allowances, for which his organization had no

budget.

At national level the pressure is even higher with

Tanzanian policy advisors of international

organizations complaining about the ever increasing

demands by ministerial staff to provide them with

per diems when they are invited to discuss their

projects. It is now an established fact that when

organizations want government officials involved in

a project, they must be willing to pay for these

services. A good example is the story of Robert

Gamalier, who leads a small NGO which focuses on

unemployed youths. Together with them he tries to

develop activities through which they can get an

independent income. For a recent workshop Robert

had invited relevant District officials, but he had to

cancel this after getting a hefty price list of the

allowances to be paid. The meeting went ahead

without the officials, but on the third day the young

participants went on strike to put their own

demand across for day allowances.

Marc Bergeron works for the French development

agency FERT, a local micro credit organization that

primarily supports small farmers in northern

Tanzania. He explains how as an experienced

development worker he thinks more discerning

than his younger French colleagues who would like

to implement a stricter policy on giving allowances

to beneficiaries. He clearly sees dangers in giving

allowances, but he finds the amounts small and not

comparable with those of international

organizations. The beneficiaries are farmers and

their Board argues that the allowances should be

considered as a kind of compensation for the loss of

productive labour while attending meetings or

workshops. However, Marc does agree that some of

the allowances could easily be paid by the farmers’

organizations themselves. Many of the farmers’

visits to their organization in the town result in

substantial loans with favourable terms. But one

Sitting Allowances article - page 2

way or another, expectations of donor-supported

NGOs are different than from a commercial bank. At

those banks farmers will be required to pay their

own travel expenses and would face a much higher

interest rate for their loans.

GOVERNMENT

The above example clearly shows how the

allowance culture made it difficult for development

agencies and NGOs to take ‘ownership’, something

which on paper has always been the main focus of

development work. In practice most beneficiaries

still see NGOs as project implementers, which

thought is reinforced by the fact that one gets paid

by the NGO to attend a training or a meeting.

The most worrying development in the allowances

saga is the complete embracing of the donor

meeting culture and its inherent allowances system

by the Tanzanian government with far-reaching

consequences for the national budget. A study

conducted by the Tanzanian Policy Forum

(www.policyforum.or.tz) shows the high allocation

for allowances in the government budget. In the

financial year 2008/2009 there was an allocation of

a shocking 59% of the total payroll to benefits

(nearly 380 million U.S. dollars) and a large part of

this was spent on travel and daily allowances. The

high allowances that Tanzanian officials claim may

have resulted in more interest in attending capacity

building activities than in providing quality services

to the population. The study particularly criticizes

the donor community for sustaining the workshop

culture by co-organizing and financing it. A recent

directive from the Prime Minister to stop all

workshops appears to have fallen on deaf ears,

which can be witnessed on the daily Tanzanian TV

news broadcasts, where workshops are still an

important part of the news.

Would it be possible to work without allowances?

Or has it become an unstoppable monster that

stifles development efforts and undermines local

ownership? For Tanzania the eradication of the

allowance culture will require a national approach

and the report of the Policy Forum suggested

increasing the salaries of civil servants and

thoroughly reducing the amount and type of

allowances. Large donor organizations, such as

UNDP, UNICEF and others, should acknowledge the

problem of the allowance culture and must finance

workshops and meetings much more precariously.

FEAR

The newly qualified development worker Justin

continued despite all opposition and after

numerous visits he managed to convince the

villagers that their input into the water project was

in their own interest. It was an unexpected

challenge for him and he was surprised that it was

the donor culture which made his work difficult.

Other development workers did not want to be

quoted for this article for fear of repercussions from

their employers, who would probably not

appreciate their criticism and negative experiences.

While this is understandable, it is not in the interest

of the profession of development workers to

remain quiet about this as is happening up to now.

Fortunately there are voices amongst development

workers and also Tanzanian professionals to abolish

allowances and to train only those who show an

interest in acquiring knowledge, who don’t demand

money for this. This could be a good indicator of the

quality of the training and to determine whether

the audience is really interested. Such an approach

requires action by the donor world and could be

stimulated primarily by much higher demands on

measurable outcomes of training, meetings and

workshops.

Job de Graaf worked from 1978 to 2002 in Zambia, Tanzania,

Botswana and Niger for several develop agencies including SNV.

He is currently based in Tanzania where he is engaged in

development communication.

This article appeared in

the December 2010

issue of the magazine

Vice Versa, a

professional journal

about development

cooperation.

For more information:

www.viceversaonline.nl

Sitting Allowances article - page 3