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  • 7/30/2019 Bureaucrats for Hire Dic2004 JLR

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    Bureaucrats for Hire:

    The Profitable Consultancy Industry

    Our country deserves an in-depth reflection

    on the growing development consultancy industry.

    The following effort is based on my observation,

    from both outside and inside, of the abundant

    fauna of consultants in todays Nicaragua,

    though it probably wouldnt be accepted

    as part of a consultancy study...

    The consultancy industry in Nicaragua is worth mil-

    lions a year. The money spent on salaries and other

    remunerations for the studies and technical advice

    emanating from these passing posts represented a sizable

    percentage of the annual budget of many state institutions

    in 2003: 45% in the Municipal Development Institute, 38%

    in the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry and

    27% in the Supreme Electoral Council. The situation is

    similar among the NGOs, universities, media and churches

    that are plugged into international aid in this era of transfu-

    sion.

    So many of us are living in the foreign aid bubble. Somany of us have some direct or indirect link into the long

    consultancy market chain. The fieldwork of NGOs or minis-

    tries must be evaluated by an adviserbest if he/she is Swed-

    ish, Dutch or Danishwho will clean up the ideas expressed

    by interviewed natives, add data provided by surveyors and

    statisticians and, with other support from a sociologist,

    present some notes to an analyst to whip into shape in some

    illegible report whose cracks will be plastered over by an

    JOS LUIS ROCHA

    editor before being presented by a good communicator in

    Power Point. Its the same old story day after day all over

    Nicaragua.

    Our permanent crisis offers

    endless opportunities

    Policy designers and editors, advisers and strategic planners,

    translators and logical framework specialists, presenters in

    suits and talk-givers in loose cotton shirts all sup from the

    foreign aid cornucopia, which appears to be endless and un-

    restricted. They all have a place, small or large, in the inter-

    national cooperation pyramid. They all have their limited

    or extensive role to play in this comedy of the merry wives

    and happy husbands of consultancy. Many people in the world

    work as consultants, but not all of them understand it.

    Consultancies are responsible for the only element of

    reverse migration in Nicaragua. Professionals return after

    many years living in Germany, England and other industri-

    alized countries because theres money to be made here.

    14

    envo

    NICARAGUA

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    SPEAKING OUT

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    15

    january 2005

    In a country like Nicaragua, this

    bureaucrat-for-hire system is like an

    equation with three variables: Tom, a

    first world government or cooperation

    agency, hires Dick, that confident Jack-

    of-all-trades consultant willing to try his

    hand at any issue, to work for the

    benefit of Harry, almost always a state

    institution or an NGO

    Whereas the 1972 earthquake represented a revolution of

    opportunities for Somoza, todays ongoing crisis has turned

    Nicaragua into a land of opportunities for bankers to profit

    from the high interest rates on state bonds and private secu-rity companies to profit from the lack of police response in a

    context of poverty and anomy that encourages crime. Other

    beneficiaries include the judges who reap great dividends

    for their lack of morals and the powerful Pellas family, which

    only has to place a call to halt any audit threatening to reveal

    a tax evasion case by one of the companies in its economic

    group. At the end of the line are the consultants, continually

    offered an infinite and never obsolete range of subjects on

    which to advise and charge. Many suffer the current crisis,

    but some fat cats feed off it.

    Fleeting posts of a fly-by-night bureaucracyIn a country like Nicaragua, this bureaucrat-for-hire system

    is like an equation with three variables; lets name them

    Tom, Dick and Harry. Tom, a first world government or

    cooperation agency, hires Dick, that confident Jack-of-all-

    trades consultant willing to try his hand at any issue, to

    work for the benefit of Harry, almost always a state institu-

    tion or an NGO.

    In this system, Dick is the dependent variable: the more

    dramatic the countrys prostration the more consultants

    there will be, because foreign cooperation will provide more

    funds, state officials will be more ill-prepared and there will

    be greater cronyism in the consultancy market.

    The consultancy system has ushered in a new kind of

    bureaucrat here and in other countries: the fly-by-night kind,

    completely mobile and flexibly loyal. The fleeting posts in

    this bureaucracy no longer impose any kind of specializa-

    tion: todays sewer inspector is tomorrows museum adviser,

    and to hell with anyone who cant see the link. Generally

    speaking, consultants are formally and physically discon-

    nected from both the institution that pays them and the one

    they work for, a situation that rather than guaranteeing ideo-

    logical independence, actually forges other kinds of connec-

    tions: string pulling, theres no other choice inertia, pres-

    tige, marketing... all of which are sometimes blessed by real

    or fictitious application processes.

    Postmodern bureaucrats working from home

    This system breaks with the traditional bureaucratic model.

    In conventional bureaucracies, according to sociologist Max

    Weber, the group of stable public officials, the work instru-

    ments and the filed documents corresponding to any par-

    ticular jurisdictional domain were located in one office. In

    the current bureaucrat-for-hire model, these are all dispersed

    and theres often minimal contact among them. Theres no

    office where the scribes are concentrated, or linkage between

    them and their files. There are as many offices and archives as

    the number of consultants contracted by a given institution.

    The consultants temporary link with the institution is

    measured in the commitment to a block of days into which

    the task must fit rather than to a task that takes as many

    days as required. Each contracted assignment needs to be

    adjusted to standards and objectives, which are set out in

    terse terms of reference. In addition, consultants must fol-

    low certain tacit rules for managing their image in society

    and others on which their future in that market relies. But

    they are not rules of loyalty to an institution in return for a

    secure existence. The consultant sacrifices the future secu-

    rity that a stable job offers to the attraction of greater in-

    come today.

    Modern civil service had separated the office from the

    officials private home, with bureaucracy generally consid-

    ering official activity to be independent of private life. In

    postmodernity, however, bureaucrats often work out of their

    home, with work life and private life sharing the same physi-

    cal space. The consultants personal funds and equipment

    are always at the disposition of their labor obligations. Pri-

    vate and public assets, correspondence and even friendships

    are tightly interwoven. And just as private belongings and

    spaces fuse with those of business service and public utility,

    so the consultants public time and private time tend to

    become an indiscernible amalgam. All this means that con-

    sultants have opted for a way of life much more than an

    occupation.

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    16

    envo

    NICARAGUA

    The instrumentalizing of human

    relations is a vice into which many

    consultants slip, apparently unaware of

    how much hypocrisy reduces the

    quality of life

    From Fernndez de Oviedo to disasterologists

    Consultants are not new to Nicaragua, although in past eras

    there were fewer of them, they were generallycheles [light

    complected foreigners] and they tended to be a lot moreefficient than the current crop. Perhaps the first was Gonzalo

    Fernndez de Oviedoachele, of coursewho came in 1527

    as an overseer for the Spanish Crown, long before the Span-

    ish International Development Agency started up. He was

    followed by others who were less literarily endowed. Al-

    though they never formed a critical mass, they eventually

    did begin to flow more profusely. Nicaraguas inter-oceanic

    canal potential had lot to do with this. First world govern-

    ments sent dozens of engineers to the Ro San Juan to assess

    the viability of exploiting this river that connects Lake Nica-

    ragua to the Caribbean Sea.

    One of the most illustrious consultants was W.W.

    Cumerland, contracted to study the Nicaraguan economy inthe twenties. There has also been no shortage of consultants

    on the perennial problems with the countrys electoral law.

    As historian Knut Walter explained, In 1921, Dr. Harold

    Dodds, a university social sciences professor, was contracted

    by the Nicaraguan governmentunder strong pressure from

    Washingtonto analyze the electoral law in force at the time

    and propose necessary reforms to guarantee its impartiality.

    In April 1923, the Nicaraguan Congress approved a new elec-

    toral code, whose contents were adjusted to Dodds propos-

    als, with a few minimal modifications. That electoral re-

    form represented the formal institutionalization of the two-

    party system in Nicaragua. Consultancies were beginning to

    bear fruit.

    The 19th and 20th centuries saw visits from many po-

    litical scientists, economists, engineers and naturalists. One

    notable difference between those consultants and the cur-

    rent lot is that the recent ones rarely produce even semi-

    digestible texts. In contrast, Karl Bovalius and Paul Levy

    had sharp analytical pens and could lucidly describe pictur-

    esque details. Another difference is that the former consult-

    ants tended to have more mundane professions: biologist,

    engineer, lawyer. Some of the new batch try to create spe-

    cializations that verge on the ridiculous. After HurricaneMitch, the United Nations Development Program contracted

    a consultant whose card announced that she was a

    disasterologist. We can only hope that rather than pre-

    dicting disasters, she did at least know how to mitigate them.

    And though it may seem worthy of Garca Mrquez, Nicara-

    gua has even played host to an angelogist and a master in

    divinity. How long before local universities start producing

    corruptologists and Orteg-ologists?

    A way of life more than an occupation

    The most obvious difference between the consultants of old

    and those of today is that being a consultant has become away of life. The condition of being a consultant soaks into

    many spheres of existence because it carries with it multiple

    demands, such as attending any reception that gets orga-

    nized, cultivating specific relations, hanging out at a par-

    ticular bar, dining at a certain restaurant Commercial life

    and family life become superimposed. Business is even bet-

    ter if the spouse is achele and has ethnic-friendship-profes-

    sional links with embassies, agencies and international NGOs.

    The relations cultivated along the way can always be

    useful. The consultant has to sow, water, fertilize, earth up

    and fumigate such relations so theyll bear fruit in the fu-

    ture. The instrumentalizing of human relations is a vice

    into which many slip, apparently unaware of how much hy-

    pocrisy reduces the quality of life.

    Such exploitation is not the exclusive reserve of consult-

    ants, of course, but some have taken it to extremes of corrup-

    tion with certain counterparts when they find themselves in

    positions of power. Four years ago, an official from the now

    rightly questioned Augusto Csar Sandino Foundation no-

    ticed that a top Oxfam America official who occasionally su-

    pervised operations in Nicaragua when he came from El Sal-

    vador on specific missions was fast-tracking friendly rela-

    tions with him. Once he had prepared the ground, the offi-

    cial made his move: Ill hire you as a consultant for the next

    Oxfam studies and well split the earnings 50/50.

    Dry, repetitive and insipid texts

    The consultants lifestyle demands disguises and poses. Fran-

    cisco Umbral rightly said that thinking also has its tailor-

    ing. And where there is little thinking, there has to be a

    great deal of tailoring. Consultants must look presentable,

    lordly and glamorous. They must be magnificent exponents

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    SPEAKING OUT

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    17

    january 2005

    of the make an appearance syndrome, hawking themselves

    at every opportunity. My best friend gave anthropology classes

    every Saturday and one of her students was a big fish in the

    consultancy world, as he felt the need to demonstrate in afootnote at the end of every exam. His work was a constant

    excuse for his absences. As youth gang members wisely put

    it, he wanted to pass the course on pure impression. But

    the most impressive thing of all was his absolute inability to

    write a single line without massacring the rules of grammar

    and running roughshod over spelling.

    Evidently, gestures and language are more important

    than grammar and spelling, even more important than cloth-

    ing. Those who devote themselves to the consultancy indus-

    try have to become polyglots fluent in ECLA language, FAO

    jargon, politicking slang and dozens of NGO dialects, includ-

    ing the lavish use of the @ sign to replace the masculine o

    or feminine a at the end of gender-specific words in Span-ish to suggest a trendy gender-neutral ending) They have

    to know how to troll for fish in all waters, seduce with lan-

    guage, employ hallowed concepts and show off their mastery

    of the key terms, knowing which are valid in certain areas

    but not in others.

    My work as a researcher, which I now do more as a con-

    sultant, has forced me to take note of the conventions and

    keep my literary urges under control. I generally come up

    against clients who want everything repeated a thousand

    times. I have to write in the most dry and inoffensive way

    possible, moderating and desiccating phrases, shriveling and

    crumpling them up. The text has to be meticulously gone

    over to extirpate rash adjectives and names that should re-

    main anonymous and to employ a vocabulary restricted to

    about a hundred words that, like a Lego set, constitute the

    only bricks in the verbal architecture of consultancy reports.

    In the effort to castrate the texts, it becomes almost

    essential to use an abundance of the kind of impersonal re-

    flexive verbs that we liberally employ in Nicaragua when we

    want to avoid mentioning the guilty party, particularly if its

    us. So just as in everyday colloquial speech we say it fell

    instead of I dropped it or it broke rather than I broke

    it, consultancy reports use it is intended rather than

    here we intend... This is perhaps Nicaraguan colonial

    languages most notable contribution to the professional

    development cooperation idiom.

    A consultancy report should be dry and turgid to give

    the impression of being serious. All the better if it is situ-

    ated at the opposite extreme to the pleasure of text de-

    scribed and analyzed by Roland Barthes. This particular

    sphere employs a stiflingly leaden and reiterative prose. Four

    concepts are endlessly repeated in a limitless succession of

    combinations and permeations, because in the happy uni-

    verse of the consultants, as in HuxleysBrave New World, a

    phrase repeated again and again finally becomes truth. The

    basic work mechanism is cut and paste. Repeating the same

    topics in the same tone with identical concepts somehow

    makes consultants look more competent.

    its not in the blood,

    You have to work at it

    Consultants, particularly those who have achieved certain

    renown, have developed gradually. Rookies who throw them-

    selves into the ring with no real credentials find it hard to

    triumph. Being a good consultant isnt in the blood, you

    have to work at it. Since Ive gotten a close-up view of this

    system Ive been wondering about the formation of these

    eminences always sought out by journalists for interviews

    when a subject they are supposedly experts on hits the lime-

    light, or are repeatedly contracted by the institutions them-

    selves. Although the answer would involve a whole new study

    and reflection, there are certain indications of where they

    came from and how they were formed.

    One type consists of those manufactured in US universi-

    ties, be they nationals or foreigners. They are the preferred

    choice of state institutions and some multilateral organiza-

    tions because they have the right academic and ideological

    curriculum. Another type is made up of the crafty old foxes

    dedicated to a certain area, who fossilized into a field where

    nobody else was at the time and now couldnt muscle in.

    Competitors do emerge these days, but tradition and inertia

    is an immovable comparative advantage.

    Then there are those who were molded in the eighties:

    Those who devote themselves to the

    consultancy industry have to become

    polyglots fluent in ECLA language, FAO

    jargon, politicking slang and dozens of

    NGO dialects, to seduce with

    language, employ hallowed concepts

    and show off their mastery of the key

    terms, knowing which are valid in

    certain areas but not in others

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    18

    envo

    NICARAGUA

    top officials from the Sandinista government, including cer-

    tain revolutionarycomandantes, both male and female. Firstthey were radicals who wanted to turn the world on its head.

    Then they became platonic Marxists, if that, and soon flush-

    ing down the toilet all the Konstantinov they had lapped up

    in the seventies or eighties, either directly or through Martha

    Harnecker. They went from Marxist fundamentalism to tech-

    nocratic fundamentalism, crossing over from revolution to a

    happy adaptation to the given conditions, sometimes vacil-

    lating, emotionally ambivalent toward the FSLN, but al-

    ways with resigned pragmatism or underhanded opportunism.

    Privileged freelancers feed off misery

    All of these different groups contain both talented intellec-

    tuals and mediocre professionals, with the wheat and the

    chaff mixed together. Unfortunately, they have all opted for

    a fictitious freedom, a quick buck and individual adventure

    instead of feeding themselves to the famished national

    institutionality. Many institutions could use their dispersed

    energies, but a university will never pay its lecturers, a rural

    municipal government its officials or a media company its

    journalists what the UNDP, the IDB, DANIDA, SIDA or the

    SDC pay their consultants. And these people share an over-

    whelming, almost unanimous desire to improve their own

    personal economic situation.

    Setting up a consultancy company is the in-trade for-

    mula for closing ranks against competitors. This is the temp-

    tation for many new professionals who launch themselves

    into the stormy waters of the labor market. But it rarely

    gels in this country. The memory of a group of friends who

    started up one such company is still fresh in my mind. They

    were alland still arewell positioned in foreign coopera-

    tion: one spoke German, another had been an FAO consult-

    ant for over a decade and yet another had worked in a num-

    ber of organizations. But despite their enviable social capi-

    tal, they were at each others throats in less than a year.

    Consultants prefer to go freelance and seek temporary alli-

    ances. At the end of the day, other consultants are rivalsafter the same funds rather than colleagues with whom to

    share ideas, exchange information and plot a better Nicaragua.

    Their main rival, however, is necessarily their main ally.

    The historical confrontation between the interests of profes-

    sionals and those of workers and peasants has occupied the

    attention of generations of sociologists, but has never before

    reached such colossal levels of cynicism. Never before have

    professionals so parasitically lived off the poor. We have

    become a new aristocracy feeding off the misery we research,

    quantify, diagnose, analyze and dissect, with a prosperity

    that is in some cases directly proportional to the poverty of

    our fellow citizens.

    Cut and paste, paste and cut...

    no time to think

    This subterranean conflict of interests would not be so harm-

    ful if the bureaucrats-for-hire system guaranteed quality and

    continuity in the consultants products. On the contrary, it

    favors mediocrity and repetition. Consultants are offered

    up to US$10,000 a month, which in practice can be whittled

    down to 15 working days or less because consultants are

    often involved in several jobs at the same time. In this record

    time, the contracted consultant has to honor terms of refer-

    ence that look like a grocery list, everything about every-

    thing, requiring the consultant to know more than the ex-

    perts who have worked full time on the subject under study.

    Theres no time to get to know the place being studied; no

    time even to think.

    If absolutely necessary, the consultant subcontracts low-

    paid assistants with little experience to do the dirty work

    (read field work) and even part of the other, cleaner work,

    with an inevitable effect on the overall quality. But another

    solution relies on a more providential factor: the system also

    foments repetitionI would love to writeBosaws, the re-

    serve of a thousand studiesso consultants cut and paste,

    thus recycling their old studiesor even other peoplesto

    get out of a tight spot. This rehashing is completely legiti-

    mized by the system. In fact, many original pieces of work

    are a recycling of stale phrases, a hodgepodge of patched

    together idea snippets from the same ideological scheme.

    And their friends in foreign cooperation allow this. Employ-

    ers who are not their friends will never know everything

    previously written about a subject or place because there is

    no single national information clearing house containing the

    thousands of consultancies that have been conducted.

    We have become a new aristocracy

    feeding off the misery we research,

    quantify, diagnose, analyze and

    dissect, with a prosperity that is in

    some cases directly proportional to the

    poverty of our fellow citizens

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    6/7

    SPEAKING OUT

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    19

    january 2005

    Unnecessary experience and cronyism

    Cronyism is one of the Nicaraguan cultural institutions that

    has most contaminated the consultancy market. Its part of

    our contribution to the national configuration of theconsultancy model, not the only one or the most visible one,

    but the one through which we have managed to contaminate

    even foreigners. Or is it rather a universal feature that we

    have merely updated in Nicaragua, as the audacious unmask-

    ing of French corruption by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would

    suggest?

    Around eight years ago, a haughty Swiss official met up

    with a bright French consultant in a well-known Managua

    bar. The Swiss official represented the official Swiss devel-

    opment cooperation and the Frenchman was heading up a

    group of researchers in a well-known Nicaraguan university.

    Both enjoyed each others company at social gatherings, din-

    ners and wine and cheese dos.Over drinks, they negotiated US$250,000 as the fee for

    ten research studies on Nicaraguan finances: bank spreads,

    savings in micro-finance companies, institutional consolida-

    tion and other more or less vague issues. Even the clock-

    work-precise Swiss and the very Cartesian French can go tropi-

    cal and slide towards the delicious laxity of our laissez faire

    and dolce far niente codes. Its not often mentioned that

    cultural insertion has its price.

    What was so light-headedly negotiated had almost hal-

    lucinogenic results. A full year after the glittery stuff was

    disbursed, Swiss cooperation received a collection of studies

    of the most diverse quality and subject matter, including

    reforestation, fair-trade coffee and agro-ecological zoning,

    among other even more striking fare. The institute belong-

    ing to the rather un-Pascalian Frenchman had interpreted

    the agreement and assigned the money with gay abandon.

    Although the Swiss official subsequently acted in the best

    tradition of a Swiss army knife, the damage was done and

    couldnt be put right.

    In the consultancy market, the same people entrust

    consultancies to the same people. Simulating bids is such a

    well-worn mechanism that it offends no one anymore. Con-

    sultants only have to be hip to the new issues in vogue to

    transmogrify themselves or adapt their old refrains and spe-

    cialties to them. Specialists on Nicaraguas Caribbean Coast

    thus now offer the following catalogue: identity and gender

    in Bilwi, migration in Kukra Hill, local governments of the

    South Atlantic Autonomous Region, deforestation in Bocana

    de Paiwas, ecotourism in Pearl Lagoon and the environment

    in Bismuna, among many others.

    As one consultant who worked with her husband told

    me, We cover everything. And, as far as I can tell, she

    wasnt exaggerating. Theres no need for experience in bu-

    reaucrats-for-hire, no need to bring on board the right people

    for a given issue. Its more profitable to create and cultivate

    a network of social relations adequately distributed in key

    positions. Specialization tends to be improvised, as in thecase of an economist friend of mine who soon became an

    expert on masculinity and was contracted by a national NGO

    for US$2,500. One of his colleagues and fellow graduates is

    still looking for work after stubbornly insisting on being an

    economist.

    Ephemeral + anonymous + routine = low quality

    So, does the bureaucrat-for-hire model represent a gain or a

    loss? Thats the million-dollar question. Like all changes,

    it has its pluses and minuses. Although not a lot seems

    positive to me, one apparent virtue does spring to mind.

    Although the principle of he who pays the piper calls thetune continues to enjoy unquestionable validity, the rela-

    tionship between consultants and their employers is more

    democratic and is not determined by the rigidly structured

    hierarchy that characterizes traditional bureaucracy.

    But then, how, or to whom, can one appeal if the work is

    not up to scratch? Is there no chance of rectifying it? This is

    hard, because the consultants relationship to beneficiaries

    tends to be very distant, ephemeral and weak. Sometimes

    their work develops with very poor knowledge of the reality

    they are writing about or, even worse, acting upon. The brief

    period they are contracted for doesnt allow them to delve

    deep, and they end up with no possibility of following up at

    the end of the consultancy; both the post and the function

    disappear when the contract expires.

    The consultants anonymity reinforces these weaknesses

    and creates others. As there are consultants for all occa-

    sions, those who get their hands on some funds become con-

    The brief period consultants are

    contracted for doesnt allow them to

    delve deep, and they end up with no

    possibility of following up at the end ofthe consultancy; both the post and the

    function disappear when the contract

    expires

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    20

    envo

    NICARAGUA

    tractors. Thus monks and nuns, intellectuals, businesspeople

    and state officials stop doing their work to become financial

    managers because they believe that this position in the pyra-

    mid is closer to the pinnacle and shines with dazzling intensity.

    If there are many defects, there are also many possible

    remedies. Foreign cooperation understands that the prob-

    lem is not limited to the fraud, chicanery, crookedness and

    other undesirable animals lurking among the consultancy

    fauna. The system is intrinsically perverse and its perver-

    sion is consubstantial.

    As none of the consultants know when the next

    consultancy will come along or how much it will pay, they

    have to accept anything that comes their way, working flat

    out and subcontracting professionals with limited experi-

    ence to the detriment of the final products quality. If they

    get a juicy offer, it seems silly to let it go. They face a lot of

    pressure in the circles they travel in to maximize their in-

    come, whether to match their employers consumption level,

    send their kids to the best school, buy the latest computer,

    organize parties to cultivate milkable relations, or simply,

    and more wisely, sock something away for the lean times.

    Such are the daily weaknesses that pave the way to big-time

    corruption.

    The fact that consultants are disconnected from institu-

    tional time and spaces makes it difficult to guarantee their

    full working capacity. Some are linked to institutions where

    they have a fixed job and a regular salary, but they obtain

    their greatest income from consultancies, which often eat

    into the time they should be dedicating to their institution.

    The main problem is that many institutions have no policy

    for handling consultancies, or if they do its hardly compat-

    ible with the aspirations of workers who want to be well

    remunerated for their extra efforts. That weakness multi-

    plies their susceptibility to outside offers and damages the

    labor culture. Its preferable to reach an agreement to guar-antee quality.

    The remedy: Some minimal actions

    In the case of Nicaragua, a country with such weak

    institutionalityimprovement of which is supposedly a goal

    of international cooperationits outrageous that funds ear-

    marked for consultancies arent used to strengthen the in-

    stitutions themselves. If these consultants are so good, why

    not invest in keeping them for long periods in municipal

    governments suffering financial difficulties?

    How can we invest in doing real research instead of that

    devalued substitute represented by the prepackaged cut-and-paste analyses, the supposedly scientific investigations

    spattered with androgynous @ endings and subculture

    phraseology rendered meaningless by endless repetition?

    Why not invest in permanent posts in key state sectors that

    are compatible with a long-term vision and subject to par-

    ticipatory evaluations?

    The metamorphosis of the public servant into a profes-

    sional service provider ethically changes the concept of works

    motivation and execution. Although this change isnt neces-

    sarily reflected in worse practices than before given that

    what passes for public servants are often wolves in sheeps

    clothing, it is worth defending the principle that foreign aid

    should be put to the service of Nicaraguans as a whole and

    not fought over by bureaucrats for hire.

    Finally, there is an urgent need to create a clearinghouse

    of consultancy reports so as not to continue paying for more

    of the same. Everything has to have been explored by now in

    the Bosaws reserve, right down to the last pebble, endan-

    gered beetle and neighborhood scuffle since it has been the

    subject of numerous studies, each of which ignores the con-

    tents of others and therefore actually adds very little. It is

    the responsibility of foreign cooperation to keep an archive

    of all the reports and make them available to the public.

    Many benefit from the current disorder, but many more are

    harmed. These are just a few possible actions, although it is

    admittedly a minimal contribution because the system will

    need many reforms before people stop having to choose be-

    tween losing work or losing their souls.

    Jos Luis Rocha, as well as being a consultant, is a

    researcher for Nitlapn-UCA and a member ofenvos

    editorial committee.

    If there are many defects, there are

    also many possible remedies. In

    Nicaragua, a country with such weak

    institutionalityimprovement of which

    is supposedly a goal of international

    cooperationits outrageous that

    funds earmarked for consultancies

    arent used to strengthen the

    institutions themselves