Long meetings and my State of the Nation

Today I attended a conference on Partnerships in the context of the fight against HIV/AIDS. It's not really the area I'm going to be working on directly (although seem to have been looking at a lot of public health stuff so far) but my boss thought it would be useful to attend since HIV/AIDS is crosscutting issue. She also said it would be interesting from a sociological perspective to experience the whole ceremonial aspect of the way business is conducted in these parts. I believe the term 'langue de bois' was mentioned. The forum was held in quite a large family planning/health centre in Treichville, and was attended by about a hundred or so participants from a selection of national ministries, ngos, the EC delegation, the US ambassador, and other stakeholders (parties prennantes.. I'm learning the lingo). The forum was presided by the Minister for the Fight Against Aids, an entirely separate ministry from the Ministry of Health, which is quite unique. Why do I always think of the Ministry of Magic or Ministry of Sound when I hear that word? Anyway, Madame la Ministre was announced and everyone stood up while she made her entrance. Proceedings began and she welcomed practically each participant individually (which took some time). We eventually heard 3 presentations on the finalisation of some big report on the HIV/AIDS situation. Before coming here I had thought that having spent a week chaperoning a human rights defender from the DRC in Dublin a few years ago, would be a sufficient induction to understanding African French. I was wrong. The different accents coupled with intonation and sometimes digestion of entire words, made an already complex and acronym-heavy topic (HIV/AIDS) rather inaccessible to poor little me. Without the powerpoint presentations I would have been a gonner! The whole thing was filmed by various different people gliding around the room, who kept fixing on me and the other 4 white people there (I counted) as though our presence constituted some sort of validation of the whole activity. If they only knew my lowly status and quasi-nil influence! The US ambassador was reminiscent of a friendlier and cuddlier version of Condi Rice and was quite impressive in the modest but very articulate way she expressed herself in French. She was flanked to the rear by some advisors, one of which was dressed in very sensible 'summer attire'. A seersucker suit to be precise, white and pale blue (seersucker is a term I learned from my good friend Margaret who is learned in all things WASPish). In fact he looked rather like a CIA agent who had just stepped out of Panama in the 70s. Anyway, the whole meeting was a very interesting exercise in understanding the various political dynamics that go on and the sometimes not-so diplomatic dialogue. The US government basically pours in a load of cash into the HIV/AIDS sector, which is something like 85% funded by international donors, while in fact HIV/Aids only affects around 4% of the population. Other sectors such as education, health, water, and other diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis etc are seriously under-funded and ill-managed, but are not seen as a priority, despite the fact that they affect many more people. Côte d'Ivoire is also officially under UN sanctions because of the recent political conflict, and the US cannot therefore be seen as an official partner, although it does in effect provide a great deal of funding. Therefore it concentrates its funding in vertical programmes, where funds are managed by various execution agencies, but it retains full control from the top, over how the funds are spent. The EU model on the other hand, is one of direct partnership with governments of developing countries; where a greater degree of autonomy and flexibility is allowed. All this is set out by the Cotonou Agreement that has been giving me a headache since yesterday and makes any of the legislation I've read all year look like Mills & Boons. As things stand, Côte d'Ivoire is only just in the process of coming out of the conflict period and is completely debilitated by internal corruption. I don't know how many times I've heard the word 'pourri' in my 3 days at the Delegation. It's therefore understandable that donors are reluctant to provide direct funding to X Ministry, when it's likely that half of it will be siphoned off to line the pockets of a lucky few. Anyway, quite interesting stuff, though quite disheartening too. It's very easy to see how people can get jaded and frustrated working in developing countries where good governance and basic political structures and management are just not there. I'll tell ya, makes Bertie, Berlusconi and pals look like model citizens.