I woke up as a tiiiiny ray of sunlight got caught in my eyes, and with a sweeping action, the curtains were spread wide open to reveal a horizon of seawater, punctuated by large vessels which, from where I was standing, seemed like little toy boats leisurely floating offshore. Here in Dar-es-Salaam, life was just as slow - and despite the intensity of the normal Bank mission, I couldn't help letting myself savor that lifestyle every morning like right now.I had planned to write a long blog on all sorts of genius ideas (what else?) but since I was buried under a huge pile of TORs and professional blogposts, I figured I would add an excerpt from Daniel Sellen's blog on Life in the Field. This blog on a "typical mission" would hopefully give you some perspective on what we usually do during missions. Obviously it's satirical and should be only taken lightly - so enjoy!
It occurs to me that half of Bank staff, maybe more, never get a chance to go on mission. This is a shame, because (a) it's where we get our most important work done, and (b) it's usually lots of fun.
I was recently in a state capital in India where there happened to be four simultaneous missions. This is not too unusual -- often Government staff have back-to-back meetings with the Bank and are mystified to find out that not only did we not know about the previous meeting, we have never heard of the staff members who we saw leaving. They seem to take this in stride.
The three-day mission I was on consisted of making the rounds with several Secretaries and asking them what reforms they intended to make so that we could write these into the loan as a form of conditionality. This makes Government happy (they don't have to bother with any troublesome stuff) and it keeps the Bank happy (we can pretend that reforms were our idea). In the end, it is generally accepted that Government will probably do what they like.
After our counterparts have gone home, the Bank missions gather in various corners of the hotel bar and discuss how the day went, gossip about various difficult Government officials, and after a few more drinks, gossip about members of other missions. The teams then drift off to various restaurants with their note pads, and eventually retire to their rooms to replicate.
Breakfast time on the third day.... At one table is a small forestry mission. At another table a large team is appraising an hydro-electric dam project. In another corner, a transport supervision mission. In yet another corner, a multi-sectoral team is preparing a DPL. About 30 people in all, Bank staff and consultants, most in jackets and ties, with a few saris here and there. Waiters rush back and forth with cappucinos and dhosas, trying to squeeze them in betwen laptops. The diners excitedly exchange tiny pen drives containing critical bits of text, just like (they imagine) secret agents must do. Tourists, munching on danishes, wonder what the hell is going on. An Aide Memoire is born.
At 10:00 the last coffee cups are drained and the various missions break off, jump in a fleet of cars, and head over to their respective offices to present their Aides Memoires to Government, who at this point are confused about whether they are meant to discuss a dam or a forest or a road.
In case you don't know, a mission Aide Memoire is not what the name suggests -- in fact they are hardly memorable at all. An AM is actually a dreary document that explains what agreements were reached in about five lines, which are padded by dozens of pages of fluff which the exhausted Task Manager hasn't had time to edit and never will. It is a fact that every page of an Aide Memoire decreases the probability that it will be read by 15%; as such, a 5-page Aide Memoire will be read by about a quarter of the intended audience, and anything over 7 pages is guaranteed to be completely ignored. At any rate, Bank staff continue to produce these things, with the naive expectation that the things agreed on will magically be done by the time we return on our next mission. This occasionally happens, which no doubt gives us the enthusiasm to produce them again the next time.
This story is of course entirely ficititious. Do others out there have similar figments of imagination?
p.s. what is a "figment"?
Photo Credit: XL - View from Slipway, Dar es Salaam.
