Donor Fatigue

Tuesday was incredibly amusing. My colleague set up a meeting between the Ministry and the DANIDA (Danish) people for Tuesday morning at 10:00, right before a meeting that we had scheduled with the Ministry to go over a strategy to present to other donors for a Thursday budget meeting. So at 10, the Danes show up to an empty room, except for me and one other adviser. No ONE at the Ministry was around. Finally, after basically dragging people from their offices to this meeting, we get started 20 minutes late. The chair proceeds to tell the DANIDA contingency that no one knew that they were coming (though this guy had actually met with them yesterday and was the one to confirm the meeting!). He apologized for not being prepared, for being late, for the low turnout, etc - but you see, no one knew this meeting was taking place. This kept on for a good 5 minutes (with various other people saying they had no prior knowledge of this meeting) while the Danes just sat there looking completely over it. THEN the Minister himself walked in and sat down in the meeting. At this point, the Chair quickly changed his story and said to the Danes that, knowing how important this meeting was with such important donors, he had invited the Minister. Meanwhile, the Minister is cupping his hand over his mouth, attempting to whisper to the guy next to him, "who are these people and why are they in our Tuesday morning staff meeting!?" He was clearly not whispering!!

Amazing that the Minister of education is not briefed when big donors come into town and even more amazing that he has no idea what they are giving money for or how much. He then proceeds to tell the Danes that what the Ministry really needs is cars and if they are planning to give us any money, they should be sure to also include cars in the proposal. HA! My mouth was about to drop to the floor. Then, he just got up and left. No need - clearly - to stay and schmooz the donors. Nope, he had far too many more important things to take care of.

So then we proceed with the meeting and 15 minutes later, this director raised his hand - in the middle of a discussion, mind you - and recounted the fact (for 5 minutes) that he had not introduced himself and he felt like the visitors needed to know who he was! It was truly amazing, the comedy of errors that took place in those short 40 minutes. The donors left feeling dumber than when they walked in and most likely wondering why they would ever consider giving this government any money. And the Ministry didn't even care that they had just shot themselves in the foot.

Finally, after the disaster with the Danes, we had our big strategy meeting with the Ministry people to prepare for a budget meeting Thursday. The guy in charge of the meeting said absolutely nothing (even after I had written talking points for him to lead the discussion). He began the meeting and then said to us, "How long do you need to tell us what you need to say?" It was amazing. No ownership at all. To top it off, at the end of the meeting, the chair goes, "We have a HUGE scheduling conflict with this Thursday meeting! The new undersecretary's plane is landing at 11:30 and we all need to go to the airport to welcome him. Then there will be a reception until the afternoon we will not be able to attend. You should do it without us." All I could say was, "But it's a meeting between you and the donors. We can't do it without you. Does everyone need to drive to the airport to meet the new undersecretary's plane? I bet he can manage." The assured me that they could not. OMG!!! How is this line of thinking possible?! Even the best laid plans...

My colleague and I just sat there in our seats after the room cleared out, looking befuddled at the disaster that had just happened and wondering where we went wrong.