International Negotiations - by John

Last week was very interesting, in that I was helping negotiate a contract between one of our partners and an international NGO. For the sake of confidentiality, let's just say that the NGO was based in Elbonia (the fictitious country that Dilbert used as a reference).

The Elbonians we met to negotiate with were very nice people, and had a lot of good intentions. We got together at a local coffee shop to look over the contract, which they were requiring our partner to sign so that he could get some grant money from them. The original contract was written in Elbonian of course and translated into English, and while the English of the Elbonians was really very good, technical legal language has its challenges at the best of times and definitely posed a challenge to our friends. So, we were reading a contract that had been translated from Elbonian to English, for a Zambian to sign after it had been interpreted by a Canadian. There was considerable room for discussion around some of the wording as you can imagine.

Some difficulties arose because the contract contained clauses that were "non negotiable", inserted by the NGO's state funder (The National Aid Agency of Elbonia). The state funder is very worried about fraud and corruption, which is understandable. Unfortunately the requirements of the contract are such that the kind of audit required is almost more expensive than the value of the contract itself. To top it all off, there is a "we don't trust you a bit" clause, which demands the right to come and examine any record of our partner, at any time, by anyone associated with the state funder, including the state auditor, and oh by the way, if there is any legal question at all, it will have to be resolved in Elbonia and you will have to give all the money back. We have visions of black clad Elbonian auditors in Ninja masks crashing through the door and making off all the (dusty) paper records.

Ah, what to do. Our partner needs the money and will put it to very good use, but at what risk? Do you capitulate and sign, knowing that the chances of any of the potential bad things happening is very small? Or do you decide to walk away, because there seems so little trust or understanding, but at the same time putting some of your projects at risk?

We talked over the contract over three more meetings, and still haven't resolved all the issues. I feel like while everyone's hearts are in the right place, but contracts like this are a form of "aid imperialism" rather that partnership definition. The implicit "my way or the highway" language just doesn't set the right mood, and this from a "enlightened western democracy". It's been very interesting for me to see this first hand and to compare it to MCC's methods, which are quite different and more partnership oriented (and better in my opinion). International Aid is an interesting and complex business!