Words and Ideas: Commitment, Continuity and Irreversibility 155field and a shared vision. Continuity in post and relationships rise in some places
and decline in others. In INGOs, in some countries, there is an impression that
staff are switching organizations with greater frequency, treating them as stepping
stones more than as places in which to stay and work for a matter of years. But
those who do hang in gain types of experience denied to those who hop about.
World Neighbours, one of the most innovative INGOs, has staff members with
over 20 years’ service. In recruiting it looks for people whose careers have shown
‘stick-to-itiveness’ – that is, who have stuck to the same job or organization for a
substantial time (Jethro Pettit, pers. comm.).
The behaviour of those who expect short spells is predictable. If foreigners, they
lack incentives to learn a local language or to take pains to understand local people
and conditions, or to take a long view. If energetic and committed, they are liable
to be tempted to go for actions with quick effects, neglecting those that need long-
er-term negotiation and support. For aid agency staff, ‘It is difficult to learn and to
assume a long-term vision in a local donor community. Each individual is operating
in a short time frame related to average residence of three years in any country and
she wants to see herself as having “made a difference”’ (Eyben, 2003, p28). In their
haste, staff make mistakes from avoidable ignorance. Not having to stay long enough
to deal with intractable problems, they do not have to muster Albert Hirschman’s
creativity in overcoming them. Moving on soon, they are not there when the chicken
comes home to roost. There is little incentive to develop more than superficial rela-
tionships, and as Rosalind Eyben has argued and shown, relationships matter for
supporting change in favour of poor people (Eyben, 2004).
Opportunities to learn and change are missed. These are among the costs of
staff moves in the restructurings endemic, if not epidemic, in some aid agencies.
Uncertainty and transfers impede other changes. In ActionAid in the UK, the
introduction of the new radical ALPS (Accountability, Learning and Planning Sys-
tem) became increasingly difficult when ‘staff were coming and going at all levels’
as part of a massive restructuring process (David and Mancini, 2004, pp17–18).
Individual and organizational learning are hampered. Lack of continuity means
that by the time lessons can be learnt from what works and what does not, and
how mistakes can be mitigated, staff have moved on. After reviewing the history of
a donor-supported development programme in Kenya, Samuel Musyoki (2003,
p166) concluded: ‘The staff turnover in bilateral programmes is very high and
there is a tendency of the new management to erase history and create a new
knowledge base.’ Just as the benefits of continuity are habitually underestimated,
so too are the costs of premature transfers. A successful incumbent in almost any
responsible post, whether in a government, national NGO or aid agency, tends to
achieve more in a third year than in the first two together, and again more in a
fourth year than a third, by which time much has been learnt, and relationships
and understandings have had time to mature. Diminishing returns set in, if at all,
after five or six years or more.
The importance of continuity is also indicated in the reactions of developing
country nationals, whether in governments or NGOs, to foreign staff, and whether