Relationships Matter

Eyben notes the burgeoning literature which critiques the assumption that donors and aid practitioners are in control of change and that change is predictable (represented by logframes and results frameworks). She argues that social change is complex and unpredictable since it depends more on relationships than on ‘interventions.'  Instead of treating host country organizations as instruments to deliver a planned change, the focus of donor's efforts should be to support "that organization's own efforts in what may be a rapidly changing policy environment". In complex political and institutional environments, "self-organizing networks" become the key element for social change. Eyben criticizes the mainstream "philosophical plumbing of international aid" that foregrounds "quantifiable things" as results. She contrasts this with a focus on relationships, by which donors and recipients are changed through their interactions in a process of learning. Eyben is concerned that the absence of ‘trust based relationships' between donor and the recipient organizations creates "the dissonance between what they do and what they report that they do".