ABSTRACT
Donor agencies are responsible for distributing and channeling financial and other resources from the richer to the poorer countries of the world. As such, they constitute a unique type of organization because they are not only responsive to demands and pressures exercised in a specific national political arena, but also those originating outside the donor states’ jurisdiction. Thus, the conflicting pressures brought to bear on these agencies are more complex than those experienced by bureaucracies operating within a single national jurisdiction. Particularly significant also is that these agencies carry out their responsibilities in social, economic and political environments where their individual administrators usually are strangers. They do not necessarily speak the native language, and they often have difficulties relating to the culture of these foreign places. Moreover, these agencies operate in a large number of countries that display important differences. As if this weren’t enough to complicate learning, the agencies’ policy experiences are often accorded second priority in policy design because donor governments provide foreign aid for political or moral reasons, rather than organizational effectiveness. Learning in donor agencies, therefore, has its own definite challenges.
