Mini Case 3.3: Who wants what in a development project on the Philippines? The Small and Medium Enterprise Development for Sustainable Employment Program is an international development program that aims to contribute to the efforts of the Philippine government to improve the competitiveness of the country. The programs mission is to facilitate the development and replication of sustainable models for improving the local business climate in the region of the Visayas. This long-term program started in 2003 and is scheduled until 2011. The trade department of the Philippines is the main partner on the receiving side. Other partners on the Filipino side are the Development Agency, private and public business development service providers and local governments of the region. The donor agency is the German Ministry in charge of development aid, contracting the program implementation to the German development agency that in turn subcontracted two of the four program components to a consulting company specializing in international development projects. The German development agency has overall responsibility for implementing and administering the whole program. The consulting company has the assignment to implement two program components, namely Business Development Services and Financial Services based on a contractually fixed implementation outline. This contract contains a Work Breakdown Structure, expected outputs, as well as a detailed budget. To reach agreement on the program objectives and main processes, representatives of the German development agency and the consulting company travel to the Philippines. The meeting with representatives of the Philippines trade department and development agency starts with a clear agenda. An agreed implementation plan is documented in the meetings minutes. Hence, the German side is confident that a mutually signed scope agreement is only a matter of days away. However, no observable progress towards a scope statement is made for 12 months, leading to frustrations on both sides. In follow-up meetings, the stance of the German donors gets more aggressive. It takes another six months to receive an explicit answer from the Filipino side: they decline to sign the scope agreement because they do not want any support in the consultation. Rather, they expect to receive mere financial support and themselves act as the implementer of the program. This comes as a shock to the German donors whose situation has changed over time. The budget of the development agency has been cut. Therefore, they expected the consulting company to take over some of their responsibilities. However, the consulting company has their own set of goals determined in the contract, not allowing for any additional task within the specified time-frame. Only after more than two years do the main parties involved in the program agree on what the program is about and who should do what. Question What are the causes of the frustration?