Do not use the term “Division of Labour”

Division of Labour refers to specialisation to specific tasks which collectively increase total outputs compared to the situation in which those integrated tasks are conducted by single entity.

The current misuse of the phrase in the context of international development must lead us to misunderstanding of its original meaning.

The phrase in international development signifies just allocation of sectors among donors.
It may be aiming at increased productivity with reducing unnecessary congestion in which a number of donors are trying to do the same things (duplication) with their intention to show off their presence in some popular sectors.

However, just sharing sectors among donors is not accompanied by vertical division of tasks.
If we follow the original meaning of division of labour, tasks to be specialised comprise an integrated project for which we are to maximise outputs.
When we look at the international development version of division of labour, tasks engaged in each sector are yet to be divided for maximisation of outputs.
Similar tasks in different sectors remain, and those involve different donors if the number of them can be reduced.

When donors seriously want to apply the concept of division of labour, they need to analyse tasks involved in their work by dividing them into vertical pieces.
It may not be so difficult to show some generic system in which donors interventions are operated.
Needs identification, design of intervention, bilateral agreement between a donor and aid recipient government, disbursement of fund, monitoring and evaluation, etc.
It is these tasks that donors should allocate among them with consideration to maximum outputs, in other words, minimum transaction costs.
As long as all of the tasks shown above are separately conducted by donors in different sectors, transaction costs cannot be considered minimised.

Furthermore, when we take up an example of Zambia, the false usage of division of labour is made even clearer.
In the so-called DoL Matrix, donors are classified as Lead, Active, and Background.
The most critical issue is “Active in what?”
Without mentioning this, the DoL Matrix is just useless because it promises nothing with regard to increased productivity of donors, or the whole aid system.

My argument here is not how to apply genuine division of labour to international development, but what causes this kind of misapplication of words should be taken more seriously.

Our behaviour cannot but being affected by our perceived understanding.
Neither is this blamed for, nor can completely be eliminated.
But, even if we start using a certain word with insufficient understanding of reality or genuine meanings of that word, we can review, analyse, and put such mistakes back to something correct.
Since the inception of the usage of Division of Labour in the international development arena, it has already been several years.
Why has nobody questioned about this?
This seems to me that what aid community is doing can never be qualified as something professional.
We have just been accumulating products of our perceived understanding.
When we name us serious professionals, how come could we be satisfied with this kind of opportunistic behaviour, not with critical thinking of what we are doing?

Coming back to the issue of proper application of division of labour to international development, is it really possible?

I do not think so.

Even though we have started talking about more pooling our resources for development, it must further be advanced if division of labour is applied to the aid system.

How advanced should it be?

No single donor can conclude bilateral agreement with aid recipient countries because as long as this remains overlapping operations concerning concluding bilateral agreements cannot be eliminated if reduced, thus, overall productivity should still remain lower level.

On the other hand, in reality, international aid is being operated under the framework of bilateral diplomatic relationships. Therefore, I cannot foresee any revolutionary advance in pooling our resources in any single account which should be dealt with by a single entity designated by individual nation states especially when remembering that we have already had the UN system.