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Partnerships for Poverty Reduction: Changing Aid 'Conditionality' (PDF )

DFID, September 2004. DFID Our understanding of what makes aid effective is changing. Evidence and experience have challenged traditional approaches to 'conditionality' (where each donor frequently attached conditions to its aid in order to promote particular policies in the partner country). This paper sets out a new approach to building a successful partnership for poverty reduction. We believe that developing countries must have room to determine their own policies for meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and can use aid most effectively if they can predictably rely on it as part of their long-term budget plans.

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/conditionalitychange.pdf

(Added: Tue Dec 14 2004   Modified: Tue Jul 19 2005   Hits: 176)

Australian Aid: The Boomerang Approach (PDF 133.83 KB)

AidWatch briefing paper, 2004. Who are the big winners in the Australian aid program? This article suggests that Australian aid may be more interested in increasing the profits of Australian business than alleviating poverty for the world's poor.

http://www.aidwatch.org.au/assets/aw00617/CoA%20FACT%20SHEET.pdf

(Added: Fri Nov 05 2004   Modified: Tue Jul 19 2005   Hits: 457)

A new approach to the allocation of aid among developing countries : is the USA more selfish than the rest?

University of Manchester School of Economic Studies discussion paper by Jane Harrigan and Chengang Wang.2004. Attempts to explain the factors that determine the geographical allocation of foreign aid. Develops a theoretical model and uses panel data taking account of the truncated nature of the dependent variable. The authors run regressions for different groups of donors (USA, non-USA bilateral and multilateral). They find that all the donors respond to recipient need in their allocation of aid, but compared to the rest the USA puts less emphasis on need and more emphasis on donor interest e.g. geopolitical, commercial, and other links with specific recipients. Concludes that the USA is a more selfish aid donor than other bilateral and multilateral donors when allocating its aid.

http://les.man.ac.uk/ses/research/Discussion_paper_0412.pdf

(Added: Tue Oct 26 2004   Modified: Tue Jul 19 2005   Hits: 209)

Why and How to Aid 'Middle Income Countries'

IDS. By Rosalind Eyben and Stephen Lister with Ben Dickerson, Iliana Olive and Luis Tejada - 2004. The amount of aid that flows to 'Middle Income Countries' (MICs) has recently been challenged and some donors are shifting the balance of their aid so that more goes to poorer countries. Is there still a role for aid to MICs and what should that role be? Drawing on cases from the Andean region and Jamaica, this paper seeks to contribute to that debate within the current context of the Millennium Aid Consensus and the new ways of working that include greater emphasis on country ownership and programmatic and budget support. It concludes that, as aid as a proportion of GDP is usually modest in MICs, donors have little direct leverage. Necessarily the role of aid must be to support the agenda of those local actors, government or otherwise, who are working for the kind of change that a donor judges worthwhile.

http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC18062.htm

(Added: Mon Oct 04 2004   Modified: Tue Jan 10 2006   Hits: 125)

Profiting from Poverty: Privatisation consultants, DFID and public services (PDF 316k)

War on Want, 24 September 2004. Privatisation of public services has led to increased poverty in many developing countries.Yet even with the increasing evidence of the damage caused by such privatisations, developing country governments continue to come under intense pressure to commit their public services to privatisation - often as a condition of receiving development assistance, loans or debt relief from international financial institutions and donor governments. War on Want believes that DFID's commitment to privatisation of public services is incompatible with its stated commitment to poverty reduction and realisation of the Millennium Development Goals. On the basis of the concerns raised in this report, War on Want calls on DFID to desist from including privatisation as a condition of its development assistance. DFID should establish an independent commission to take evidence on the impact of public services privatisation in developing countries. DFID should also refrain from awarding any new public service reform contracts to privatisation consultants until the commission has reported its findings.

http://www.waronwant.org/download.php?id=254&PHPSESSID=b6cfcefb531d4086a9bee6ef6a9912ff

(Added: Thu Sep 30 2004   Modified: Mon Sep 19 2005   Hits: 385)

Aid to 'Poorly Performing' Countries: a Critical Review of Debates and Issues (pdf 600kb)

Overseas Development Institute, July 2004. One of the decade's hot topics: the question of international aid for countries which are seen to have 'performed poorly': the report tells us why it's an issue now; argues that the widely used country performance league tables are problematic; and that aid to countries which are 'difficult to assist' needs to be situated in an analysis of change over time not only in performance but also in the functioning of the state and its international relations.

http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/poorly_performing_countries/Aid_to_PPCs.pdf

(Added: Thu Sep 09 2004   Modified: Thu Aug 25 2005   Hits: 337)

Measuring the impact of humanitarian aid (pdf 580 KB)

HPG Report 17, June 2004. By Charles-Antoine Hofmann. This report is concerned with how the impact of humanitarian aid can be measured, why this is increasingly being demanded and whether it is possible to do it better.

http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/papers/HPGReport17.pdf

(Added: Thu Aug 26 2004   Modified: Tue Jan 10 2006   Hits: 556)

Counting chickens when they hatch: The short-term effect of aid on growth.

By Michael A. Clemens, Steven Radelet and Rikhil Bhavnani, 20 Jul 2004. Abstract: Past research on aid and growth is flawed because it typically examines the impact of aggregate aid on growth over a short period, usually four years, while significant portions of aid are unlikely to affect growth in such a brief time. We divide aid into three categories: (1) emergency and humanitarian aid (likely to be negatively correlated with growth); (2) aid that affects growth only over the long term, if at all, such as aid to support democracy, the environment, health, or education (likely to have no relationship to growth over four years); and (3) aid that plausibly could stimulate growth in four years, including budget and balance of payments support, investments in infrastructure, and aid for productive sectors such as agriculture and industry. Our focus is on the third group, which accounts for about 45% of all aid flows. We find a positive, causal relationship between this 'short-impact' aid and economic growth (with diminishing returns) over a four-year period. The impact is large: at least two-to-three times larger than in studies using aggregate aid. Even at a conservatively high discount rate, at the mean a $1 increase in short-impact aid raises output (and income) by $8 in present value in the typical country. From a different perspective, we find that higher-than-average short-impact aid to sub-Saharan Africa raised per capita growth rates there by about one percentage point over the growth that would have been achieved by average aid flows. The results are highly statistically significant and stand up to a demanding array of tests, including various specifications, endogeneity structures, and treatment of influential observations. The basic result does not depend crucially on a recipient's level of income or quality of institutions and policies; we find that short-impact aid causes growth, on average, regardless of these characteristics. However, we find some evidence that the impact on growth is somewhat larger in countries with stronger institutions or longer life expectancies (better health). We also find a significant negative relationship between debt repayments and growth. We make no statement on, and do not attempt to measure, any additional long-run effects of aid; four-year panel regressions are not an appropriate tool to examine those relationships.

http://www.cgdev.org/files/2744_file_CountingChickensFINAL3.pdf

(Added: Mon Jul 26 2004   Modified: Fri Aug 25 2006   Hits: 313)

Aid for the poorest? The distribution and maldistribution of international development assistance

Chronic Poverty Research Centre. CPRC Working Paper No 35. Bob Baulch, 2003. (pdf 456.5 KB) This paper examines the extent to which the distribution of development assistance is directed towards the poorest countries. Using the latest cross-country data available from the OECD and the World Bank, aid concentration curves are constructed for the major bilateral and multilateral donors. The ways in which different donors distribute their development assistance is shown to differ markedly. The two largest bilateral donors, the United States and Japan, and the largest multilateral donor, the European Commission, spend large amounts of their aid budgets in small, relatively well-off countries. In contrast, despite some bias towards small developing countries, the Netherlands, the UK and the World Bank direct most of their aid to the poorest countries. France, Germany and the UN System's aid programmes occupy an intermediate position. The paper concludes with a discussion of the questions the analysis poses for aid policy and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

http://www.chronicpoverty.org/pdfs/35Baulch.pdf#search=%22Aid%20for%20the%20poorest%20%3A%20The%20distribution%20and%20maldistribution%20of%20international%20development%20assistance%22

(Added: Fri Jul 09 2004   Modified: Tue Sep 12 2006   Hits: 331)

The Reality of Aid 2004: Focus on Governance and Human Rights in International Cooperation

Reports from NGOs in this Reality of Aid present a very diverse picture of governance and human rights in the international cooperation. At one end of the scale we see donors and developing country governments focusing on the very practical questions of how aid can be better managed and coordinated. At other end, we see how selective interpretation of 'good governance' may be used, consciously or unconsciously, to reinforce long-standing patterns of economic and political domination, and the new hegemony of wealth and power concentrated in the hands of a very privileged elite in a uni-polar world. But despite this diverse picture -- a few clear messages come through loud and clear. * the risk that aid is being diverted from the overriding necessity of eliminating poverty for the many to the narrow, and very probably illusory end, of promoting security for the few; * the continued domination and maladministration of global political and economic mechanisms by OECD countries, especially G8 donors and very particularly, the United States; * the Alice in Wonderland interpretation of governance and human rights by OECD donors - so that these terms mean whatever OECD countries want them to mean.

http://ccic.ca/e/docs/002_aid_roa_2004.pdf

(Added: Fri Jun 18 2004   Modified: Thu Jan 11 2007   Hits: 268)

The Reality of Aid Website

The Reality of Aid Project is the only major north/south international non-government initiative focusing on analysis and lobbying for poverty eradication policies and practices in the international aid regime. It brings together more than 40 civil society networks working in the field of international cooperation in 22 donor countries, in Asia, the Americas and Africa. Established in 1993, the project exists to promote national and international policies that will contribute to a new and effective strategy for poverty eradication, built on solidarity and equality.

http://www.realityofaid.org/

(Added: Fri Jun 18 2004   Modified: Tue Jan 10 2006   Hits: 293)

Aid Campaign: Commercialisation of Aid

The Commercialisation of Aid project seeks to address and uncover the commercial interests serviced by Australia's aid assistance. AID/WATCH is reviewing the processes and programs of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and the profits made by Australian private contractors derived from foreign aid projects.

http://www.aidwatch.org.au/index.php?current=16

(Added: Thu Jun 17 2004   Modified: Tue Jul 19 2005   Hits: 269)

The Politics of Poverty: Aid in the new Cold War (pdf)

Some of the world's poorest people are already paying for the War on Terror, as the giving of aid by the world's richest countries becomes ruled by the rhetoric of 'with us or against us'. This must not continue, says this year's Christian Aid Week report. 'The politics of poverty: Aid in the new Cold War' examines how the policies of donor countries are starting to follow those from the dark days of the Cold War. Aid, says the report, is once again being viewed as a means of promoting the donors' own interests, particularly their security, rather than addressing the real needs of poor people. The report sets out the mistakes of the past and shows how they are starting to be repeated. Drawing on evidence from recent discussions in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it demonstrates how some forms of military training and intelligence gathering are now being considered as suitable areas to be funded from aid budgets. This has never previously been permitted. It examines the case of Uganda, which illustrates how the government's manipulation of the War on Terror has led to an intensification of the conflict in the north of the country and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. Hopes of a peace deal have diminished, while succour has been given to an increasingly repressive regime. It also looks at the situation in Afghanistan, where US-led forces are waving the humanitarian flag while also fighting a war - a fatal combination. Across Afghanistan, aid workers are being killed and much-needed reconstruction is now on hold.

http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/404caweek/index.htm

(Added: Fri May 21 2004   Modified: Fri Nov 04 2005   Hits: 350)

The Trouble with the MDGs: Confronting Expectations of Aid and Development Success (pdf)

By Michael A. Clemens, Charles J. Kenny, and Todd J. Moss, Centre for Global Development, Working Paper 40, 05/10/2004. Growing concern that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be achieved by 2015 should not obscure the bigger picture that development progress has been occurring at unprecedented levels over the past thirty or more years. At the same time, the MDGs may perhaps create an unnecessary pessimism toward aid by labeling many development successes as failures. The first MDG of halving the number of people living in poverty will probably be met globally, but for most developing countries to achieve this at the national level, the growth rates required are at the bounds of historical precedent. Additionally, there appears to be only a weak relationship between aid and rapid economic growth. A similar problem holds for many of the other education and health goals. For many countries, the rates of progress required to meet the MDGs by 2015 are extremely high compared to historical experience and there is only a tenuous relationship between expenditure and outcomes. Nevertheless, estimates that an additional $50 billion in aid per year is necessary to meet the MDGs are frequently misinterpreted to suggest that it is also sufficient. Most of the goals are unlikely to be reached, but this will probably not be due primarily to shortfalls in aid. This is in part because development is a long-term and complex process dependent on relieving more than a supply-side constraint on resources. Aid remains vital and contributes to development progress, but even considerable increases in aid are unlikely to buy these particular goals. Goal setting is also useful, but continuing to suggest that the MDGs can be met may undermine future constituencies for aid (in donors) and reform (in recipients). The MDGs might be better viewed not as realistic targets but as reminders of the stark contrast between the world we want and the world we have, and a call to redouble our search for interventions to close the gap.

http://www.cgdev.org/Publications/?PubID=117

(Added: Fri May 21 2004   Modified: Mon Jul 02 2007   Hits: 364)

The best use of aid?

Apr 26th 2004 From The Economist Global Agenda As the World Bank held its spring meetings with the IMF in Washington at the weekend, it reported that aid was flowing a little more generously, but a lot more strategically. For that, thank-or blame-the war on terror.

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2625675

(Added: Thu Apr 29 2004   Modified: Thu Aug 25 2005   Hits: 115)

Good Governance against Good Government?

by Rémy Herrera February 23, 2004 "Since the beginning of the 1990s, the major international organizations, first and foremost among them International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, have been lavishing upon their member countries recommendations for "good governance". However, the definitions of this term and, along with them, its substance, have varied noticeably from one institution to another, preventing the formulation of a precise legal definition -particularly since governance can also be global, corporate. Within the framework of its loans and "oversight" operations, the IMF seeks to promote good governance covering "all aspects of the conduct of public affairs". [...] In spite of the vagueness of the concept and of the normative judgement criteria involved, the goals formulated by these organizations are quite clear and convergent: what is at stake is the shaping of states' policies to create those institutional environments most favorable to the opening up of the countries of the South to globalized financial markets."

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=5036

(Added: Wed Feb 25 2004   Modified: Mon Oct 31 2005   Hits: 290)

Tropical Cyclone Heta: Niue Government Accused of Sitting on Aid Shipments

The New Zealand Herald 30th Jan. 2004 by NZPA Niueans are being urged to send aid parcels directly to their relatives on the cyclone-ravaged island to avoid relief ending up in the Niuean Government's hands. About six shipping containers with aid from abroad remain sitting on Vice-Premier Toke Talagi's front lawn in Niue, according to a Red Cross worker just back from Niue. Mr Talagi was strongly criticised by islanders for not distributing aid from New Zealand immediately after tropical Cyclone Heta hit on January 6. Loans were offered instead so those affected by the cyclone could buy food still available in shops. Ikiharry Pahetogia, a unit manager for the Red Cross' Wellington emergency response unit, urged the Niuean community in New Zealand to address aid to their relatives on the island to avoid it going through Niuean Government channels. "Write down your name so that when it arrives it becomes private property and it doesn't belong to the Government and they can't touch the stuff," he said yesterday.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3546474

(Added: Fri Jan 30 2004   Modified: Wed Jun 28 2006   Hits: 214)

On the Edge of Lunacy - Discuss in the DevNet Discussion Forum

British aid money is helping the rich while pretending to help the poor, writes George Monbiot in his article "On the edge of lunacy" (also linked to in this knowledge centre). You can discuss the issues raised by Monbiot and others in the DevNet Discussion Forum, and have your say!

http://www.devnet.org.nz/forum/index.php

(Added: Wed Jan 21 2004   Modified: Wed Jun 29 2005   Hits: 321)

On the Edge of Lunacy

British aid money is helping the rich while pretending to help the poor, writes George Monbiot. Foreign aid from Britain means giving to the rich the resources which keep the poor alive. The Adam Smith Institute, the ultra-rightwing lobby group, now receives more money from Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) than Liberia or Somalia, two of the most desperate nations on earth. Aid has always been an instrument of foreign policy. During the Cold War, it was used to buy the loyalties of states which might otherwise have crossed to the other side. Even today, the countries which receive the most money tend to be those which are of greatest strategic use to the donor nation, which is why the US gives more to Israel than it does to sub-Saharan Africa. But foreign policy is also driven by commerce, and in particular by the needs of domestic exporters. Aid goes to countries which can buy our manufacturers' products. Sometimes it doesn't go to countries at all, but straight to the manufacturers.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/01/06/on-the-edge-of-lunacy/

(Added: Tue Jan 20 2004   Modified: Wed Jun 29 2005   Hits: 590)

Government aid may be biased, says report

Guardian Online Tash Shifrin Wednesday November 5, 2003 The Department for International Development (DfID) has given five times as much humanitarian aid to tackle European emergencies than it has for emergencies in Africa since 1997, a public spending watchdog revealed today. The National Audit Office (NAO) said the figures, which show the huge difference per head of population in the two continents, were drawn from the DfID's "own analysis". In the report, the NAO said: "The analysis concluded that this large variation could not be explained by differences in cost of delivery and associated security factors alone and may reflect a bias of resource distribution to more 'strategic' countries rather than 'non-strategic' countries."

http://society.guardian.co.uk/disasterresponse/story/0,1321,1078422,00.html

(Added: Thu Nov 06 2003   Modified: Wed Jun 29 2005   Hits: 169)

Two Ways to Boil a Frog

By Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka. "In the past couple of years, following the country's civil unrest, Solomon Islanders seem to have developed a high degree of tolerance for the law and (dis)order situation and other social problems in their country. In a way, tolerance is a good thing because it helps people survive in a difficult situation. But, it ceases to be a good thing when people begin to accept their appalling situation as 'normal' and is not bothered to change it." Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka, Chief Negotiator for Guadalcanal Province and the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM) at the Solomon Islands Peace Conference in 2000, is a leading expert on the Solomon Islands. (East-West Centre Pacific Islands Report)

http://166.122.164.43/archive/2003/June/06-24-tara.htm

(Added: Thu Jul 31 2003   Modified: Mon Dec 05 2005   Hits: 426)

War On Terror A Threat To Humanitarian Aid Operations

By Antoine Blua, Prague, 17 July 2003 (RFE/RL). International antiterrorism efforts are posing ethical dilemmas that may threaten the legitimacy and work of humanitarian agencies. The "World Disasters Report 2003," released today by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, says many humanitarian crises are being neglected as aid is increasingly targeting those countries and conflicts in the political and media spotlight.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2003/07/mil-030717-rfel-170103.htm

(Added: Tue Jul 22 2003   Modified: Wed Nov 29 2006   Hits: 207)

Quality, not quantity, hampers ODA: professor

By Yumi Wijers-Hasegawa Staff Writer The Japan Times: July 16, 2003 The main problem with Japan's official development assistance lies not in its quantity but in its lack of expertise, a specialist in development economics said Tuesday. Addressing a news conference in Tokyo, University of Denver Professor Haider A. Khan gave two examples of shortcomings in Japanese aid: the lack of effort by the Japanese to communicate in the language of the recipient countries and the lack of overall knowledge that these people have. Khan's comments come at a time when Japan is moving to revise its ODA charter to reflect a distribution policy that is more closely linked to its national security.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20030716a5.htm

(Added: Thu Jul 17 2003   Hits: 136)

Handouts from the slavemaster

09.07.2003 Comment by PAUL VALLELY, INDEPENDENT (New Zealand Herald). "I seem to be out on a limb here. Everyone else is giving loud hurrahs for Bush's pledge of US$15 billion ($25.1 billion) in increased assistance to combat Aids and his promise to treble development aid to the continent. Unlikely converts to the George Bush fan club, including ace bullshit detector Sir Bob Geldof, are saying they detect "the beginnings of a historic change towards Africa". So why am I suspicious? In part because even with the increases, America is still the world's stingiest donor, giving only 0.12 per cent of its national income to aid - less than a third of the EU's percentage. The whole of Africa still gets less American aid than Israel and Egypt."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3511674&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

(Added: Fri Jul 11 2003   Modified: Tue Aug 15 2006   Hits: 275)

MCA Monitor: Tracking the Millennium Challenge Account

The MCA Monitor provides rigorous policy analysis and research on the operations and effectiveness of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. It aims to contribute to the MCC's success by drawing lessons from relevant experiences, raising awareness, and linking related work on aid effectiveness.

http://www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/mcamonitor

(Added: Fri Jun 20 2003   Modified: Mon Sep 11 2006   Hits: 215)

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