Aid Effectiveness
As negotiations heat up ahead of the Fourth High Level Forum on aid effectiveness (HLF-IV), many countries are keen to move beyond a narrow aid effectiveness agenda, bringing in a broader range of actors and issues in recognition of the changing development landscape. Emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil are becoming ever more important. The demand for Africa’s oil and mineral resources is growing, providing many African countries with new revenue streams. Traditional donors’ aid budgets are under pressure. And people are taking to the streets and the twitter-verse to demand more transparent and accountable governance, from north Africa to north America and beyond. However, broadening the conversation to include more actors and issues beyond aid, must not and need not be at the expense of clear, measurable and time-bound commitments on aid effectiveness.
At Busan, countries should make commitments to deliver and use aid in ways that promote transparent and accountable financing for development, and that focus clearly on results. This will put people and politics back in the picture, enabling citizens in both developing and developed countries to see what resources are available, how they are spent, and what results they achieve so that they can hold their governments to account.
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At ONE we spend a lot of time and effort making sure that citizens in developing countries get the resources they need to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease. We hold wealthy governments to account for commitments they made to increase development assistance, and we fight cuts to foreign aid—like in the US where it is less than 1% of the budget! But we’re not just about the money.
Greater financial investments are crucial to helping countries increase momentum and boost progress in the four years left to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—but without mechanisms in place to make sure that those resources are properly targeted, delivered, and tracked, we cannot ensure that the investments are reaching those that need it most and are actually achieving development outcomes. So we have to be just as concerned with the quality of investments made as we are with the quantity of investments made, even more so in a time of constrained budgets and scrutiny.
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US Army Captain Vincent Fry performs a check-up on a boy in Djibouti. Photo credit: Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Pratt/ US Air Force.
At a recent Congressional hearing, chaired by Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-4), officials said that despite difficulties with initial misconceptions, AFRICOM serves a vital role in security and aid delivery in Africa. The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights held the hearing, with testimony from the following witnesses:
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The European Union (EU) is world’s largest economic block (with 501 million inhabitants and a total GDP of more than $17 trillion). In addition it is also the world’s largest provider of Official Development Assistance (ODA), also known as “Overseas Aid”. In 2010, EU countries provided over $72 billion of overseas aid, which is more than double that of the United States. It is a huge total.
Photo courtesy of Berni Beudel, via Flickr
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Aid budgets are under increasing pressure as governments in donor countries seek to deal with the aftermath of the global financial crisis. If public support for aid is to be maintained, and if continued progress on poverty reduction is to be made, it is essential that aid is spent in ways that deliver the biggest bang possible for taxpayers’ bucks.
The public needs proof -– living proof -– that aid, effectively delivered, works. In this context, it is no surprise to see the excitement that the publication of Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel’s “More than good intentions: How a new economics is helping to solve global poverty,” and Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo’s “Poor economics: A radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty” has generated in and beyond the development policy community.
The two books –- growing out of the work of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) – set out a common manifesto for research, policy and practice on global development. Their three key messages are:
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This week, ministers and officials from more than 50 countries and international organizations are gathering in Paris, France to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Under the theme “Better Policies for Better Lives,” this year’s annual OECD Ministerial Meeting and Forum will focus on sharing policies “to build a resilient and balanced world economy, supported by new sources of growth and jobs in developed and developing countries.”
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Feel like there’s just no hope for the world these days? Well, it might be time to change your outlook. While the income per capita around the world has not increased, people are exponentially happier than ever before. And life expectancy has even increased by 10 years, despite economies facing monetary crises.
How is this possible, you ask? As Charles Kenny, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, explains in his new book, “Getting Better: Why Global Development is Succeeding. And How We Can Improve the World Even More,” it’s not all about money — the basic quality of life is actually cheap!
Intrigued? I was. Last week, I went to Kenny’s book launch to find out more. Kenny’s book sheds an extremely underrated light on the positive aspects of global development and how the 21st century is ushering in the best of times in terms of health, education, political freedoms and access to infrastructure and new technologies, benefiting even the poorest in the world.
For instance, thanks to technological advancements, we are able to make vaccines extraordinarily affordable and available to the masses, vastly improving the quality of life for countless communities. Kenny addressed aid skeptics by stating that there are enough cases to confidently say that where there was aid, there was effect -– the greatest example being the eradication of smallpox. Additionally, with education, attitudes can be changed, resulting in bigger movements such as encouraging female education (which helps to increase economic growth while decreasing fertility rates) and simple practices like washing your hands (which helps to control the spread of germs and disease).
Global health has made huge strides, and is perhaps the most exciting advancement that we’ve seen. As Kenny told us, “The story is positive and needs to be told. Many people think that aid doesn’t work, and it’s just not true.”
He went on to comment on the foreign aid budget and had a special message for the Senate: “Reform aid. Don’t cut it. Move aid dollars toward something that works.” Certainly, with tens of millions of fewer parents seeing their children die, aid has made an enormous impact, proving its effectiveness.
We love good news, and Kenny certainly delivers. To learn more about the positive aspects of global development, be sure to check out Kenny’s new book –- it’s a great read.
Also, the Center for Global Development is holding a Twitter contest until March 18. Simply mention @CGDev in a tweet and tell them what in the world is #gettingbetter, and you could win a signed copy of “Getting Better: Why Global Development is succeeding. And How We Can Improve the World Even More.”
