Aid effectiveness DFID Tanzania May 2009 Owen Barder These slides are at www.owen.org/musings
What s the plan? Is aid effective? Why Paris and Accra? Understanding effectiveness Gosplan and Google Controversial suggestions for DFID You tell me I m talking rubbish
14% Aid and growth sub-saharan Africa - 10 year moving averages 1972-2000 6.0% 12% 10% 5.0% 8% 6% 4% per capita growth aid % GDP (right axis) 4.0% 3.0% 2% 2.0% 0% -2% -4% Chart from William Easterly The Elusive Quest for Growth (2002) 1.0% 0.0% 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Aid and growth revisited sub-saharan Africa - 5 year moving averages 1967-2007 20% 7% 15% 6% 10% 5% 4% 5% 3% 0% 2% -5% -10% growth per capita (left axis) aid % GDP (right axis) Updated version of Easterly chart using same data sources 1% 0% 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Country plot of aid and growth 3 2.5 Annual growth (adjusted) 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Aid as a share of GDP
How aid might start to do harm Potential problem Administration costs Impact on institutions Impact on accountability Proliferation Wrong choice of activities Macroeconomic effects Examples Missions, reports, accounts, targets, audits, reviews Hiring skilled labour, driving up wages, divert attention from reform, undermines budget Weakens social contract, blurs responsibilities, donors acting like opposition Conflicting priorities of donors, adds to transactions costs Pursuit of broader interests, ignorance of country, need to get money out the door, fetish of sustainability Dutch disease, competitiveness, wages, lack of focus on wealth and job creation
Number of aid projects 1973-2006 90000 80000 Number of Projects 70000 60000 50000 40000 30000 Multilat Bilat Total 20000 10000 0 Source: PLAID project level aid database June 2008
Average project amounts 1973-2006 $60,000,000 $50,000,000 $40,000,000 Total Bilateral Multilateral $30,000,000 $20,000,000 $10,000,000 $0 Source: PLAID project level aid database June 2008
We will always have Paris St. Vincent an island state with a population of 117,000 was asked to monitor 191 indicators on HIV/AIDS, while Guyana was asked to report on 169 indicators There were 15,229 donor missions to 54 countries in 2007 - an average of 282 missions per country per year. Ethiopia had 221 donor missions in 2007 80% of the 80,000 aid projects under way at any one time are for less than $1m Senegal has 82 individual aid coordination forums There were 22 medical NGOs working in the health sector in one part of the west coast of Aceh in December 2005 and more than 60 agencies claimed to be working in Aceh s education sector in December 2005. Government of Mozambique has over 1000 bank accounts due to donor requirements
Paris Principles Ownership. Developing countries set their own strategies for development, improve their institutions and tackle corruption.. Helps to solve Impact on accountability Poor choice of activities Alignment. Donor countries bring their support in line with these objectives and use local systems. Impact on accountability Impact on institutions Administration costs Harmonisation. Donor countries co-ordinate their action, simplify procedures and share information to avoid duplication. Administration costs Proliferation Managing for results. Developing countries and donors focus on producing and measuring results Poor choice of activities Macroeconomic effects Mutual accountability. Donor and developing country partners are accountable for development results. Impact on accountability Poor choice of activities
DFID as a whole Targets met: Coordinated TA, PFM, procurement, untying, programme based aid, joint mission, analytical work Target close to met: Reducing project implementation units Not met challenging Aid on budget Predictability
What s the plan? Is aid effective? Why Paris and Accra? Understanding effectiveness Gosplan and Google Controversial suggestions for DFID You tell me I m talking rubbish
A short history of the search for the cure to poverty 1940s and 1950s aid as poverty relief 1960s and 1970s investment and growth 1980s structural adjustment 1990s institutions and policies 2000s conflict, accountability we in the development community should not forget that ultimately we exist to work ourselves out of business and the best way to do that will be to encourage growth and trade. Douglas Alexander 2007
Builds capacity and institutions. Effects are sustained after funding finishes. Support civil society Indirect impact less visible Global public goods Reform trade system Institutional reform projects and technical assistance Sustainable Debt relief General Budget support Sector Budget support ultimately we exist to work ourselves out of business? Direct impact more visible Benefits only while funding provided Likely to erode local capacity and institutions Unsustainable Service delivery projects Global Funds Humanitarian aid Imported food aid
Gosplan and Google Collective action solutions Planning Markets Networks Combination of all three needed Use planning about the system not the details Use markets for delivery Use networks to create feedback loop
Pillars of a new architecture Networks Markets Planning Transparency of aid information Unbundling funding from implementation Information and knowledge sharing standards Rigorous, comparable, independent evaluations Competition in supply of development services Agreements to sustain competition (eg untying) Feedback from beneficiaries Challenge funds to promote innovation Taxation of negative externalities (missions, PIUs) Social production & online communities Cash on Delivery Aid (and other forms of output based aid) Subsidy of public goods (research, civil society, knowledge sharing) North South linkages Evolution not intelligent design of institutions Aid ombudsman
Quiz What is total aid to Tanzania? What are total remittances to Tanzania? How many Tanzanian doctors live abroad? What should Tanzania argue for in Copenhagen? What are the main obstacles to selling organic produce in Europe? What are the most effective ways to improve learning outcomes in Tanzania?
Ten ways to make aid better 1. Accept not all aid is sustainable & transformative. 2. Promote transparency and accountability to recipients 3. Do fewer evaluations, and do them right 4. Do less technical assistance, and do it right 5. Employ more local staff 6. Do financial transfers via multilaterals 7. Do more on the demand side of services 8. Do more about UK and OECD policies 9. Build global social protection 10. Link aid better to results e.g. Cash On Delivery
Conclusions Aid effectiveness means... tackling the symptoms and causes of poverty Aid works, but... the benefits decrease as aid goes up Paris Declaration helps to reduce the harm aid can do Three key DFID priorities predictability, transparency, accountability Work on DFID s comparative advantages Less on transfers, more on rich country policy