Disasters at DEC

According to the FT, the Disasters Emergency Committee have stopped commissioning evaluations of how the money is spent. According to the article this "potentially raising questions over whether millions of pounds in donations are being used effectively." It certainly does.

The future...and beyond!

People will not doubt focus on the recommendation that the US government's development functions be aligned with its other foreign policy objectives, including democratization and defence. But there is much else besides in the new HELP commission report, 'Beyond Assistance'.

In particular there is a strong and welcome focus on improving aid evaluation. Starting from the finding that the "foreign assistance system is broken" the authors repeatedly stresses that the government should "better evaluate projects based on the outcomes they achieve"; "programs must be innovative - which requires our nation accept and learn from failure...Interventions in states must be quantifiable, with numerical goals and timetables, and programs must have specific objectives, which could be measured, evaluated, and re-assessed."

Other notable recommendations include:

• Focussing aid on America's comparative advantages (listed as agriculture, technology, small business development and education) rather than trying to tackle all aspects of poverty
• Moving from an aid system of top-down provision to one in which programs are demand-driven
• Working with private partners and philanthropists
• Concentrating on programs which promote economic growth, rather than social programs

Three-eyed monster

Let's have a closer look at the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (known as '3IE') which has been driven forward by Nancy Birdsall of the Center for Global Development (the subject of the previous post).

In Bellagio earlier this year a group of development agencies decided upon the wording of a proposed founding document for 3IE. It will be a non-profit membership body which will commission 'rigorous' impact evaluations of development programs. The founding members are:

• African Development Bank
• Asian Development Bank
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Canadian International Development Agency
• Center for Global Development
• Department for International Development
• European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
• Millennium Challenge Corporation
• Ministry of Finance, Lesotho
• Ministry of Finance, Nigeria
• Ministry of Finance, Uganda
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands
• Ministry of Health, Mexico
• Ministry of Trade, Indonesia
• National Treasury, South Africa
• Planning Commission, India
• UNDP-Regional Bureau for Africa
• William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

They should obviously be applauded for their insight and ambition and other development agencies (most notably INGOs) should be encouraged to join 3IE as soon as possible.
However, in the spirit of constructive criticism it is worth highlighting three crunch questions as a litmus test for the robustness of the organisation:

• Will the evaluation standards be explicitly defined, rigorous and methodologically sound?
• Will the process for choosing impact evaluations ensure that the right studies are conducted?
• Will there be institutional safeguards to ensure that members' blushes are not spared?

I hope the answer to all three is 'yes'; time will tell.