Donor countries have committed to major increases in development assistance but doubts remain over how effective this aid is. At the March 23, 2010 launch of their new book, Cash on Delivery: A new approach to foreign aid with an application to primary schooling, authors Nancy Birdsall, President, Center for Global Development; William Savedoff, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development; and Ayah Mahgoub, Program Coordinator to the President, Center for Global Development, presented an approach that links aid directly to outcomes in ways that promote accountability and strengthen local institutions. Cash on Delivery builds on existing initiatives that strive to disburse aid against results, but it takes the idea further by linking payments more directly to a single specific outcome; giving the recipient country full authority to achieve progress however it sees fit and without interference of any kind from donors; and assuring that the recipient country's progress is transparent and visible to its own citizens. These features could rebalance accountability, reduce transaction costs, and encourage local innovation and learning.
Discussants included Mauro De Lorenzo, Vice President of Freedom and Free Enterprise, Templeton Foundation; Michael Kremer, Gates Professor of Development Studies, Harvard University and Non-Resident Fellow, Center for Global Development; and Rakesh Rajani, Founder and Head, Twaweza. Lawrence MacDonald, Vice President of Communications and Outreach Policy, moderated the discussion.
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