Cash on Delivery Aid Update -
December 2009 / January 2010

SEEN AND HEARD

Last month, at the request of Malawian government officials, Nancy, Bill and I visited Malawi to learn whether and how COD Aid could be offered to promote continued progress in primary education.  We participated in the education sector annual review and met with a wide range of development partners, government officials and civil society representatives to learn about aid effectiveness in the education sector, and discuss how COD Aid could be introduced in the country taking into consideration stakeholder constraints.  Our findings are available in this report.

Nancy also made a brief trip to assess COD Aid feasibility in Ethiopia.  There she met with Prime Minister Meles, Capacity Building Minister Tefera, Education Minister Demeke, State Minister of Finance Mekonnen and officials from DfID and the World Bank.  Her recommendations can be found in this report.

As more stakeholders explore COD Aid, we will clarify points of confusion and respond to recurring questions on our website.  Recently, Bill posted one such clarification about the incremental nature of COD Aid on our Views from the Center blog.  Owen Barder offered a detailed response to many of the questions raised in the CAFOD briefing note released last fall in a blog post on both his site and ours (here is our previous response to the CAFOD note). 

ON THE HORIZON

At the request of African Development Bank officials, we will begin exploring with water experts whether and how COD Aid can be offered to increase access to potable water in developing countries.  We are convening a meeting for a preliminary exploration in early February.  We will also consult with malaria experts to explore whether and how COD Aid could be applied to malaria.  We’ll send information on our discussions next month, but in the meantime, please feel free to send us input to these efforts.

As always, to learn more about COD Aid, please visit the COD Aid page of our website, and stay tuned for information on the March launch of our forthcoming book Cash on Delivery: a New Approach to Foreign Aid with an Application to Primary Schooling.  We appreciate your continued feedback and welcome additional comments, ideas, and questions in the form of emails to me.

Best wishes,

Ayah Mahgoub
Program Coordinator to the President
Center for Global Development