Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Building on a recent paper on UK ODA-financed research and development that discussed some of the issues with the current funding allocation model for R&D including around transparency and the fact that it was largely (de facto) “tied” to UK institutions, this blog explores different types of research and where and how it makes sense to fund them.
The UK government has recently ramped up the amount of aid that is directed towards research and development. While this can be positive in ensuring a sound research base for UK aid funds, this should not be seen as an opportunity to plug UK university funding deficits, or to "tie aid" to the UK economy.
Yesterday, the German Social Democrats (SPD) voted in favour of pursuing in-depth coalition talks with Angela Merkel’s Conservatives (CDU). Although the chancellor’s battle for political survival is far from over (as the final coalition agreement will have to be backed by the majority of SPD’s 443,000 party members), it is likely that we will see a remaking of a grand coalition. Here we look what that would mean for Germany’s leadership on development.
The EU faces a substantial drop in its development resources following Brexit. Still, the amount will depend on how “hard” that exit is, and the UK’s ongoing involvement in voluntary EU-level arrangements. Here we assess the potential size of the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) funding drop that EU institutions could face.
In Norway last year I met with the impressive staff of one of the world’s largest and smartest NGOs. They were unhappy that Norwegian aid money was being used to discourage deforestation in Brazil instead of to immunize children and educate girls in low-income Africa—in other words, to deal with climate change rather than “development.” I countered that minimizing climate change is a crucial piece of development, and urged them to rethink the issue.
The firestorm of events across the Middle East over the past few days can't be explained by long-term development factors: the link between politics and economic development (or lack thereof) is complex in the extreme. Still, the staggering lack of opportunities for young people, especially young entrepreneurs without political connections, is clearly an important part of the mix.
Something’s stirring out there, as the perennial grumbles about official development assistance (ODA) morph into claims of its demise. Last year, Jean-Michel Severino and Olivier Ray ventured a coup de grace in a CGD working paper, The End of ODA: Death and Rebirth of a Global Public Policy. Their proposals for resuscitation have just appeared in a second CGD working paper, The End of ODA (II): The Birth of Hypercollective Action.
This is a joint posting with Ayah Mahgoub
To all those concerned about the future of foreign aid, please take the opportunity to read the works included in CGD’s new Innovations in Aid mini-series. The first paper in this series “The End of ODA” is by Jean-Michel Severino and Olivier Ray, and though it was started before the current global financial crisis reached its height, it is more relevant today than ever before. In this paper Severino and Ray describe shifts in the objectives of ODA (official development assistance) over time, and conclude that it is time to reform the concept and rename it “Global Policy Finance”.
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