Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
In the world of foreign aid flows, the idea of paying for outcomes rather than inputs has a long history. Yet despite regular proclamations of interest in such approaches, the share of funding that is linked to outputs or outcomes instead of activities and processes remains quite small.
In our new policy paper, we take advantage of the fact that the impact of UK aid is independently assessed by the Independent Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI). Looking back over 8 years and 65 graded assessments, even with a focus on riskier projects, we find that almost 80 percent of UK aid assessed was well spent. With a spending review on the horizon, HM Treasury will be looking closely at departmental performance and should use ICAI’s findings to shape their allocations.
The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) issued a report this week on the performance of CDC–the UK’s development finance institution–in low-income and fragile states. ICAI gives CDC an Amber/Red rating on its performance, which means “unsatisfactory achievement in most areas, with some positive elements.” In particular, the commission says that CDC has not done enough to monitor its performance.
The new UK Secretary of State for International Development has committed to “find new ways to help other departments make their spend more effective” as one of her five pledges for UK aid. Here we look at why the law underpinning the UK’s aid expenditure is weaker on poverty and gender equality outside of the Department for International Development (DFID) and identify four things the government should do to improve aid effectiveness.
The White House, State Department, and US Agency for International Development (USAID) reviews have rightly emphasized addressing duplication and inefficiency. But rather than focusing on a State/USAID merger, as has been widely rumored, the administration should look at something that leads to some of the biggest duplications, triplications, and even quadruplications of capacity that exists in the US government: the severe fragmentation of US development assistance.
While the UK negotiates its exit from the EU, the EU will be negotiating over its own budget for the period from 2020-2026 as part of the Multi-Annual Financial Framework. So, where will EU development aid be a quarter of the way through the 21st century?
Britain’s new aid strategy has important implications, not only for DFID but for international organisations who will either need to adapt or face losing some of their core funding. Here’s why.
No one said creating development impact bonds (DIB) was going to be easy, but that hasn’t stopped the development community from trying to get them off the ground. The Fred Hollows Foundation, based in Australia, has been hard at work on a DIB to address cataract blindness in Africa. As the Foundation attracts partners to help fund and implement a pilot of the cataract bond, Dr. Lachlan McDonald, the Foundation’s senior health economist, and Alex Rankin, their Global Lead for Policy, Advocacy & Research, shared some lessons learned so far. With Lachlan and Alex’s permission, we’re turning some of those lessons over to you – we hope they’re useful to others seeking to move ahead with their own DIB.
International development has reached a crucial moment in its evolution. Given the great progress in much of the world in the past decade or so, the paradigm of north-south development assistance is now outdated. All countries are engaged in contributing to global development, supporting sustainability and poverty reduction locally, nationally, regionally and globally.
Do more, use rigorous methods, and clearly acknowledge limits — these were the main messages of our recent forum on measuring and evaluating women’s economic empowerment.
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