Development assistance, David Cameron style (part 2)

Back in December I blogged about David Cameron's plans for international development policy under a Tory government. I argued that his proposed MyAid programme, which would give the public the opportunity to vote on which aid programmes should received funding from DFID, may not lead to resources being allocated to the work which is most needed. This point was well made in the House of Commons recently by Jim Sheridan MP, who highlighted the need for funding for programmes tackling female genital mutilation, and questioned how the MyAid programme would "protect vital programmes that do not have the X factor and do not receive an internet vote?"

Now, Britain has a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government, and its programme for government includes, alongside the MyAid idea, some commendable commitments to introduce greater transparency on aid spending, support an Arms Trade Treaty and make progress on the MDGs. Cameron has announced his intention to set up a new monitoring body to assess the effectiveness of DFID's spending.

Of course, we all want to see development aid being spent on programmes that have a real impact. But my concern is that the desire to see instant, concrete results can actually divert funding away from programmes which would bring the greatest long term benefit.

Sometimes, what is needed to bring about development is not just accelerating economic growth or providing much needed goods and services in poor countries - although these things are important. The UN measures development not just in terms of economic development but in terms of human development, which is reflected in the MDGs. In some cases this can require social change, which may take decades to come into fruition.

In 2008 I spent three months in Palestine carrying out research on methods and frameworks for evaluating the the effectiveness of development programmes, specifically those devoted to women's rights and women's empowerment. What I found concurred with arguments in the development literature that the trend towards an increasing focus on evaluating the impacts of development projects and programmes, if not applied with caution, can have the opposite of its intended effects.[1]

Sari Hanafi and Linda Tabar summarise the point with a quote from a member of one Palestinian women's organisation who said: "Sometimes donors expect a revolution for the $60,000 they contributed. I will not work with such donors again. If they think they can see such results right away there is a problem."[2]

Many programmes for women's empowerment adopt the 'training the trainers' model, teaching women how to train other women in their communities in advocacy skills, gender analysis, citizenship, IT skills and more. Such programmes aim to plant the seeds of social change, which may take years to grow into a wider social movement with real impacts on society. Meanwhile, projects which produce quick, tangible results may attract more funding even if ultimately they do less to bring about the social change which is needed and desired.

David Cameron must also not forget, amid the upcoming frenzy of budget cuts, that thorough evaluation requires funding dedicated for that purpose. Many development NGOs are funded only on a project-by-project basis, and if that budget does not include funds for the evaluation process itself then it may not be carried out. It is a cost worth bearing, as only through evaluation of its activities can any organisation learn from its experience. However, it is a long term investment, and donors must ensure that development NGOs have the space and the resources to carry out evaluations which are not just tools for donor accountability and future funding decisions, but also provide a useful basis for organisational learning.

In a competitive environment where continued funding depends on producing evidence of instant impacts, the allocation of resources can become skewed toward low-risk, short-termist projects, and the financial need for a positive evaluative result can get in the way of the kind of honest appraisal which is vital to building long term strategies for development. A push towards transparency and thorough evaluation of impacts is, on the face of it, a positive thing, but it must be done with sensitivity, ensuring that the evaluation process serves not only the agenda of donors such as DFID, but also that of the organisations whom they fund and, most importantly, the communities whose quality of life they aim to improve.

[1] e.g. Islah Jad, 'NGOs: Between buzzwords and social movements' in Development in Practice, vol 17 no. 4, pp. 622-629 (2007); Sari Hanafi and Linda Tabar, The Emergence of a Palestinian Globalized Elite: Donors, International Organisations and Local NGOs, (Jerusalem: Institute of Jerusalem Studies, 2005).

[2] Hanafi and Tabar, The Emergence of a Palestinian Globalized Elite, p. 186.