How to monitor and evaluate anti-corruption agencies: Guidelines for agencies, donors, and evaluators
This report provides technical, methodological, and practical guidance to assist staff of Anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) in undertaking monitoring and evaluation and shows how the outcomes and impact of the work of ACAs can be evaluated in an objective, evidence-based manner. Download Report from U4.
Public Lecture
Bonn, 18.04.2012, 18:30, DIE,
Aid Effectiveness and Results-Based Aid
Prof. Dr. Talaat Abdel-Malek, Panel Discussion afterwards.
Please register for the event with GDI directly: http://tinyurl.com/88dnh32
All aid approaches aim to achieve “results”. There are two aspects to the new debate on results: On the one hand, further improving the effectiveness of aid is important to the specialists, whereas on the other hand many donors (parliaments, the public etc.) continue to call for the justification of aid expenditures. This creates great pressure to give the most concrete evidence for the utility of aid budgets.
The current international discussion on results based approaches differs from debates so far in as much as in practice, aid has been frequently inputs and progress oriented. Results based aid (RBA) aims to identify outputs or outcomes that can be measured and quantified, i.e. results that can be directly linked to development activities.
Development practitioners and donors are gearing up for the Busan meeting on Aid Effectiveness later this month, which will focus on results. But will this renewed commitment translate into a more systematic use of evidence in policymaking?
To promote better use of evidence, 3ie is launching a Commitment to Evaluation index. The index will score donor agency and government use of evidence, identifying and rewarding progress and good practice. The index will be piloted next year for donor agencies, recognizing donors making systematic use of evidence, thus providing an incentive to others to do the same.
3ie’s initiative follows the example of other successful attempts to use awards or indexes to focus the attention of policymakers. Indexes such as the UN Development Programme’s Human Development index, Transparency International’s Corruption Perception index, and the Centre for Global Development’s new Quality of ODA (QuODA) index have raised awareness on key issues and influenced practice of governments and development agencies. In developing this measure, 3ie will draw from the lessons learned by similar initiatives on how best to award evaluation practices and build and run an effective index
We invite your inputs for designing the Commitment to Evaluation index. Click here to give your views on how commitment to evaluation can be measured and if it matters
Consultation: how can commitment to evaluation be measured? Does it matter? Survey.
How to monitor and evaluate anti-corruption agencies: Guidelines for agencies, donors, and evaluators
This report provides technical, methodological, and practical guidance to assist staff of Anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) in undertaking monitoring and evaluation and shows how the outcomes and impact of the work of ACAs can be evaluated in an objective, evidence-based manner. Download Report from U4.
What are the potential benefits of aid transparency? What information is needed and how could donors make this more accessible? Survey results indicate that improved transparency of aid information would contribute to faster poverty reduction by making aid more effective and accountable. Users of aid information need more accessible, detailed, timely, and consistent information to enable them to make aid work better. Donors should therefore publish information (electronically) in more detail, using common definitions and a common format. This could both reduce costs for donors, who repeatedly provide the same information in different forms, and increase the information’s value to users.
Increased transparency of aid is a specific commitment in the 2005 Paris Declaration and of the draft Accra Agenda for Action. It is also a necessary condition for progress in the Paris principles of ownership, harmonisation, alignment, managing for results and mutual accountability. Information should be accessible through a variety of means by people in developing countries as well as in donor countries, in a form that is useful to them. Barriers are not cost or technical feasibility, but attention to the issue and coordination among donors.
International Aid Transparency Standard Finalised | Publish What You Fund.
After two years of negotiating, the 18 donors of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) agreed on 9th February the final details of a new global standard for publishing aid information. With this format in place that will make aid information internationally comparable, more information will now be better information.
The new aid transparency standard provides a common language and format and a single way that donor countries can share information on the aid they are spending. With this format it will now be possible to build a bigger picture of aid activities which means that donors and recipients can coordinate their plans and complement the activities of others, reducing duplication and waste. However, to see the bigger picture, we need more data.
M&E can provide unique information about the performance of government policies, programs and projects. It can identify what works, what does not, and the reasons why. M&E also provides information about the performance of a government, of individual ministries and agencies, of managers and their staff. And it provides information on the performance of donors which support the work of governments.
It is tempting — but dangerous — to view M&E as having inherent value. The value of M&E comes not from conducting M&E or from having such information available; rather, the value comes from using it to help improve government performance. There are several ways in which M&E information can be highly useful to governments and to others:
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To support evidence-based policy-making, particularly in the context of the national budget cycle and for national planning. These processes focus on government priorities among competing demands from citizens and groups in society. M&E information can support government’s deliberations by providing evidence about the most cost-effective types of government activity, such as different types of education programs or health interventions or transfer payments. Terms which are used to describe the use of M&E information in this manner include performance budgeting, results-based budgeting, or performance-informed budgeting.
Bullet red To support government ministries and agencies in managing activities at the sector, program and project levels, including government service delivery and the management of staff. This is often termed results-based management, or results-oriented management.
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To enhance transparency and support accountability relationships. These include the accountability of government to the parliament or congress, to civil society, and to the donors which lend to them. M&E also supports the accountability relationships within government, such as between sector ministries and central ministries, and between ministers, managers and sta
via Evaluation Capacity Development – Priority for Government M&E Systems.
EADI: EDC2020 Publication “Rising Powers and New Global Challenges” – Bonn Sustainability Portal.
The challenges facing European development cooperation have changed substantially in recent years. Analysts and politicians have commented on the increasing influence of China in Africa and the challenges this poses for EU influence to the EU strategic and policy objectives.
In fact, both China and India have expanded their development cooperation programmes in Africa and are using aid as a means to gain economic and political influence and access to strategic resources, above all energy resources. In doing so, they appear to challenge the aid principles agreed by the OECD Donor Assistance Committee (DAC). Because of China’s high-profile in Africa, much of the discussion about new donors has centred on China’s role as a new actor in development cooperation, and the differences between its approach to development cooperation and the DAC principles. But the challenge for EU development cooperation goes far beyond aid principles and the DAC consensus. The underlying challenge arises from a combination of the emergence of new economic and political powers and a radically changing global conjuncture.
The DAC consensus was formed in particular economic and political circumstances. In the 1990s, the collapse of the Soviet Union freed development cooperation from great power politics, while reductions in spending by Russia and donors in the Middle East donors left the DAC group in control of 95% of international aid (Manning 2006: 371-2). The removal of aid competition allowed donors to pursue economic and political conditionality, human rights and democracy issues more insistently. At the same time, with a relatively benign global environment characterised by low and stable commodity prices and growth across much of the world, the DAC donors were confident about prioritising aid towards poverty reduction and the needs of the poorest countries downplaying the role of aid in pursuing the strategic and political interests of the donors.
By John Humphrey, Institute of Development Studies, UK
New on entries
Weitzenegger’s Publication Review
http://www.weitzenegger.de/en/publications.html
Agricultural Diversification for the Poor – Guidelines for Practitioners. http://tinyurl.com/2vs2wx8
This World Bank study treats diversification as a differentiated form of agricultural
development and recognizes its role to spur sustainable growth in the rural sector.
The principle purpose of this study is to outline practical ways for implementing
diversification activities. Throughout the paper, emphasis is particularly on how the diversification process can be made pro-poor with minimum risk involved. Paper concludes with a list of key investment areas to assist diversification.
Assets, Shocks, and Poverty Traps in Rural Mozambique
http://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.363264.de/dp1073.pdf
Using a micro-level approach to poverty traps, this paper explores welfare dynamics
among households in post-war rural Mozambique. The analysis by Lena Giesbert and Kati
Schindler shows that shocks and household coping behavior help to explain the observed poverty dynamics.
Beyond Development Aid
http://europafrica.net/2010/11/09/beyond-development-aid/
Publication of the Europe-Africa Policy Research Network (EARN) that intends to address the EU-Africa political dialogue on global issues of common concern.
Brazil: An Emerging Aid Player
http://tinyurl.com/18r
This ODI Briefing Paper reviews the institutional set up of Brazil’s aid programme and the implications of its rise in the aid scene.
Challenges in Impact Evaluation of Development Interventions: Opportunities and Limitations for Randomized Experiments
http://www.ua.ac.be/download.aspx?c=.IOB&n=83953&ct=77447&e=249703 Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB study by Jos Vaessen
Combating Poverty and Inequality: Structural Change, Social Policy and Politics http://tinyurl.com/25rkvpw
This UNRISD Flagship Report argues that this is because many current approaches to reducing poverty and inequality fail to consider key institutional, policy and
political dimensions that may be both causes of poverty and inequality, and obstacles
to their reduction. Moreover, when a substantial proportion of a country’s population
is poor, it makes little sense to detach poverty from the dynamics of development. For
countries that have been successful in increasing the well-being of the majority of
their populations over relatively short periods of time, the report shows, progress has occurred principally through state-directed strategies that combine economic
development objectives with active social policies and forms of politics that elevate the interests of the poor in public policy.
Evaluating Transportation Economic Development Impacts
http://www.vtpi.org/econ_dev.pdf
Understanding How Transport Policy and Planning Decisions Affect Employment, Incomes, Productivity, Competitiveness, Property Values and Tax Revenues. By Todd Litman, Victoria Transport Policy Institute
Evaluation Study on ADB Assistance for Public-Private Partnerships in Infrastructure Development
http://www.adb.org/Documents/SES/REG/SES-OTH-2009-31/default.asp Public-private partnerships have been gaining recognition in many of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) developing member countries as an important means of
mobilizing private sector capital and expertise for infrastructure investments and
service provision. This study evaluates the performance of ADB’s public and private
sector operations in support of public-private partnerships in the power, transport, and water sectors; and the development of related policy, legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks.
Global Employment Trends for Youth
http://www.ilo.org/empelm/what/pubs/lang–en/docName–WCMS_143349/index.htm International Labour Organization (ILO), Report 2010
Global Report on Migration
http://cloud1.gdnet.org/cms.php?id=research_paper_abstract&research_paper_id=16338
This report captures the main results from Development on the Move: Measuring and
Optimising Migration’s Economic and Social Impacts, a joint project of the Global
Development Network (GDN) and the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr). The
ground-breaking global research project, supported by a consortium of international donors, has gathered new, comparative qualitative and quantitative data about migration’s development impacts.
IFAD Rural Poverty Report 2011: Global food production must increase by 70 per cent http://tinyurl.com/33hct5m
The Rural Poverty Report 2011, released on 6 December 2010 by the International Fund
for Agricultural Development (IFAD), predicts that global food production will have to
increase by 70 percent in order to feed the expected world population of 9 billion by
2050. Boosting the agricultural sector in developing countries is therefore the key to combating world poverty in the coming decades, it stresses. Source: EuroStep.
Is a Financial Transaction Tax a Good Idea? A Review of the Evidence http://tinyurl.com/2dootvw
The Institute of Development Studies has undertaken a comprehensive review of the feasibility of financial transaction taxes (FTTs). We find that, worldwide, a
financial transaction tax on foreign exchange transactions could raise Us$26 billion.
In the UK alone it could raise US$11 billion (£7.7 billion), roughly the same as the
entire UK aid budget. Such a tax would be most effective if implemented by the key financial centres around the world, but a currency transaction tax could be
implemented by individual countries. However, an FTT is unlikely to reduce market volatility as claimed by some campaigners.
Multilateral Resource Allocation: Best Practice Approaches
http://tinyurl.com/23cxnns
ODI Project Briefings 51 by Tony Faint and Deborah Johnson.
OECD Studies on SMEs and Entrepreneurship
High-Growth Enterprises: What Governments Can Do to Make a Difference http://tinyurl.com/37sskrm
This report presents reports from 15 countries that provide interesting insights into
the operations of and challenges faced by high-growth enterprises as well as a policy survey of 340 programmes in 24 countries.
Remittances, Value Added Tax and Tax Revenue in Developing Countries http://www.cerdi.org/production/show/id/1208
Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Developpement International (CERDI) paper by CE Eberke.
Report denounces humanitarian aid politicisation, lauds EU
http://tinyurl.com/3yacltv
A report by the Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD) initiative, an informal donor
network, ranks humanitarian aid donors according to their aid effectiveness, as rated by 475 senior representatives of aid organisations. The report finds that while bilateral aid from EU member states is becoming increasingly driven by politics,
multilateral EU aid distributed by the European Commission was ranked 6th place out of 37. The only EU member states judged to deliver more effective aid were Denmark, Ireland and Sweden. Source: EurActiv
Stemming girls’ chronic poverty
http://tinyurl.com/39932cb
A new report from the Chronic Poverty Research Centre investigates how to catalyse
development change by including girls (and boys) more prominently in development agendas.
Sustainable management in emerging countries
http://tinyurl.com/2w9rfjj
An analysis of German companies’ activities in India.
The Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility: a Philosophical Approach http://repub.eur.nl/resource/pub_21243/index.html
International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University (ISS) Research Paper 508 by Adele Lebano.
The Failure of Cross-border Financial Firms: New Thinking in the Aftermath of the Financial Crisis
http://networkideas.org/featart/nov2010/fa04_Andrew_Cornford.htm
The development of rules for handling insolvencies of financial and non-financial firms with operations in a number of countries (cross-border insolvencies) is a
long-standing item on the international regulatory agenda. In this context, the author Andrew Cornford analyses the measures proposed in various reports to address the problems associated with systemically important financial institutions.
The Financial Crisis and Lower Income Countries
http://www.diis.dk/sw101807.asp
Danish Institute for International Studies Working Paper 2010:35 by Sam Jones.
The future of EC trade policy 2010-2015
http://ec.europa.eu/trade/trade-growth-and-jobs/
In its discussion paper “Trade, Growth and World Affairs”, the Commission analyses how
trade is an engine for economic growth and job creation. It proposes a strategy to
reduce trade barriers, to open global markets and to get a fair deal for European
businesses. The overarching aim is to take a more assertive approach to ensure the benefits of trade reach European citizens.
The G20 as a Development Opportunity for the European Union
http://www.edc2020.eu/96.0.html
EDC2020 Policy Brief by Madeline R. Young, FRIDE, Opinion No. 6 – November 2010.
The Impact of the Crisis on Employment and the Role of Labour Market Institutions http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/download/dp202_2010.pdf International Labour Organization (ILO) Publication byWerner Eichhorst et al.
Trends and issues in international development cooperation
http://poldev.revues.org/142
Emerging economies and private donors provide an increasing proportion of aid.
Progress has been made in implementing the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness
in a few fields, such as untying aid, but the results do not meet expectations. The approach, too often purely technical, omits taking fully into consideration the
political dimension which strongly affects aid effectiveness. The issue of overall
policy coherence receives renewed attention at a time when the debate about climate
change is leading development agencies to reconsider goals and strategies. Graduate
Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) study by Gérard Perroulaz.
Over the past decade, the European Commission has increasingly used general and sector budget support to ACP countries as preferred aid modalities. This choice was motivated by the commitment of donors to make aid more effective. But despite the potential of the new generation of budget support and the so-called ”sector wide approach”, budget support has come under pressure within donors and partner countries for a variety of reasons. Therefore, the European Commission has launched a public consultation (http://ec.europa.eu/development/how/consultation/?action=viewcons&id=5221) to solicit the views of stakeholders. It seeks to find out and socialise what has and hasn’t worked with a view to improving the EC’s approach to budget support. The basis of the consultation is an EC green paper (http://ec.europa.eu/development/how/consultation/?action=viewcons&id=5221) which focuses on: i) political governance and the role of political dialogue; ii) the role of policy dialogue and conditionality and links to performance and results; iii) domestic and mutual accountability; iv) programming of budget support and its coherence with other instruments; v) strengthening risk assessment and dealing with fraud and corruption; vi) budget support in situations of fragility; and vii) growth, fiscal policy and mobilisation of domestic revenues. ECDPM is working primarily on the dimension of domestic accountability in relation to budget support and sector wide approaches. Source: ECDPM. http://tinyurl.com/39va6ka
