Comments on: Does British Foreign Aid Prefer Poor Governments Over Poor People?

By: geoffrey wannabanga

geoffrey wannabanga — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:32:14 +0000

the truth is that the UK and USA invaded Rwanda through 1990 to 1994 using Uganda and the RPF this precipitated the rwandan genocide which was as much and probably more the result of RPF killing than Hutu rwandan killing. As neocolonialist interlopers in the area how can anyone trust the UK’s motives for giving aid? Congo is the richest country in africa for minerals after all. Northern hemisphere powers are always jockeying for prime postion, giving aid to buy influence and buy off elites who pay their armies to repress their own people or neighbouring countries. the whole tone of discussion is way off when its framed as us trying to help them.

By: geoffrey wannabanga

geoffrey wannabanga — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:24:10 +0000

hi, i’d like to know about aid to Uganda and Rwanda, two countries that have been killing and pillaging in the Congo and who get loads of UK aid, obviously this money is facilitating killing and theft. I dont care how many ugandans and rwandans have been supposedly helped by this aid if Congolese people have perished too. How can you mark it as a good thing if 5 to 6 million people end up dead? it should be stopped until the killing stops, its that simple. the money is the problem i dont trust these aid professionals who always want more aid, africans have been surviving without aid for hundreds of thousands of years.

By: peter bofin

peter bofin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:18:45 +0000

well I guess it has already been pointed out that you appear to have misunderstood which election was being referred to by Easterly/Frischi.

The ‘evidence’ you refer to is an OECD DAC evaluation. When donors and their supporters feel the need to point to evidence they often point to DAC work which, as you know, is donors evaluating themselves. So we know that it needs to be discounted to some extent.

Forewarned, what does the evaluation tell us about GBS and accountability (yet another neutral term for the messy business of effective politics)? Firstly we read:

“PGBS has had only limited effects on broader accountability and transparency mechanisms. However, the processes surrounding the provision of PGBS can reinforce domestic accountability (e.g. in Mozambique the PGBS Performance Assessment Framework is used for
reporting to Parliament).”

So we have limited impact and the impact that can be pointed to is the use of a framework developed by donors and government behind closed doors and in one case only, apparently.

And yes, kudos for aidwatch for giving you a right of reply. But take some back for looking to have the last word and their bitchy final para!

By: Development Aid and Democratic Accountability « Global Challenges

Development Aid and Democratic Accountability « Global Challenges — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:37:38 +0000

[...] the poor (see their original post here and response here). Owen’s main argument in his reply here is that the value of direct budget support should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and should [...]

By: Sébastien Jodoin

Sébastien Jodoin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:12:13 +0000

I agree with most of your points, but your assertion that “putting money through government budgets is also a way to make the government more accountable to its own citizens, rather than to a bunch of foreign donors” is very debatable. I tend to think that a government that does not depend for its revenues on taxation will be less accountable to its citizens than one that does.

By: to the government or the people? « Where They Are

to the government or the people? « Where They Are — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:47:21 +0000

[...] guest blogger, in my opinion, brings in a much more informed and balanced view on the issue. I agree that aid [...]

By: jason brown

jason brown — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:03:43 +0000

kia ora, greetings owen, very interesting responses, good to see a response that in itself has some facts rather than defensive platitudes.

Impressed too with the Brookings study, especially the point about “zero feedback” because recipient countries do not usually have a voice in aid processes – certainly not much of a public one!

From our own part of the world, New Zealand Aid scores poorly in this study – they didn’t even respond to questions!

Lack of transparency is not set to get any better – the new minister of Foreign Affairs has set up two internal reviews and then pre-empted them by saying that he wanted a greater focus on economic development rather than poverty alleviation.

Towards that, Murray McCully would bring NZAID back under direct control from his own Foreign Affairs, reversing a relatively recent change in 2002 to a semi-autonomous status.

Encouragingly, this has met with a strong response from NGOs at http://www.dontcorruptaid.org.nz