Comments on: Aid to government, aid to NGOs – both working in different ways

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:28:15 +0000

And how come Michael Scott has a contract to work with CLP as an advisor with Maxwell Stamp. On their website his ToR says 75 days from 2008 to June 2009. He used to work at DFID as the main advisor on the project and has gone straight into a well paid role with the consulting company. I thought there were rules about this, but maybe they don’t apply to him?

By: Faruq

Faruq — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:01:45 +0000

The latest I heard about the CLP evaluation was that PAEA was fired and DFID did the evaluation themselves from their country office with their own staff. The project got some of the highest scores given to a DFID project as a result and the project was extended for another 5 years to waste another $110 mil of UK taxpayers money……

By: David

David — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:20:16 +0000

I agreee with Adam that transaprent evaluation is required. The CLP is evaluated by an independent organisation (PAEA) but is funded by DFID. The evaluations are passed to DFID before being made public. It is widely reported that several of the evaluations have critised DFID heavily and scored the program lowly, but that DFID has sent the report back saying it needs higher scores on a flagship program in Bangladesh. The report then comes back with high scores as the company has a long term contract with DFID to evaluate the CLP.

Also many of the advisors to CLP were employed by DFID in the past and have given kep posts in the project to relatives and friends.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:29:17 +0000

Well said.

Though I think this ignores one of the challenges to sustainability that working through governments entails. If governments are funded and guided by international donors, particularly other nations, than the stakeholders aren’t the citizens of the country. The governments aren’t liable to their own citizens.

I get building institutional frameworks just by expansion and use, but what are the challenges to having the country’s own people do this? And aren’t THOSE the challenges we want to meet when it comes to building governments that resolve conflict and provide services?

Last point, I think working only with NGOs doesn’t necessarily handicap the government’s institutions. It makes direct government aid less popular, for sure. NGOs have proven far more successful at engaging communities than governments in general, so why not work directly with NGOs instead of helping governments create schemes, which typically aren’t all that helpful in the long run? Governments can provide legal frameworks and conflict resolution well, but I’m not sure they can do sustainable development work well.

Maybe I don’t understand what “services” exactly you are referring to.

By: From Poverty to Power by Duncan Green » Blog Archive » Aid direct; health and climate change; Krugman on Gordon Brown; wastepickers as entrepreneurs and a sweet climate change youtube for Copenhagen: links I liked

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:37:23 +0000

[...] Barder muses on the pros and cons of giving aid directly v via governments, while over on Global Dashboard, Alex Evans wonders if the next new thing in aid will be the kind [...]

By: Jenny

Jenny — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:24:07 +0000

Excellent points Owen. This is something I’ve been thinking about quite a lot recently, though I had been thinking about it in terms of two separate issues: 1) the problem of working through NGOs which reduces the pressure on governments to provide services, hindering institutional capacity in the long term (as you point out, also by hiring away the limited talent) and 2) Aid needing to put more weight on capacity building in general – e.g. working with governments, hiring and training as many locals as possible, etc. But here you are combining the two in a very thought provoking way.

I think ultimately the answer will vary based on a number of factors. I wonder if the framework should be primarily a function of the current institutional state. For example in a place like Liberia or Rwanda strengthening institutions and building capacity should take priority but in a places like Zimbabwe it should be on delivery services since the governments are so corrupt.

Thoughts? Especially re: what do you think the considerations would be for one model vs. the other.