Aid Effectiveness

Aid Effectiveness
Oxfam America’s initiative to reform U.S. foreign aid will better the lives of developing world farmers like Aminata Coulibaly of Mali.

Flaws in the policies and practices of donor nations undermine the effectiveness of aid to developing countries. In many of the poorest countries, aid supports a significant portion of government expenditures on the poor; therefore, aid reform can be an important strategy to improve the lives of the poor. In 2006, the Program’s grantmaking regarding aid effectiveness focused on three related areas:

  • Reforming U.S. policies on delivering bilateral aid. The current U.S. system for delivering development assistance is both ineffective and inefficient. The Program funded independent policy analyses to make an urgent case for reform and engaged the development community in advocating for change.
  • Supporting impact evaluations. Despite decades of development funding, donors and developing countries still know too little about which programs work. As a result, billions are spent on programs that are ineffective at best. The Foundation has been working to increase the number and quality of impact evaluations to close this knowledge gap.
  • Monitoring aid flows. We began exploring ways to increase the ability of recipient governments and non-governmental organizations to track donor money and its use. The Program plans to make grants in this area in 2007.
Aid Effectiveness Grants Authorized in 2006
 
2006 Highlights

In 2006, with our support, The Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies released recommendations by a taskforce of the country’s preeminent development and foreign policy experts calling for comprehensive reform of U.S. foreign assistance. This report, titled Security by Other Means, can serve as a broad road map for aid reform.

With support from the Hewlett Foundation and the Gates Foundation, the Center for Global Development released a report entitled “When Will We Ever Learn? Improving Lives through Impact Evaluation” on the “evaluation gap” in development funding. Based upon the recommendations in the report, a “leading-edge” group of developing countries, official donor agencies, NGOs, and the Gates and Hewlett foundations came together to develop an international solution to the “evaluation gap.”

2007 Goals
 
  • Support an aid reform agenda among influential development advocacy organizations
  • Work with other donors to develop an implementation plan for an aid-tracking system

For more information, please visit the Foundation Web site.