Planners vs. searchers in foreign aid
In this ADB lecture, William Easterly once again criticizes the central planning of the aid industry, and in particular the UN institutions – including the World Bank. He favors a bottom-up approach led by searchers. (He labels us planers.) I agree with some of his arguments, though soon grew tired of this ‘planers vs. searchers’ imagery. What about doers? Also, I would venture that the industry will actually continue to become more fragmented (and competitive?).
One part that caught my attention was his suggestion for reforming current incentives and improving accountability:
Fix the incentive system of collective responsibility for multiple goals. Have individual accountability for individual tasks. Let aid agencies specialize in the sectors and countries they are best at helping. Then hold the aid agencies accountable for THEIR results by having truly independent evaluation of their efforts. Perhaps the aid agencies should each set aside a portion of their budgets (such as the part now wasted on self-evaluation) to contribute to an international independent evaluation group made up of staff trained in the scientific method from the rich and poor countries, who will evaluate random samples of each aid agency’s efforts. Evaluation will involve randomized controlled trials where feasible, less pure statistical analysis if not, and will at least be truly independent even when randomized trials and statistical analysis are not feasible. Experiment with different methods to just ask the poor if they are better off.
ODI also favors a bottom-up model and I'm all for more experimentation with randomized trails - though see Peter's points. (Ht to TradeDiversion)
Update: Lots of praise for the paper over at ASI, Curious and the Social Change Project.
Comments (2)
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Is there a better alternative to the current aid system?
The aid business is a significant employer as well as having an almost unlimited appetite for funds. There is much discussion about the effectiveness of the aid provided and the institutions that provide it and how it can be better evaluated. In your columns there is discussion about agencies doing what they are best at and more harmonising of activities at the country level. One aspect that has always struck me is that NGOs such as Oxfam, Actionaid, Care and others may be better at using funds than the bi- and multi-lateral agencies. Would it be a step too far to suggest that the national and international agencies be scrapped or reduced to a minimum and let the NGOs compete for funding on a transparent basis? This would need to be accompanied by a much simpler regime of accountability than is currently employed by the likes of the current main development agencies, though some of these have got better recently.
I can see all sorts of advantages in such a proposal, including more efficient use of funds, less bureaucracy, more rapid deployment and implementation and so on. This also assumes that the NGOs do not become bloated bureaucracies themselves as a result.
A secondary scenario could be that the national and international agencies are done away with altogether and aid is provided to the NGOs and others on a voluntary basis by the public, perhaps by allowing tax deductions as is common in a number of countries already and/or with each dollar from the public matched by a dollar from their government. In the wake of the Tsunami, I seem to remember that in many countries, the public's
contributions outstripped those of their governments within the first few days by a considerable amount. People would give to those organisations that they perceive as doing the best job, thus providing incentive to perform or wither, to innovate and provide identified needs, in much the same way as a private company attracts investment or sells its products.
Posted by: John P. | Feb 2, 2006 9:42:49 AM
I have since revised my view of Easterly's paper on Searchers Vs Planners.
See my thoughts here:
http://culturefusion.blogspot.com/2006/02/development-rhetoric-revisited.html
Posted by: Curious | Mar 10, 2006 3:44:30 AM