Nancy Birdsall

What Would the Poor Say: Debates in Aid EvaluationAid Watch

Development Research Institute, New York UniversityFebruary 6, 2009

Cash on Delivery Aid

Aid, institutions, and a proposal

Functional system: taxes for outcomes, with citizen scrutiny

Aid dependent countries: aid, limited outcomes, no citizen scrutinyDonor micromanagement: aid for

inputs, replaces citizen scrutinyCash on Delivery (COD) Aid: aid for

outcomes, mechanisms for promoting citizen scrutiny

The idea: Cash on Delivery Aid

Donor-recipient binding contract Donor guarantees specific additional

payment for specific incremental progress, e.g. $200 per child completing primary school and taking an approved assessment exam

Recipient reports on progress and agrees to independent third-party audit

Contract is public information

Essential features of COD Aid

Pay for outcomes, not inputs Transparent to the public Hands-off Independently verified

Contract for COD Aid applied to primary education Recipient government

Implements competency test Tracks and publicly reports

completion figures and test scores Donor

Contracts independent agent from pre-agreed list to audit government report

Makes payments upon good audit Payment directly to government

budget

Donor Role in Hands-On Approach

Identification

Design

Negotiation

Approval

Startup

Implementation

Tech. Assist.

M & E

Final “Evaluation”

Outcome Measurement?

$

Traditional ProjectAid

Donor engaged in almost

every phase

Missions for meetings to discuss the process for the

disbursement of the funds for technical assistance for improving the process to

receive missions ….

Photo: Government of Bulgaria

Donor Role in Hands-Off Approach

Identification

Design

Negotiation

Approval

Startup

Implementation

Tech. Assist.

M & E

Final “Evaluation”

Outcome Measurement

$

Traditional ProjectAid

Donor engaged in almost

every phase

Cash on Delivery Aid

$Validation of outcomes by

third party

Donor and recipient agree

measure of progress

Countries can use fundsfor whatever they think will work best

textbooks… teacher training …

Photo: U.S. Department of StatePhoto: Anna Lindh Euro Mediterranean Foundation

…Conditional cash transfers…

Photo: Prefectura Municipal de Erechim

…improving roads so children can get to school …

…early nutrition programs to boost learning outcomes…

Photo: Horizons UnlimitedPhoto: Pierre Holtz, UNICEF

Benefits for recipients

Less intrusive; local solutions Fully transparent to citizens and civil

society (“$200 per child”) Gets finance ministers focused on

education outcomes

Benefits for donors

Eliminates complex conditionality Improves and simplifies monitoring Makes recipient government visibly

accountable to communities, parents, citizens

$200 per child easy to explain to donor legislature and taxpayers

Implements Paris Declaration reforms

Citizens’ role in making government accountable

Government publishes contract Government could publish what

inputs it buys Results available at local / school

level, compared to other localities Results of testing published at some

level

COD AidCountry

Response

PoliticsEconomicsInstitutions

Specific Programs& Policies

SchoolingOutcomes

Other Factors

Research Level 1

Research Level 2

COD multiplies opportunitiesto discover what works

Level 1 Counterfactual: Traditional Aid / Compare With other country or sector?Level 2 Counterfactual: Traditional Schooling Project / Compare across schools or districts?

Donor Response

PoliticsEconomicsInstitutions

Foreign Aid Policies &Practices

Learning from COD Aid: level 1 “process” evaluation

o Local institutions (think tanks/policy research) undertake “process” evaluations (press, civil society advocates)

• Do donors behave better? (“coordination”, “ownership”, etc. etc.)

• Do recipient governments behave better (i.e. more accountable to citizens)? Does transparency and feedback increase accountability?

Research level 1

Track COD Aid intervention to understandDonor(s’) behavior e.g. changes

number of missions and the nature of interaction

Recipient behavior e.g. resource transfers more transparent; patronage in teacher appts. Cut; minister of education changed; increased collaboration between ministries

Research level 2 (Esther Dyson)

maybe. . . .depends. . . .

Happening in real world?

Recipient governments prefer budget support (but Tanzania . . .)

Donors fear waste and corruption if they don’t track inputs (ignoring fungibility)

Fundamental problem with all innovation: first mover cannot capture all the benefits, and

Donor bureacracies risk-averse all bureacracies