Challenges in Evaluating Development Effectiveness

Evaluation quality is a function of methodological and data inputs. This paper argues that there has been inadequate investment in methodology, often resulting in low quality evaluation outputs. With an increased focus on results, evaluation needs to deliver credible information on the role of developmentsupported interventions in improving the lives of poor people, so attention to sound methodology matters. This paper explores three areas in which evaluation can be improved. First, reporting agency-wide performance through monitoring systems that satisfy the Triple-A criteria of aggregation, attribution and alignment; which includes procedures for the systematic summary of qualitative data. Second, more attention need to be paid to measuring impact, both through the use of randomisation where possible and appropriate, or through quasi-experimental methods. However, analysis of impact needs to be firmly embedded in a theory-based approach which maps the causal chain from inputs to impacts. Finally, analysis of sustainability needs to move beyond its current crude and cursory treatment to embrace the tools readily available to the discipline.Evaluation, development effectiveness, World Bank

Long-run Trends and Recent Developments in Official Assistance from Donor Countries

development aid, bilateral aid, multilateral aid

Evaluating Aid Impact

The ultimate measure of aid effectiveness is how aid affects the lives of poor people in developing countries. The huge literature on aid?s macroeconomic impact has remarkably little to say on this topic, and less still in terms of practical advice to government officials and aid administrators on how to improve development effectiveness. But there is an expanding toolbox of approaches to impact evaluation at the field level which can answer both questions of whether aid works, and, properly applied, why it works (or not, as the case may be). This paper lays out these approaches, describing some of their uses by official development agencies. I advocate a theory-based approach to impact evaluation design, as this is most likely to yield policy insights. Academics need to engage in these real world issues and debates if their work is to help alleviate the plight of the world?s poor.aid effectiveness, impact evaluation, quasi-experimental design, results agenda

Long-run Trends and Recent Developments in Official Assistance from Donor Countries

Official flows account for close to half of capital flows to developing countries, and close to 90 per cent of receipts for Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper documents trends in these official flows over the last three decades. The most striking trend has been declining aid volume. Following two decades of relative stability, official flows have decline in the 1990s; in particular aid to just 0.2 per cent of donor GNP. A second trend is the decline in aid to low-income countries, partly as aid flows are diverted to transition economies and ‘trouble spots’. As a result of these trends, real aid per capita to Sub-Saharan Africa fell by 40 per cent in the 1990s. Continuing an existing trend, multilateral agencies have accounted for a growing share of total aid, in part as a result of the expansion of EU aid, but non-EU donors have contributed more of their aid through the UN system. Positive developments have been the increased concessionality of aid and a move toward untying. However, substantial parts of the multilateral system, notably the World Bank, continue to extend loans rather than grants. And the move to untying is not well-established, having been somewhat reversed in some countries in recent years. Finally, the aid programme of most donors is thinly spread over many recipients. Whilst there are good grounds to question the current fashion for selectivity, there remain good developmental arguments for greater concentration by individual donors.development aid, bilateral aid, multilateral aid, official flows, Africa

Evaluating Aid Impact

The ultimate measure of aid effectiveness is how aid ffects the lives of poor people in developing countries. The huge literature on aid’s macroeconomic impact has remarkably little to say on this topic, and less still in terms of practical advice to government officials and aid administrators on how to improve development effectiveness. But there is an expanding toolbox of approaches to impact evaluation at the field level which can answer both questions of whether aid works, and, properly applied, why it works (or not, as the case may be). This paper lays out these approaches, describing some of their uses by official development agencies. I advocate a theory based approach to impact evaluation design, as this is most likely to yield policy insights. Academics need to engage in these real world issues and debates if their work is to help alleviate the plight of the world’s poor.aid effectiveness, impact evaluation, quasi-experimental design, results agenda

Projecting Progress toward the Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals have become the frame of reference for most of the development community: the standard by which performance will ultimately be judged. Given their importance, considerable attention has been paid as to whether these goals will be met or not. The overwhelming conclusions from such analyses are not positive. The goals will not be met. There are exceptions — education has expanded rapidly, although questions are raised about quality, and some countries, notably in South East Asia, but also South Asia to a lesser extent, have done well across the board and will meet several of the goals. But many countries, most especially in Africa, will not. The projections show that poverty will become more heavily concentrated in Africa in both relative and absolute terms. In addition, whilst urban poverty will increase, in 2015 poverty will remain a predominately rural phenomenon, with 60-70 per cent of the poor (depending on the measure) living in rural areas. But these projections are based on assumptions, including the assumption of business as usual. Various adverse shocks may result in far worse scenarios. On the other hand, more intensive promotion of propoor policies can mean that the goals might yet be realized.Millennium Development Goals, poverty, developing countries

Projecting Progress toward the Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals have become the frame of reference for most of the development community: the standard by which performance will ultimately be judged. Given their importance, considerable attention has been paid as to whether these goals will be met or not. The overwhelming conclusions from such analyses are not positive. The goals will not be met. There are exceptions-education has expanded rapidly, although questions are raised about quality, and some countries, notably in South East Asia, but also South Asia to a lesser extent, have done well across the board and will meet several of the goals. But many countries, most especially in Africa, will not. The projections show that poverty will become more heavily concentrated in Africa in both relative and absolute terms. In addition, whilst urban poverty will increase, in 2015 poverty will remain a predominately rural phenomenon, with 60-70 per cent of the poor (depending on the measure) living in rural areas. But these projections are based on assumptions, including the assumption of business as usual. Various adverse shocks may result in far worse scenarios. On the other hand, more intensive promotion of pro-poor policies can mean that the goals might yet be realized.Millennium Development Goals, poverty projections, mortality, nutrition, poverty, education, health, inequality

Survey of Foreign Aid: History, Trends and Allocation

This paper (i) traces the historical origins of foreign aid, (ii) investigates tren­ds in the volume, composition, allocation and quality of aid flows, and (iii) reviews the empirical literature on aid allocation. The paper concludes that, historically, aid has served a multitude of objectives. For some donors, the allocation and quality of aid have been largely shaped by concern for the development needs of recipients. By contrast, the foreign aid of some larger donors has been used principally as a foreign and commercial policy tool. Yet while this particular character of aid flows may well have impaired the effectiveness of aid, there is no automatic contradiction between donor and recipient objectives. Perhaps the most important change in the aid picture is the reversal after 1992 of the historic upward trend in aid volumes. This may not be a problem when smaller aid flows are compensated by private flows, as has happened in several developing countries. Yet it may be a problem in low-income countries without access to private capital, which continue to rely on aid for financial resources. The underlying premises of donor-recipient cooperation are very different when aid resources become more limited, especially when debt service is still a factor of significance. The need to keep objectives and rationales clear turn out to be even more important.Foreign Aid; Aid Allocation

Economic Reform and Economic Performance: Evidence from 20 Developing Countries

Do adjustment policies assist or retard growth? This paper presents data on economic performance (aggregate and sectoral growth, inflation, investment and external account) for 20 countries. The data are classified on an annual basis according to the country’s policy stance in that year: controlled economy, partially or fully liberalised. This approach allows both control-group and before-versus-after analyses which are combined with a review of growth regressions and an analysis of case study material on adjustment. The evidence suggests three hypotheses. First, countries with controlled economies have performed badly compared with those which have moved towards greater market orientation. Second, economic performance does not differ greatly between fully-fledged market economies and partially liberalised ones: partly because several countries have pursued liberalisation with no improvement in performance. Third, given that there is little difference in manufacturing and agricultural growth between full and partial liberalisers yet overall growth is more rapid for the former, the additional growth must be in the service sector. These hypotheses suggest that the balance between state and market should be tilted more toward the state than is currently supported by international development agencies.economic reform; economic peformance; structural adjustment; macroeconomic policy; inflation; growth; developing countries

Child poverty in Vietnam: using adult equivalence scales to estimate income-poverty for different age groups

Measurements of child poverty are commonly carried out using household expenditure data in per capita terms or adjusted by some standard parameter of economies of size. In this paper, we use adult equivalence scales and economies of scale coefficients estimated from the data to assess child poverty in Vietnam. By doing so, we show child poverty in Vietnam to be overestimated by conventional techniques. The commonly used technique for the estimation of adult equivalence scales contains an implicit household income distribution. Therefore, we used these techniques to estimate child poverty and patterns of resource allocation for different household groups. Better-off families (which are largely urban, more educated, female-headed and from the Khin ethnic majority) spend a lower share of their income on children than other household groups, though their children are still better off in absolute terms. A comparison of the data between 1992-93 and 1997-98 also reveals that children from better-off family groups have experienced a more rapid increase in welfare levels than children from other sectors of Vietnamese society during this period. The presence of gender discrimination in child treatment is also investigated. Rural and male headed households are those that more prominently appear as discriminating against female children. We found no clear relationship between gender discrimination and expenditure or between gender discrimination and level of education.child poverty; poverty measurement; Vietnam