Summary: While civil society organisations (CSOs) were present during the singing of the Paris Declaration in March 2005, there have been growing concerns about the lack of an active civil society role in the process, to ensure that aid effectiveness can be measured in relation to its actual impact on the ground in alleviating poverty and improving livelihoods of poor and marginalised communities. Whilst this is of foremost priority there is also keen interest among civil society to ensure that budget allocations are not utilised to remove further the goals of huma rights, democracy and sustainable development that includes a focus on gender equality.

Region: International

Type: Reports
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Policy impact assessments

Summary: Fabio Veras Soares and Tatiana Britto review and analyze the institutional and financial dynamics of the CCT programmes in these two countries. Drawing on broader Latin American experience with such programmes, they focus specifically on how contradictions and tensions arise in such programmes because of their double objectives, namely, alleviating poverty on a short-term basis and promoting human capital accumulation on a long-term basis. They emphasize that political economy factors play an important role in decisions on how to target transfers, how to monitor conditionalities and how to graduate beneficiaries from the programme.

Region: Latin America

Type: Case Studies
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Policy impact assessments

Summary: In this video blog, prepared for the G8 meeting in Japan (July 2008), Fletcher Tembo argues that Japan should take the lead to put aid practice on the international community's agenda. A review of aid practice, he argues, will be vital in confronting the challenges ahead for development, and Fletcher offers three areas where Japan's influence could be most useful.

Region: International

Type: Others
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Policy Engagement

Summary: This issue of IPC’s journal Poverty in Focus presents 12 articles summarising some of the most important recent research results and commentaries on the effectiveness of international development cooperation—aid for short—against the background of high-level promises of rapidly increasing aid, including policy conclusions and recommendations for enhancing the impact of aid on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Region: International

Type: Evaluations
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Monitoring and evaluation of policy research

Summary: Este informe, realizado por la Dra. Mariama Williams de la Red Internacional de Género y Comercio (IGTN) analiza el marco conceptual y operativo de la arquitectura de ayuda que surge de la Declaración de París de 2005, observando especialmente el tema del empoderamiento de las mujeres en ese contexto. Ella también considera el rol de la sociedad civil en garantizar que la implementación de la Declaración de París se translade en una promoción de la igualdad de género y en desarrollo económico.

Region: Latin America

Type: Reports
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: - N/A -

Summary: The International Development Committee is to conduct an inquiry into the Department for International Development’s Annual Report 2008 Development: Making it Happen which was published on 8 May 2008 (HC 492). The Committee invites short written submissions from interested organisations and individuals-especially those from developing countries. The Committee is particularly interested in receiving submissions which address any of the following issues: *The implications for achievement of the MDG poverty reduction targets of DFID’s middle-income country strategy and the 90:10 split in funding between low- and middle-income countries *The effectiveness of DFID’s mechanisms for evaluating the impact of its aid * DFID’s approach to agricultural development including the likely impact on agricultural research of DFID’s Research Strategy 2008-13). The deadline for submitting written evidence is Friday 20 June 2008.

Region: International

Type: Others
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Policy impact assessments

Summary: What comes first for USAID – evidence or policy? Over the last decade, many would argue that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has increasingly focused on the US state department goal of transformational diplomacy, with an emphasis on countries that are politically important. It’s top five recipients, for example, are Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Colombia and Egypt. This is neither regressive, as governance is clearly a key issue on the development agenda, nor a new phenomenon. But with development implicitly tied to foreign policy objectives programme evaluation has increasingly focused on the reporting of activities and outputs for budgeting and accountability purposes, rather than changes in welfare of the poor. For example, the USAID clearinghouse contained only 31 impact evaluations (which assess how an intervention affects final welfare outcomes of beneficiaries) a year between 2004-6.

Region: International

Type: Others
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Policy impact assessments

Summary: The Overseas Aid Committee of the Council of Ministers is the Isle of Man Government body responsible for the funding of development aid projects in the world's less developed countries. The Committee is also responsible for providing donations to international emergency/disaster appeals

Region: Africa

Type: Funding Opportunities
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: - N/A -

Summary: In this project briefing, seven ebpdn partners look to Japan for leadership on setting the aid agenda in 2008. Based on country-level research they recommend that: More official development assistance in the form of multi-year grants is needed to allow flexibility in investment, especially within the social sectors; Japan has made progress in untying its aid, and other donors should follow suit. However, untying should be accompanied by increased technical assistance and capacity building for local companies; Donors should work toestablish sustained participation from civil society through institutionalising consultation and funding mechanisms and through greater organisational transparency.

Region: International

Type: Policy Briefs
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Policy Engagement

Summary: GDN is pleased to announce a Call for Proposals for its DFID-funded, 5 year project titled ‘Strengthening Institutions to Improve Public Expenditure Accountability’. We would like to invite proposals from think tanks, research and policy institutions and independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit organizations based in the developing and transition world. The goals of the project are to: Achieve institutional and individual development. Jump start the production of internationally comparable micro-level information on the quality of public spending and share data with relevant stakeholders. Produce templates for analysis and dissemination/communication that other institutions can adapt for their own use; and to implement a framework to shape policy debates.

Region: International

Type: Funding Opportunities
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: - N/A -

Summary: ‘The dominant “budget support” modality in international aid does not adequately address demand-oriented capacity development of local actors. SNV therefore aims to help increase access for local organizations to (sustainable) funding for capacity development in a way that empowers them to acquire tailor made services geared towards their needs. To accomplish this goal we will help to stimulate or establish local capacity development funding mechanisms (LCDFs).’ -SNV Strategy Paper 2007-2015 The LCDF research and development (R&D) phase provided an opportunity for the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) to jointly explore the fundamental dimensions of SNV’s LCDF concept – starting from its basic assumptions and logic – to see how it can be put into practice in various capacity development (CD) environments. The LCDF initiative has the potential to inform the thinking and practice of the growing consensus of CD as being a ‘beyond training’ approach to one that deals with systemic issues and power relations. In this position, the LCDF, although locally focused, can create positive knock-on effects on the national aid effectiveness agenda and improve progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Region: International

Type: Reports
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: - N/A -

Summary: In this study, Tatiana Feitosa de Britto, visiting researcher at IPC, provides an analytic overview of the prospects and potential difficulties of this new cash transfer program, with a particular emphasis on its ‘co-responsibilities’ (conditionalities), eligibility requirements for beneficiaries, targeting strategy, mechanisms of local participation and criteria for graduating from the program. The main message of the study is that a small country such as El Salvador, which has limited resources and faces notable constraints, can successfully set up a complex CCT program. The study is noteworthy for covering under-researched issues, such as the program’s institutional structures, intersectoral coordination and political support. One of its major conclusions is that the CCT program in El Salvador needs to be incorporated into a broader and longer-term social protection strategy instead of remaining a stand-alone program.

Region: Latin America

Type: Evaluations
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Political context analysis

Summary: The author, Pedro M.G. Martins, a recent visiting researcher at IPC, uses a fiscal response model to assess the impact of aid on government expenditures, revenue and domestic borrowing. While he finds a positive impact of aid on public investment, he identifies a negative impact on domestic borrowing and revenue. The use of aid to reduce an onerous domestic debt could be justified in the short term, but over the medium term aid should be used to expand MDG-related public spending. The displacement of domestic revenue by aid is a more troubling finding. Based on the results of his model, the author offers several major policy recommendations.

Region: Africa

Type: Case Studies
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Policy impact assessments

Summary: The authors, Jorge Agüero, Michael Carter and Ingrid Woolard, note that, unlike some of the most well known Latin American cash transfer programmes, South Africa’s is unconditional, targeting grants to children’s caregivers (usually women) without any obligations for behavioural change of beneficiaries. They show that despite the absence of conditions, the programme has been noticeably successful in bolstering early childhood nutrition, as measured by height-for-age statistics. Moreover, in contrast to findings common in the literature on a weak relationship between income and nutrition, they find that nutrition is remarkably responsive to the receipt of such grant income (perhaps because it is directed to women). They also show that the projected future adult earnings of these children significantly exceeds the current costs of the Child Support Grant. This Working Paper is part of the IPC Research Programme on “Cash Transfers and Social Protection”.

Region: Africa

Type: Evaluations
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: - N/A -

Summary: With 2008 around the corner, the G8 Summit in Toyako, Hokkaido, Japan, looms large on the international development calendar as one of the key events. This G8 Summit will be particularly significant because there are big issues on the international development agenda that require firm G8 commitments to be made in 2008; and yet the risk of not delivering on these agendas has never been higher.

Region: International

Type: Others
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Policy Engagement

Summary: The paper seeks to examine the aid situation within pastoralists communities. In most circumstances, aid has been able to prevent humanitarian crises, but it is difficult to find examples where a large scale use of humanitarian aid has prevented a livelihood crisis. The brief paper seeks to answer why humanitarian intervention for pastoralists is often late, gives an understanding on livelihoods, and timely humanitarian response using triggers

Region: Africa

Type: Papers
Sector: Aid
Theoretical Approach: Learning