One of the keys to improving aid effectiveness is to facilitate policy dialogue between the governments of countries receiving aid and the development partners contributing financial resources. This dialogue should foster the role of government in defining policy and overseeing its implementation, with donors supporting this process.
Aid instruments provide the mechanisms for governments and their partners to support shared development objectives. We strive to address the following issues in improving aid effectiveness:
- Links between sector policies, poverty reduction and development strategies
- Mechanisms for aid delivery, to strengthen financial management systems
- Transparency of aid, which is better achieved when financial contributions are reflected in the government budget
- Costs to countries of managing aid, which can be unnecessarily high, if donor financial, procurement or programme management practices are not harmonised and aligned with country procedures
A variety of aid instruments, financing strategies and approaches to delivering development assistance are in use today. These include sector and budget support, global health initiatives, multi-donor funded programmes, sector wide approaches (SWAps) and more conventional projects, and technical support to enhance capacity to use aid effectively and efficiently. More resources for development are always welcome, but they need to strengthen and not distort national priorities and systems.
Although much of our work involves the development of better systems of service delivery, we also understand the intimate relationship this has with good governance, not just theoretically but in practical terms. For example, schools cannot be effective institutions without access and control of resources and that involves reforming financial systems to deliver funds directly.
How we have added value is demonstrated on these key projects:
Assisted the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Results based funding for health
Results based funding or RBF is the generic name given to any programme linking incentives, such as cash, to the delivery of an agreed set of results. We evaluated the Health Results Innovation Trusts Fund – the largest global effort to test the application of RBF for health.
Advised on the design of a SWAp in Yemen
To address key governance issues affecting the water sector, such as the absence of a poverty-driven expenditure framework for the rational allocation of water sector investment and the weakness of coordination across sub-sectors on the issue of sustainable water use.