For years the aid community has dressed up their biggest programs (funding community infrastructure) in the language of community empowerment.
This was socially and politically naive, and unnecessary and distracting. This report helps show why.
A short thread on what it means.
This was socially and politically naive, and unnecessary and distracting. This report helps show why.
A short thread on what it means.
Rich countries had a problem. As they raised foreign aid spending, on a falling number of very poor countries, how to get money out the door?
Moreover, how to keep that money from supporting ugly regimes, or getting stolen?
And how to spend it all without massive admin costs?
Moreover, how to keep that money from supporting ugly regimes, or getting stolen?
And how to spend it all without massive admin costs?
The answer was a version of “drop cash out of helicopters”. Basically, give communities $10-20k to decide for themselves what to build.
This is not a terrible idea. It’s possibly a good way to get aid money to a diffuse, large number of people.
But that’s not how they sold it.
This is not a terrible idea. It’s possibly a good way to get aid money to a diffuse, large number of people.
But that’s not how they sold it.
It was dressed up in the idea that a participatory community decision making process would foster social cohesion and democracy and good local governance.
Have you ever sat on a committee? Did a new process change how you make decisions for the rest of your life? Of course not.
Have you ever sat on a committee? Did a new process change how you make decisions for the rest of your life? Of course not.
There have been two dozen evaluations. Most of them focused on testing the cohesion and local democracy ideas not more straightforward questions like “what are high return local investments?”
Another sensible question would be “what are other good ways to spend thousands of $20k grants?” Dropping cash on these villages was probably fine as aid goes. But as learning opportunities go, this was a colossal failure and missed opportunity.
Probably the most ideologically committed people intended to meet came from @DFID_UK. It really did feel like a deep ideological fervor at times. DFiD is usually the most sensible donor and so I hope it leads to more flexible and creative thinking.
To me the biggest lesson is this: you cannot treat social and political change as a technical problem to be solved, like deworming kids or building schools.
@DFID_Research is probably the biggest funder in the world of development research. They find amazing work on a huge range of topics, including government functioning, corruption, conflict, crime, voting.
But very little of that money gets spent on politics.
But very little of that money gets spent on politics.
This is partly a demand problem: few scholars doing rigorous research and program experimentation on understanding and fostering collective action, protest, and political mobilization. It’s all paltry stuff like “let’s give voters information and see what happens”.
The Nigerian political scientist Claude Ake said that democracy cannot be given, it must be seized. I’d like to see more aid, more examination, more insights into the seizers.
