Risk and Impact

Walter Hekala writing recently in Devex notes:

A recent McKinsey-Devex survey reports “only 36 percent of those surveyed said that most aid projects achieve their intended impact,” suggesting only 36 percent of donor-funded projects are what we would define in the project management discipline as “successful.” To me, a 36 percent success rate is not at all surprising, having worked in the field of international development for the last 14 years. In fact, a 36 percent success rate may even be optimistic.

Why? International development projects are inherently high risk. They have many factors that are simply beyond the control of the project implementer, even employing project management best-practices. International development projects’ inherent risks should not deter donors, yet they can be better managed and controlled because two principal causes of project failure are 1) poor project planning and 2) inadequately skilled project managers.

If 64 percent of international development projects are not meeting established objectives, the delivery of those projects needs to change. Taxpayers are demanding greater accountability from their governments, and thus donors funded by governments are demanding greater accountability and returns on investment. 

As noted in a recent Devex article, a private funding organization like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with a much smaller pool of contributors and a higher risk tolerance, can tolerate a 10 percent success rate, but donors using public funds must be more conservative and accountable.

Read full commentary here.

Uncertain Development Outcomes for Budget Priorities

Connie Veillette of the Center for Global Development published a white paper recently discussing the uncertain outcomes for US priorities in development. An excerpt is below and the full paper linked here:

The international affairs portion of the president’s FY2013 budget will likely generate concern among aid advocates over cuts to health and humanitarian assistance. With so many budget variables in play during an election year, it is difficult to predict an outcome, but international affairs spending will remain under pressure as policymakers search for ways to address budget deficits.

The president’s budget, released on February 13, sets total government-wide spending at $8.3 trillion. The international affairs budget, or 150 Account, constitutes 1.6 percent of total spending. At $56.2 billion, the request is $1.3 billion, or 2.4 percent, greater than last year’s appropriated level. The highlights of the budget include a proposal for a new Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund, the elimination of the Assistance to Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia account, and decreases in health and humanitarian accounts. Apart from these big changes, funding levels for other major accounts do not diverge greatly from FY2012 appropriations. The FY2013 base budget of $48 billion is an increase of $4.3 billion, or 9.8 percent.

Prospects for the Future:

Budget austerity will continue to dominate the political process this year, and the debates will only be sharpened by the approaching presidential and congressional elections. With the stakes so high for both political parties, it will be all the more difficult to find agreement on a consensus budget that would trim enough expenses to avoid sequestration in January 2013. On top of all this, it is unlikely that Congress will pass a budget resolution. Senate leaders have asserted that one is not necessary since the Budget Control Act established spending caps for 2013.

House leaders have promised to produce an alternative to the president’s plan. Appropriators will proceed with the intent of following regular order, but the State and Foreign Operations bill will likely be included in an end-of-year omnibus. If partisan impulses dominate, a short- or long-term continuing resolution could be an option. This would defer difficult decisions into a lame duck or a new Congress, and perhaps a new administration. However, this would present a very difficult situation if members of congress want to avoid sequestration, as many do because of its potential effects on the defense budget.

All considered, even though this is a responsible international affairs request, the political dynamics of an election year mean that this budget and the priorities it sets out may look far different by the time the budget process concludes.

Open Data for Better Development

The Council on Foreign Relations recently hosted a piece by Isobel Coleman discussing the growing use of "open data" in supporting development. 

A few excerpts are below and the entire short commentary linked here along with comments: 

Open data is the new thing in development. In the last three years, the World Bank, the United States, the United Kingdom, Kenya, and now the new Open Government Partnership have made raw data available to the public in forms that can be manipulated and interpreted by techno-savvy people to improve governance. The implications of this are huge, although we are just at the beginning of realizing the potential benefits. 

Over the long term, providing greater access to raw information – including census tallies, government expenditures, poverty statistics, draft budgets, agricultural data, and government procurement – could make the delivery of public goods far more efficient and effective, lower levels of corruption, and engage citizens in the running of their societies in profoundly new ways.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick, an evangelist on the subject of open data, sees it as a way to demystify development economics and bring new brain power to bear on solving the world’s thorniest problems. As he said in a speech at Georgetown in 2010: We need to recognize that development knowledge is no longer the sole province of the researcher, the scholar, or the ivory tower. It’s about the health-care worker in Chiapas recording her results; it’s about the local official posting the school budget on the classroom door so that parents can complain when their children are shortchanged; it’s about the minister, the academician, the statistician, and the entrepreneur comparing notes on the impact of incentives.

In a very different context,Kenya, too, has been a leader in providing raw data in a useful format to its citizens. In partnership with the World Bank, Google, and Ushahidi (just ranked tenth among the best NGOs in the world by Global Journal), the Kenyan government began making census data available. It has since made available hundreds of more data sets – including budgets and expenditures, health care and education data – that can be downloaded on computers or mobile phones. The process has spawned initiatives by social entrepreneurs who are using the data in new ways, and developers who are designing useful apps.

Can open data in areas such as education, health, and infrastructure spending, limit corruption and improve service delivery? Well, there is a great deal of infrastructure and support needed to translate free information into policy changes. Portals will only be useful if high quality, up-to-date data is posted on a regular basis, and it can be very difficult to collect high-quality data in some developing countries (only two of the 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have high collection standards for agricultural data). Low levels of literacy and still-limited access to technology are additional barriers. But the rapid spread of cell phones opens up new opportunities.

Open data is not an end in itself; rather, it is a potentially powerful means to improve governance by empowering people – through information – to demand better, more efficient, less corrupt services. At its core, open data mandates a reform of government through legislation that facilitates cooperation between ministries, departments, and agencies; capacity building in public administration; and dedicated funding to support these initiatives. There is much more to be said on this topic, so stay tuned.

US Foreign Policy Priorities 2012

In the next 11 months, the United States will drive its development agenda alongside its diplomatic priorities as part of efforts to harness a “decade of opportunities” in overseas engagement.

Jake Sullivan, director of policy planning at the U.S. Department of State, in a recent interview stated that one of the country’s foreign policies for 2012 is to “consolidate the efforts that we have undertaken to shift from a decade of war and a focus on threats” to a “decade of opportunities.”

Video link here.

Among these opportunities are to push development alongside diplomacy — a push backed and initiated by U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The United States will also continue supporting democratic transactions in the Middle East and Africa, expanding engagement in Asia and the Pacific, and deepening partnerships with Central and South American countries, Sullivan said.

Answering questions at a recent webchat with journalists across the globe, Sullivan also hinted at U.S. development priorities in Caribbean and Africa as well as countries like Bangladesh, where health and agriculture are key focus sectors. In the Carribean, Sullivan said the United States will continue its extensive programming to curb the spread of AIDS and provide treatment to people living with HIV. This commitment is in line with Clinton’s vision of an AIDS-free generation, he added. Improving Africa’s trade sector is also to remain an important development and diplomatic priority for the United States. Sullivan said “it is an incredibly important priority for the Secretary and for this Administration” to promote job growth and business in the region.

Asking for UN Reform

The United States unveiled Jan. 20 a comprehensive U.N. reform agenda based on four pillars: economy, accountability, integrity and excellence. The United States wants to see a leaner budget, smaller staff, better procurement practices and stricter fraud sanctions at the United Nations in the coming years.

The agenda outlines the reforms and changes the country, which is the U.N.’s top budget contributor, intends to pursue and support over the next few years.

Why Reform Matters: The United States has led at the UN since its creation because a strong, effective UN is among the best tools we have to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges. The UN works to prevent conflict and keep peace, to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to isolate terrorists, criminals and despots. The UN goes where nobody else will to provide desperately needed humanitarian and development assistance to the world’s neediest people; and promotes universal values that Americans cherish, including human rights, democracy, and equality.

The UN shares the burdens of global security among all nations, rather than leaving the United States to manage them alone. The Obama Administration is committed to achieving a reformed and renewed UN that saves lives, keeps the peace, seeds development, finds common solutions to the urgent problems of a new century, operates effectively —and lives within its means.

This comprehensive UN reform agenda is based on four key pillars: economy, accountability, integrity, and excellence. 

Economy: A Leaner UN. Every dollar sent to the UN represents the hard work of a taxpayer somewhere, and any dollar wasted at the UN is a wasted opportunity to build a better, freer, more prosperous world. The United Nations should face these tough economic times by tightening its belt and doing more with less.

Accountability: A Cleaner UN. Taxpayers around the world deserve to know exactly how the money they send to the UN is spent and to have confidence that every dollar, euro or yen is handled honestly and well. The UN has made important advances in recent years, but much more remains to be done to strengthen oversight mechanisms, ethics enforcement, whistleblower protection, and transparency. 

Integrity: A Respected UN. As a founding member, host country, and largest contributor, the United States has a particular interest in seeing that the UN lives up to its founding principles and values and standing firm against actions by member states that discredit the UN and the important work it does. 

Excellence: An Effective UN. Billions of people depend, many for their lives, on crucial UN services. They deserve a UN that delivers real results and that performs – from senior officials in New York to front-line implementers in African villages – to the highest standard of excellence.

Read complete details of the proposal here.

The Bellagio Initiative

New ideas for advancing well being in the developing world emerge on a daily basis.

The Bellagio Initiative is a series of global consultations to produce a new framework for philanthropic and international development collaboration in pursuit of human wellbeing in the 21st century. The project is led by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), the Resource Alliance and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Throughout 2011 and moving into 2012, the Initiative is engaging a diverse international group of practitioners, opinion leaders, social entrepreneurs and donors to consider innovative solutions to some of the major challenges affecting poor people today. The Initiative is built on Global Dialogue meetings with key constituencies around the world, commissioned papers and a recent Summit which was held in Winter 2011 at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Italy.

The Rockefeller Foundation is continually seeking out a wide range of partners – entrepreneurs, activists, technological innovators, social innovators, government leaders and others who are constantly experimenting to find new ways to solve the challenges they confront. In convening the Bellagio Initiative, they provided a forum to listen to those partners and their innovative solutions for the philanthropic and development communities.

In particular, at the Bellagio Initiative Summit in November they brought some of these partners together, giving them the chance to expand their networks and source new ideas. A full in-depth report on the Initiative will be released later in 2012. For now, it's possible to hear just a few of the insights that emerged from the Summit. Watch the video for key moments and learnings now:

The video includes contributions from Bellagio Initiative delegates, including: 

Caroline Anstey, World Bank James Chen, Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation Jay Naidoo, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition Malcolm Bruce, UK House of Commons Roberto Bissio, Social Watch Samia Yaba Nkrumah, Member of Parliament, Ghana Tariq Cheema, World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists.

Trends in Development 2012

At the end of the year, Isobel Coleman writing for the Council of Foreign Relations identifies three major trends for international development in the coming year. The full article is linked here. 

An excerpt is below: 

As the world adjusts to seven billion people, and begins its creep toward eight billion, doing more with less will become increasingly important...   Greater efficiency and effectiveness in development is paramount. 

Three trends to watch in the coming year that can help improve development outcomes. 

 1) mHealth and mGovernance Applying mobile phone technology to global health challenges has huge potential to improve health outcomes... MHealth is still in its infancy, but the potential is there for some transformative improvements to health care delivery in rural areas. MGovernance is also an area to watch. Mobile phones are becoming a tool for governments to communicate information, build connections with citizens, and receive feedback, particularly in countries with little infrastructure. 

2) Agricultural Productivity As competition for resources becomes more intense in the coming decades, dramatically increasing how efficiently we use available resources – in particularly, energy, food and water – will be a critical part of the solution to closing the gap between supply and demand... In the horn of Africa, poor governance and climate conditions have combined to create chronic food shortages and famines...  As drought spreads to West Africa, innovations in this field will be another important trend to watch in 2012. 

3) Establishing Identity Registering minorities and women allows them better access to legal channels to claim their rights, whether that is to report a crime, dispute ownership of land or other property, or gain access to social services and education. Gaining state recognition is certainly the first step for the 12 million stateless people in the world, but it is also the first step to citizenship for billions of people in developing countries that have no official identity... Other countries with millions of unregistered citizens, who in some places are disproportionately women, should watch closely.