The quality of aid matters as much as the quantity reminds us of the usual merry-go-round on the aid circuit. The Economist reports the usual concerns of aid that have been flaunting the aid arena for decades.
One good thing of UN development is that it caters its aid to the development programs of government. That is why for instance, UNICEF has a country program for each country covering the development plans of the benefactor government. However, what can the UN do when the government policies are not too civil, too inconclusive, or politically incorrect? Just the other day the media cast the picture of a woman receiving a public caning in Indonesia as recent as 2005. Leaders remain elected for life and reign supreme in spite of bad performance.
Donors press upon the UN for harmonization but instead try for homogenization. The correct meaning is not to have duplicity of aid at least in the UN system. I recall in Bangladesh of government officials quite confused about which UN agency they should listen to on matters of health or education. However, donors who preach the harmonization mantra are not harmonizing themselves. For instance, special funding by donors governments cause havoc in UNICEF and UNDP when those funds cannot easily be matched to government needs as they are not part of the common money pot (called general resources) that UN agencies hold.
Then donors also go direct to governments with bilateral grants bypassing the UN when they can trust governments for proper execution of grant money. However, when donors impose a particular development strategy on developing nations they may be forcing them to do something that is not of a social development priority. UN agencies have still not come up with the arguments to show why it could be more cost-effective and benefit-effective to divert aid through the UN rather than directly to governments.
Donors nosing around have been a big problem in the UN system also. For instance, I have commented in this web log before about the havoc caused by donors when they changed from one executive board meeting a year to having four-five meetings a year in New York. Obviously, it may be fun for the donors to meet many times a year with their UN agencies but it has increased the workload of UN agencies by four and five times to service these meetings and brief donors both collectively and individually before the meeting. Like in business, the customer is king in the aid business the donor is king. The official representing his or her government may ask for briefings, interviews, and other data and this all takes time. Meanwhile, the energy expended to service development programs uses instead to service donor meetings. I would be glad of the day when donors revert to having one executive board meeting a year and allow the UN agency to spend more time with implementation that serving donor nosing. The Economist reports that in 2005, 31 poor governments received 10,837 donor missions, averaging almost one a day and not giving one day of peace for benefactors to do real work. On top of this, one could also add the number of missions made by UN headquarters personnel, auditors, and other inspectors to UN field offices taking too much time away from real implementation.
No doubt, about it, the overlap of aid is a big problem. Developing country governments keep talking to too many donors. The human interactions and duplication of all this interaction and different record keeping is a big dead-weight burden to the cost of aid. During my UNICEF tour, I recall the amount of work in reporting to the different donors for the same aid program. The multiplicity of donors meant multiple record keeping and reporting. I recommended to senior management a proposal to pool all special funding like a mutual fund and I even labeled it the mutual fund theory. However, at that time the organization was more interested in implementing the recommendations of outside consultants than its own. Hitherto, the problems yet persist including dual systems of budgeting.
The sad part of aid is the uncertainty. If you think that, the stock market is the most volatile market you are then sadly mistaken. Donors give assurances in pledges but that does not match real money given. However, beggars have no choices, and this is the big problem in the aid business. The donor is king or queen and the benefactor can do nothing. It is difficult to make long-term commitments when cash flow is uncertain and when there are contradicting claims on giving aid. At the same time, benefactor governments must be honest otherwise good money goes down the drain.
So what must the UN do? At least a good starting point is for the UN to align its agencies so that duplication and overlap is not a problem anymore. The UN should not be having two and three or more agencies addressing the same aid problem. Second, the UN must do something about aligning developing country policies to ensure they are civil. Uncivil leaders should not walk the corridors of the UN without facing criticism of their misdeeds. The UN must win the battle on human rights. The rights of women, particularly in some developing countries are pitiful.
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