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However, the solution is NOT a bottom up approach of NGOs fighting for a finite pie. The political process is about power and those with more money and connections (not those with the best evidence) will get funded in any darwinian struggle.

What is needed, instead, is a change in norms where govts start funding what works based on evidence. (And thank good USAID is finally investing in M&E and learning after a long dry spell.) So proven interventions should be prioritized – ala Copenhagen Consensus. ROI should be measured. RCT and qualitative research should be used in evaluating effectiveness and determine future funding.

Fund what works rather than whoever has the loudest voice …. My $0.02.

A better solution would be to eliminate all proxy indicators for “good aid”, going for direct indicators and rigorous evaluation and evidence basis.

Producing self repeating papers with a message that he himself does not even believe in, for which he doen not want to held accountable, he just wants “to provoke discussion”. (just read §95. if you don’t believe me).

No poor man has ever benefited from such “work”.

Malaria mortality is about twice as high in children as in adults, and for the childhood vaccination comparison the point is obvious.

It may be that the flow of aid dollars is driven partly by what you see when you look right at a village, rather than at statistics, and in this case the less direct view may be the better guide.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by mikegechter_rss: The War of the Causes in Aid: The development industry seems to be riddled with people whose main job is to divert… http://bit.ly/csMRUo...

The difference in resource allocation, as demonstrated by Owen, between HIV/AIDS and malaria also reflects the example of how priorities can be driven by the home country and funding source of the NGO rather than then needs of the host country when being an NGO becomes a business for well-placed individuals within it. In this case, HIV is a also a donor country issue whereas malaria is not, therefore HIV will receive the lion’s share of donor resources and media attention in the home country.

The saddest part of this ABC split between donors (A), providers (B) and recipients (C) is how some NGOs in their drive for self-sustaining funding and volunteer support will deliberately perpetuate within A existing mythologies for their purpose, rather than honestly educate funding groups and perspective volunteers.

Another problem with this split comes with the evaluations. If NGO (B) is funding and providing assistance to a local CSO (B1) then there is added another layer between donor (A) and recipient (C), that is if, in such cases, there will even be a C. With A, B and B1, regardless of whether there is a C, there comes a closed and self fulfilling feedback loop.

The final issue comes from my field observation that especially now with the internet, the lowered transaction costs have made it is easier and more lucrative to form a local CSO and ally oneself with a foreign NGO then it is to form and operate locally a real MSME business. So long as the money keeps coming in through the NGO and exacerbated by the broken A B C feedback loop, the CSO can stay in business a long time. Since the money is not earned, but rather collected from government and donors, this does become somewhat of a zero-sum game as one NGO’s gain can become another NGO’s loss. Be this as it may, it is this final point, relative ease of creation coupled by a relative lack of market and donor accountability that is fuelling the rapid increase in the number of NGOs and their local CSO partnerships.

A couple of the commenters have asked what the alternative is. One says: “[is this] just one of the manisfestations of an open society that allows for various ideas and issues to compete through the mediating institutions of the foreign aid process. What would Barder prefer to do…dictate where the resources should go?”

The answer to this is definitely “no”, I don’t think the decision should be determined by bureaucrats, however well-intentioned. I am in favour of a competition of ideas and diversity of approaches. But evolution needs both variation and selection, and while we have quite a lot of variation, we almost completely lack mechanisms for selection in the development sector. Competition among bureaucrats and special interests is unlikely to be effective unless it is in the context of institutions that generate greater accountability. I’ve tried to set my thinking as coherently as I can in this CGD Working Paper: Beyond Planning: Markets and Networks for Better Aid (pdf) (I apologise in advance that the paper is rather long and indigestible).

Owen