V. OTHER GENERAL COMMENTS
24. Looking to the future, DFID has an extremely
ambitious new PSA for 2003-06 and the Committee will want to direct
its energies to ensuring that DFID achieves the goals which it
has set for itself. The new Public Service Agreement largely incorporates
the MDGs and demonstrates their use as a framework for DFID policy
and operations. It provides a more reliable translation of the
MDGs into practical goals for DFID, and as such reduces the need
for the Committee to look "behind" the PSA to get at
how DFID delivers on the underpinning MDGs .
25. There are dangers implicit in using outcome targets
such as the PSA and MDGs in a manner which might distort DFID
policy. An example might be concentrating aid only on the countries
which are most likely to be able to use it to make a discernible
difference to targets. Taken to an extreme, this would involve
neglecting the poor in countries with "poor policy environments".
This is obviously contrary to the spirit of the MDGs. Another
example might be focussing within countries on the "barely
poor", for whom relatively small benefits from aid might
push them above the poverty line—and so ignoring the extreme
poor, who are always the hardest to reach. There is no indication
that the PSA objectives will be used in such a manner. Nonetheless,
the possibility remains that they may come to be used in this
way (perhaps particularly as donors approach the 2015 deadline),
and the Committee's inquiries should provide one important check
to ensure that DFID does not pursue its performance goals by aiming
for "lowhanging fruit".
26. DFID has a completely different rationale and
set of powers compared to its predecessor, the Overseas Development
Agency. It has a brief to promote international development, rather
than merely to administer aid. The principle underpinning this
difference in mandate is that aid is only part of what is required
to reduce world poverty: trade policy, the prevention and resolution
of armed conflict, and debt relief are all as important. This
basic point has two immediate implications: first, the need for
DFID to work with other parts of Government in order to do its
job, and second, the need for DFID to pay as much attention to
leveraging other international actors towards acting in ways which
promote the achievement of the MDGs as it does to the efficient
and effective delivery of aid. This issue of overlapping remits
becomes more pronounced in the latest PSA, in which DFID's responsibility
for outcomes is shared: with the FCO and MoD for conflict resolution;
with HM Treasury for debt relief; and with the DTI and FCO for
the reduction in trade barriers which harm the poor.
27. The Committee will need to reflect this change
in the nature of DFID's institutional remit in the way it organises
its own work. This process has already begun. The Committee's
next inquiry is into trade and development. During the course
of the inquiry the Committee hopes not only to engage with the
interdepartmental nature of the task but also to bring in witnesses
from developing countries, "southern voices," on a scale
which it has not previously managed to do.
28. The core tasks for select committees do not apply
in equal measure to all committees. DFID generates little by way
of legislation; it has no associated public bodies and the Secretary
of State is rarely responsible for major public appointments.
The Committee has therefore to adapt the core tasks to the circumstances
of the government department which it monitors. DFID has vested
considerable importance in working with and influencing key multilateral
development agencies (in particular the International Financial
Institutions (IFIs), the EU, the UN system and regional development
banks). Improving the effectiveness of UK and other European ODA
channelled through the EU external cooperation programmes is particularly
important, given the absolute size of these expenditures, their
importance as a proportion of DFID's budget and the serious concerns
about the effectiveness of EU aid.
29. We have therefore maintained the practice, established
in earlier Sessions, of setting aside a significant part of our
workload for the examination of i) the performance of multilateral
agencies and ii) the performance of DFID in exercising influence
which improves these multilateral institutions and their ability
to contribute to the MDGs. Assessing influence is however a methodologically
challenging task, and the Committee will need to consider what
indicators should be measured, and how. The indicators should
be chosen on the grounds that they i) can reasonably be assumed
to link DFID actions (e.g. the placement of senior advisors within
the policy units of multilaterals) to expected future outcomes
(e.g. the increasing propoor geographical focus of EC external
programmes) and ii) are, preferably, objectively measurable.
30. Perhaps 90% of DFID's spending is made overseas.
It is therefore not surprising that the Committee spends around
three working weeks a year on its overseas visits. During the
last year the Committee visited Ghana and Nigeria in connection
with its climate change inquiry and general oversight of DFID
programmes. Later in the year the Committee split into two groups,
with three members visiting Afghanistan as part of a reconstruction
inquiry and the remainder of the Committee visiting Malawi for
the southern Africa humanitarian crisis inquiry.
31. These visits form an essential part of the Committee's
work. Though linked to inquiries on which the Committee is working
at the time, they are also an opportunity to study the range of
DFID's involvement in partner countries. Through the visits, the
Committee has a greater exposure to its department's officials
(and vice versa) than any other departmental select committee.
But the oversight role extends not only to DFID, the Committee
uses the visits to evaluate the different approaches used by other
donors and to see for itself the work of the multilateral bodies.
As a follow up to the Committee's reports on the EC's aid programme,
the Committee has set itself a target of visiting the European
Commission's country offices wherever the opportunity arises.
DFID's new PSA sets out 16 key sub-saharan African and four Asian
countries on which DFID intends to concentrate. The Committee
will want to take this focus of DFID's activity into account in
choosing which countries to visit in future.
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