6 Learning to be more effective
72. The MDGs will not be met unless there is more
international aid, and it is used more effectively. The recipients
of aid need to do better in terms of pursuing sound strategies
for poverty reduction, and the donors of aid—including DFID—need
to improve their performance too. The way to improve future performance
is to learn from past performance, both successes and failures,
in order to better understand how aid can be most effective. Learning,
and the institutional innovations which such learning can foster,
is best achieved when development actors are held accountable
for their actions. Transparency, about what actions have been
taken, and what results they have led to, is the foundation for
accountability. DFID's Departmental Report for 2004 plays an important
role in making DFID accountable, and, we trust, in helping the
Department to reflect on its performance and improve.
73. In this report, we have highlighted several areas
where DFID could do better, and where DFID could—by providing
more and better information—make itself more accountable.
More information should be provided about the poverty focus of
the multilateral agencies through which much of UK aid is channelled
(see paragraphs 14-18). Clarity as regards the UK development
effort in Iraq, and its results, could be improved (see paragraphs
24-25). DFID could and should, in defending its role as
a department focussed on poverty reduction and ensuring that its
funds are used for this purpose, make the case as to how its various
activities contribute to poverty reduction (see paragraphs 38-41).
DFID should also ensure that its enthusiasm for Poverty Reduction
Budget Support is informed by clear evidence about its effectiveness
or otherwise, and that this evidence is made available to stakeholders
(see paragraphs 50-62). And, DFID could improve its useful "traffic
light" system of showing progress on its PSA targets, by
explaining what will be done in cases where there is little progress
(see paragraphs 63-71).
74. In addition to these issues, there are other
areas of concern. The Departmental Report shows that net administration
costs have increased by 120 per cent on 2002-03.[93]
DFID notes that this is largely explained by the adoption of a
new definition of administration costs.[94]
Regrettably, the Departmental Report does not tell the reader
how much of this increase is a result of this change in definition,
making it impossible for the reader to assess how DFID is doing
in terms of keeping its administration costs down. Suma Chakrabarti
told us that perhaps 14 per cent of the increase is a real increase
rather than a result of re-labelling.[95]
This is somewhat reassuring, but there remains a point about transparency;
the information provided in the Departmental Report for 2004
on administration costs is of little or no use to the reader.
Subsequent Departmental Reports must present such information
more transparently.
75. Two other issues are, first, the reorganisation
of DFID's policy division, and second, progress being made with
the mainstreaming of gender into the Department's work. We do
not wish to trawl through DFID's experiences with reorganising
its policy division here, but do hope that the lessons of what
by all accounts was a rather messy process of organisational development
have been learned.[96]
As regards DFID's approach to gender, concerns have been raised
that DFID's twin-track strategy of mainstreaming gender, and also
engaging in work which focuses on the needs of women and girls,
does not translate well from theory to practice, with "mainstreaming"
actually resulting in marginalisation.[97]
Whilst emphasising that there is a wide range of initiatives at
all levels of the organisation, and many examples of innovative
and effective work on gender, DFID acknowledges that more work
is needed to ensure that the momentum on gender mainstreaming
is maintained across the board. DFID is in the process of developing
a new strategy on gender; we look forward to its publication and
its translation into effective practice on the ground.[98]
76. Despite patchy progress towards meeting the MDGs,
DFID's Permanent Secretary agreed that the appropriate response
to this is to try harder, rather than to move the goalposts and
allow the MDGs to become aspirations.[99]
The international community must work harder to meet the MDGs,
with Governments such as ours responding to, and amplifying, the
political will to get things done. And, as well as working harder,
and providing more development assistance, DFID, along with other
players in the emerging global partnership for development, must
work better and smarter. We hope that this report will contribute
in some small way to improving the UK's aid effort and speeding
progress towards the MDGs.
93 Department for International
Development, Departmental Report 2004, Cm6214, Annex 1,
table 6-see footnote 3 for web-site. Back
94
Ibid. Back
95
Q 85 [Suma Chakrabarti] Back
96
Q 75 [Suma Chakrabarti] Back
97
Ev 72 Back
98
Ev 44 Back
99
Q 1 [Suma Chakrabarti] Back
|
