Summary of conclusions and recommendations
1. Weak assessment by DFID of the strength
and distribution of CSOs within developing countries hinders well-targeted
assistance and the ability to track their effectiveness.
DFID should develop an assessment framework to enable it to rate
the nature, strength and location of these organisations since
CSOs' performance can affect both the delivery of aid and oversight
of its effectiveness. DFID should then make, and periodically
update, assessments for all significant country programmes.
2. Donors are less well coordinated in assessing
and supporting CSOs than in their support for developing country
governments. DFID should develop and apply
its assessment framework jointly with other donors and multilateral
organisations and share the associated costs with them.
3. In fragile states, such as the Democratic
Republic of Congo, the roles that CSOs can play in poverty reduction
are limited by insecurity and the risk of physical violence.
DFID should frame its country programmes to deal explicitly with
aspects such as security, judicial independence and the rule of
law, so that CSOs can contribute fully to poverty reduction in
circumstances where the state lacks capacity.
4. DFID's emphasis on CSOs' roles in lobbying
developing country governments on behalf of the poor and holding
governments to account for service delivery creates risks that
governments come to see CSOs as a threat to their authority.
DFID should discuss these risks with CSOs before starting a project
to ensure that potential consequences are well understood. And
it should develop its policy on how to respond if beneficiary
country governments react adversely to CSO activity, including
contingency planning where appropriate.
5. CSOs have often performed better than developing
country governments in providing benefits for the poorest. But
as DFID puts more emphasis on budget support to governments, CSOs'
skills may not be fully used. DFID should periodically assess
how well donor and beneficiary country government funding is targeted
at the poorest groups, and promote increased funding through CSOs
where this is likely to be more effective at reaching the poor.
6. Donors, developing country governments
and CSOs have all said that they do not have a clear view of DFID's
policy on engaging with CSOs. Any misunderstanding
with CSOs undermines the flow of high quality project proposals.
Poor communication with donors or developing country governments
raises the possibility of gaps and overlaps in support. DFID should
present its policy more clearly to others in the field and check
that they understand it.
7. DFID has little idea of the results of
almost half of its projects and three quarters of its strategic
agreements, because performance indicators are not sufficiently
specific or measurable. DFID also lacks
effective ways of measuring the overall success of each funding
scheme. To address these weaknesses DFID should:
a) ensure all indicators are specific and measurable
to provide a better basis for measuring progress against the key
intended benefits;
b) make greater use of baselines to permit assessment
of progress;
c) make better use of organisational capacity,
management and governance indicators in measuring results; and
d) evaluate the impact of the Challenge Fund
against its wider objectives such as providing services in difficult
environments, rather than just at project level.
8. DFID funding of Partnership Programme Agreements
has been based on historical funding levels of the partners rather
than their performance.
DFID spent £30,000 on a consultancy to suggest appropriate
performance criteria but rejected the consultant's recommendations
without establishing suitable alternatives. It should identify
and adopt appropriate criteria covering the policies, capacity
and performance of partners such as ability to influence others,
to innovate, and to deliver projects cost-effectively. It should
use them to judge how successful partners have been to date in
meeting its objectives, and to inform future partner funding.
9. By leaving the initiative with CSOs to
bring forward project proposals, DFID may not be identifying the
most cost-effective pattern of civil society actions.
The resulting mix of proposals cannot readily be compared, or
matched to strategic objectives. DFID should set out what it wants
to achieve with the available funds and let CSOs bid to deliver
those objectives. DFID also needs to improve its cost analysis
of assistance proposals using techniques such as unit cost analysis
and benchmarking.
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