Examination of Witnesses (Questions 44-59)
MR ECKHARD
DEUTSCHER AND
MS BRENDA
KILLEN
7 MAY 2008
Q44 Chairman: Welcome to the Committee.
For the record, would you introduce yourselves before we get into
the discussion?
Mr Deutscher: My name is Eckhard
Deutscher. Since January I have been chairman of the Development
Assistance Committee of the OECD.
Ms Killen: My name is Brenda Killen.
I head up the Aid Effectiveness Division at OECD in Paris.
Q45 Chairman: Thank you very much
for coming. As you know, we are looking at donor co-ordination
and aid effectiveness resulting from it. You may be aware, to
put it in context, that separately from this we are making some
visits next week to Rome, Berlin and Copenhagen. Part of the reason
for going to Rome is to look at the World Food Programme, but
we are also going to ask the Italians, for example, why their
aid and development programme seems to be going rapidly backwards.
Obviously, we shall be engaging with Germany which in our view
could be doing more. Our engagement with Denmark is more to do
with that country being very much in the vanguard in terms of
both commitment and approach, and we shall also have an opportunity
to explore the Paris rules. I just thought I should set the context
because if there is anything that you think we can usefully look
for in those exchanges and can share with us that would be helpful.
Looking at your own DAC report on aid effectiveness, on the whole
you give our own Department for International Development (DFID)
a pretty positive, if not rave, endorsement but there are some
qualifications. We witness this sometimes on the ground when we
visit recipient countries. We have met and asked other donors
their views on DFID. It is clear to us that in a lot of cases
DFID takes the lead in bringing together donors in-country and
encourages co-operation, but in reality how effective is it in
doing that? How does it compare with other donors? Is it quite
as good as it thinks it is? The suggestion has already been made
that maybe it pushes its own agenda a little too much. By definition
co-ordination means you should be playing to the strengths and
approaches of different donors to ensure that what you do is harmonised
and does not create too many problems for the recipient country,
and that you do not step on each other's toes. It is not really
about one donor saying what it thinks and hoping all the others
will be whipped into line behind. One implied criticism is that
occasionally DFID falls into that trap. Is that a fair assessment?
Mr Deutscher: First, let me thank
you for this invitation. It is an honour for me to share with
you some ideas and experiences. You mentioned as the main point
in the context of the Paris agenda all the efforts of the international
donor community in the past three to five years to achieve greater
aid effectiveness. Effectiveness should not be only a word; it
should be improved. In the Paris Declaration there are a lot of
rules or commitments about what donors and recipients should do
to demonstrate that aid is effective and aid effectiveness can
contribute to better development of our partner countries. This
is a relatively young and fresh process. The international donor
community is trying to talk together about its own rules and how
aid can be made to work better. This started concretely within
the framework of the Paris Declaration and had never existed before.
I think the experiences of members of the international donor
community and what they are doing right now not only among themselves
but with partner countries, lead directly to the question: what
have we done in the past 30 or 40 years, and can we do a better
job to contribute to better development? I like to go to partner
countries and get a smell of what is happening on the ground.
Two months ago I was in Bolivia. My impression was that the Paris
Declaration on aid effectiveness was very much in the minds and
behaviours of the donors. On the other side it seemed to me to
be very difficult to turn this into concrete actions. This means
that we come directly to the problem of how we are organised.
In Bolivia there have been about 30 different donors or donor
agencies. It was said that there was co-ordination and we met
twice but I felt that there was not yet a results-oriented approach.
Having spoken to the Government of Bolivia, yes, it is very aware
of and keen to have ownership of the process. My feeling was that
in Bolivia time was required: it was a process running in the
right direction but experiences were still needed. In the second
half of this year I intend to visit African countries because
my professional career was mostly in Latin America. I worked there
on the ground in projects and I know what it means to work in
the field under, let us say, a political umbrella like the Paris
Declaration. Sometimes people tell me what they are doing, elaborating
something on the green desk, which does not affect us on the ground.
That brings me to the idea that maybe we should do more of what
we call capacity building for our agencies so that they, not just
governments, carry a big responsibility for aid effectiveness.
I mentioned Latin America. My experience was the same three years
ago when the then president of Nicaragua told us that there were
40 donors in the country. When I still worked at the World Bank
there were four or five missions from that bank, the IMF[1]
and Banco Interamericano, the Latin American development bank.
That occupied their capacity and at the same time they were being
offered fresh money. Maybe it is not funny, but he summarised
it as the "Disneyland of the donors". In a neighbouring
country we saw no donor co-operation at all. That was three years
ago but since then a lot has happened. I was in Guatemala at the
end of last year and donor co-ordination had already started.
These are learning processes. It also brings us to the problem
of the number of agencies and the fact that developing and partner
countries are simply not able to share this volume of co-operation
when donors have different methods, reporting systems etc, etc.
Q46 Chairman: Perhaps I may press you
a little more on the role of DFID. As you will know, because of
the 90/10 split and the concentration of bilateral aid on low-income
countries, DFID's engagement in Latin America is pretty minimal
these days, whereas engagement in Africa and parts of Asia is
quite high. DAC has described DFID as being at the forefront and
leading on aid effectiveness. It talks about strong political
leadership and driving forward international efforts to improve
the effectiveness of aid and it says that DFID has inspired and
endorsed the Paris Declaration in ringing terms. You have just
described a number of countries where, to put it bluntly, DFID
is not in that position. Would it be different if it was? To put
it the other way round, first, is there a noticeable difference
in co-ordination when DFID is present on the ground as a significant
donor? Second, to what extent is DFID genuinely co-ordinating
other donors as opposed to trying to drive its own agenda which
is your criticism?
Mr Deutscher: My experiences are
that DFID is a leader in co-ordination. In my view it is very
far ahead compared with other donor agencies in complying with
the Paris agenda, especially on co-ordination. I know the other
side of the coin. I was told several times that DFID was putting
other agencies in a passive role and they could not breathe sufficiently
to develop their own ideas. I think DFID should encourage and
remind other donors of the Paris rules under the declaration.
Other donor countries can learn from the focus on effectiveness
in terms of conception, organisation and management. Maybe when
a climate is created that is too pushy it does not stimulate more
co-operation. In my view the concept of, engagement in and effectiveness
of aid management—what DFID provides—should not be
reduced or diminished, but maybe some educational role or intention
would be very fruitful.
Q47 Mr Singh: I would like to contrast
what the DAC peer review says in terms of DFID's leadership role
and what the Overseas Development Institute says in its evidence
to the Committee. That evidence says "that DFID has some
way to go in delivering on aid effectiveness commitments at country
level" and that the "UK does little better than average
among surveyed donors in minimising the number of reviews and
missions it mounts, and in aligning disbursements with the national
budget cycle."[2]
It says that, "The UK ranks comparatively low in aligning
GBS missions with PRS (poverty reduction strategies) reviews".[3]
Why is there a contrast between what you appear to be saying and
what the ODI says?
Mr Deutscher: The contrast is
characterised mostly by my own experiences. Very often I am in
the field speaking with partners and donors. In the past 10 years
when I was in the World Bank I together with the German Secretary
of State made field visits every year especially on donor co-ordination
on bilateral and, we should not forget, multilateral donor co-ordination.
My experiences are that DFID is very compliant in the field and
has a high degree of acceptance by the partner. The important
criterion is not the view we have of ourselves; it should and
must be what partners are thinking.
Q48 Mr Singh: Would you say that
the ODI survey represents a rather harsh view of what DFID is
doing?
Mr Deutscher: Sometimes it might
be good to be a little bit sharper in one's own views and formulate
them to make the problems clear. It would be interesting to talk
to the examiners and find out what they have in mind in making
such expressions. From the multilateral perspective I was always
delighted to work together with the British chair in the World
Bank and the Fund. There was a very active and constructive role
even in very difficult times.
Q49 Chairman: You know that the UK
has now decided to have a full-time director for the World Bank?
Mr Deutscher: I was informed of
it a couple of weeks ago.
Chairman: That was something of which
the Committee was very much in favour.
Q50 Sir Robert Smith: I just wonder
whether this has to do with the way the measurement is made by
the ODI because it talked about things like the number of review
missions DFID mounted and it was making statistical comparisons
with other development agencies in terms of the nuts and bolts
of alignment and trying to meet the Paris Declaration. Could it
be that whilst the perception is that it has the right approach
when one comes to the detail it is still mounting a lot of reviews,
missions and putting quite a lot of burdens on the recipients?
Mr Deutscher: I did not catch
your question.
Ms Killen: Perhaps I may introduce
some evidence from the Paris Declaration survey. We have the baseline
survey conducted in 2006 which looked at the situation in 2005.
There is a survey looking at progress since then that is now being
analysed. The data we have on the UK programme is very good and
DFID has either met or exceeded targets. For example, on the use
of country public financial management and procurement systems
DFID has exceeded the EU targets. It has also achieved targets
on co-ordinating technical co-operation and untying aid. It has
also met indicator 10 which looks at joint missions and country
analytical work, that is, 40% of missions and 66% of country analytical
work are joint. I have not seen the ODI survey but I wonder how
many of the missions in the survey are joint. Whilst I think it
is a relevant criticism to question whether donors are mounting
too many missions and how much analysis should be done in-country,
if DFID is reducing the overall number by making sure that the
ones in which it is involved are joint then that is moving in
the right direction. I think that to look at the overall total
and how much that should be driven from within the country rather
than from outside is very valid.
Q51 Ann McKechin: Following on the
2006 survey that you spoke about, what do you say are the key
lessons for donors and recipients? One of the findings was that
very few countries effectively co-ordinated their technical assistance
and some felt that none of their technical assistance could be
counted as co-ordinated at all. Given the outcome of that survey,
has there been any debate or discussion amongst donors about the
need to improve those figures, and what measures are proposed
to achieve it?
Ms Killen: Technical assistance
is a big battle ground for aid effectiveness and it is a big issue
for debate. It is something that has come up in the discussions
we have had with partner countries in their priorities for the
Accra high-level forum later this year. The donors are discussing
in the forum of the DAC what they are willing to do. This is concerned
particularly with making progress on capacity development and
ownership. There are discussions around how to co-ordinate technical
co-operation and ways of making such co-operation more demand
driven. We shall see the evidence of the 2008 survey in the middle
of this month, so by the time of the high-level meeting of the
DAC which draws in all the heads of agencies we shall have some
up-to-date evidence of whether or not there has been progress
on that front. But it is certainly being debated and it is something
on which partner countries want to see progress at Accra.
Q52 Chairman: Would it be fair or
unfair to say that part of the problem is the extent to which
all the donors are really signed up to the Paris Declaration,
because clearly for some that is a breach of their past practice?
Is there a problem with countries not really wanting to give up
their own distinctive approach either in terms of limiting the
number of engagements or sharing the priorities, or is it more
a matter of simply communicating with each other so that they
eliminate duplication and work in the same direction?
Mr Deutscher: In my view it is
more a matter of communication. There are efforts to rationalise
the engagement of donors in partner countries. One proposal of
the European Commission was not to be involved or active in more
than three sectors in a country. This brings us easily to the
complexity of the development donor system when we take into account
that worldwide we have 280 bilateral agencies, 243 multilateral
institutions and programmes and 24 international development banks.
I am rightly informed that there are 40 UN units dealing with
development issues. There is a change in the landscape with the
so-called new donors: China and India. I know that Mexico and
Russia are now creating new development agencies. We must not
forget private foundations with significant amounts of money.
This all shows that this is not only a matter of communication.
We have to talk about how we can get all these activities in context,
but we should be clear that there are also very different interests.
Q53 Chairman: I take that point,
but let us talk simply about members of the DAC. To be specific
and perhaps unfair, we did a report on Afghanistan.[4]
One of the issues that emerged was that, first, the United States
was not really prepared to do budget support although it has begun
to do it in Afghanistan uniquely. In addition, it still insisted
on spending money or commissioning a lot of what was being done
back in the United States and therefore the impact on the ground
was a lot less than for other donors. I think we had an objective
assessment which said that UK aid was three times more effective
on the ground than US aid because more of the money was spent
on local purchases, basically. My point is that the United States
is a very big donor. Is it really playing its full part in trying
to achieve both your objectives and the Paris Declaration?
Mr Deutscher: I have no doubt
that the Paris Declaration and objectives are on the radar screen
of US development assistance. The problem is that every member
country has its own constraints. I give the example of budget
support. I know that to your colleagues in the German Parliament
this is not acceptable. The argument is that when you are responsible
for taxpayers' money and are losing control over whether the money
is spent rightly or not that instrument cannot be accepted. On
the other side, we know from our experiences that budget support
on a transparent basis can contribute a lot more, maybe much more,
than another instrument. I am telling you only about the constraints.
We have no unified views. When you take into account the development
policy of Japan, the US and the Europeans, among the Europeans
there are more common views but not in everything. When we have
the high level meeting in two and a half weeks we shall talk about
critical points like untying aid and the problem of conditionality.
This is what partner countries are urging donors to talk about.
We are not shying away. Here the United States and every member
is involved and will take part. We will see what the outcome is.
There are constraints and critical problems but we know what we
have to do and cannot solve the problems from one week to another.
Q54 John Battle: You made an interesting
distinction between action in the field and the green desk. I
want to focus on the green desk. Of course it is about organisation
and co-ordination, but it is also about methodology. I want to
question the 2006 survey on monitoring the Paris Declaration.
You suggest that it is about debate, but it is also about systems
for monitoring and developing the evaluation whose object is shared
and agreed to by all. One of the NGOs[5]
that challenged the survey's credibility said in evidence: "The
2006 OECD Development Assistance Committee survey of implementation
of the Paris Declaration was fatally undermined by donors insisting
on `negotiating' on the figures".[6]
Therefore, the figures in the final document were in many cases
significantly different from the earlier drafts. I am a little
surprised that we can negotiate the figures and agree a different
set. It seems to me to undermine an objective approach. Is that
true? Is that what happened? How can the evaluations carried out
by DFID and other donors have any credibility if figures are simply
a matter of negotiation? I believed that occasionally there could
be some truth in the arithmetic.
Mr Deutscher: Numbers are numbers.
You are absolutely right. I do not know how far this was negotiated,
in which cases or whether, if this is true in one or two cases,
it can be translated into a general expression like that. I know
that there are questions about the credibility of the old process
and whether it is donor driven. I take this very seriously. All
donors have to look at this, not shy away from it. This is also
a form of dialogue culture within NGOs which I think is very important
in the old process. For example, I was in New York for four weeks
and was invited by ECOSOC[7]
to prepare for the Doha round on financing for development. I
read such things between the lines and I would like to know concretely
what this means. On the one hand it is said that partner countries
are not involved in the process and on the other hand we have
now finalised the 2008 survey with 56 countries and this creates
its own dynamic. I would like to know—perhaps Ms Killen
can go into the details—what are the concrete circumstances.
I assure you that I take such expressions seriously.
Ms Killen: Certainly, the survey
can be criticised because if any of us started with a blank sheet
and wrote out how we would monitor aid effectiveness we would
not come up with the survey that we have, but it was in part driven
by a partnership. This is something that the partner countries
and donor countries could sign up to; and it was also crucially
driven by what could be measured. That is your point about getting
data at country level. Some questions are more controversial than
others and that is quite a useful thing in itself because it throws
a light on whether there are political difficulties in moving
on aid effectiveness. It shows that pressure is being put on parties
when they are not happy with how things are being measured. We
have very rigorous standards for assessing the data that goes
into the survey. We have a joint venture on monitoring the Paris
Declaration which advises the working party on aid effectiveness.
That has members from partner countries and a range of donors
and that works with national co-ordinators and government representatives
in countries on the survey. This year we have much more of a flow
chart containing yes/no questions so we can reduce the opportunities
to massage how the figures might be interpreted on the ground.
Whilst in the 2006 survey there might have been some interpretation
it will not be wildly wrong in terms of the data and the 2008
survey will be much harder. This year we have had 56 countries
compared with 34 countries the first time round. I think that
the survey will take on a life after the Paris Declaration, because
the process of discussing this in-country is very popular with
partner countries and civil societies. I believe that it has been
useful in and of itself.
Q55 John Battle: I completely accept
that developing the evaluation methodology is a process. I do
not want to make it personal because even in Britain my own government
is having a great row about inflation figures and whether the
Office of National Statistics can be trusted. There is a political
argument about what constitutes inflation measures. There will
always be some kind of row. Could the working party to which you
refer take on the role of developing common standards of evaluation?
Would that be internal to the OECD, or would we be looking to
outside bodies? We took evidence from the so-called 3IE (International
Initiative for Impact Evaluation) which seems to be setting itself
up as an objective measure. I rather wondered whether that was
in-house for you and we could build confidence in evaluation.
In a way I am playing them out of the game as second fiddle to
check. How do you see this development of agreed common quality
standards for evaluation? Do you see it as your job to get that
affirmed?
Ms Killen: I think that is a useful
job. We have a network of evaluators within OECD. We are also
looking at the mandates of particular joint ventures and the working
party on aid effectiveness, so after the Accra high-level forum
the work planned for the next two years of the Paris Declaration
will be reviewed. Certainly, that is something that is coming
up particularly in relation to developing ownership in-country
and using a country's own systems. That is a good idea. You have
helped me out because after the Accra high-level forum I need
to look at the priorities going forward.
Q56 Jim Sheridan: Referring to the
2008 OECD survey of the Paris Declaration, given that the Committee
will be visiting Europe in the next week or two and meeting the
evaluation secretariat can you give a taster of what the early
findings of this survey are and, likewise, for the separate OECD
evaluation to be carried out by Denmark and Vietnam?
Mr Deutscher: We do not yet have
the final results of the newest survey. What colleagues from the
DAC can tell you is that it has been reported to me that dynamics
are created towards more ownership than in the past and that the
whole process of a development country-driven survey is very good.
I hope that we shall have the final results during the Accra meeting
and we will discuss them.
Q57 Jim Sheridan: Is there any information
that you can share with the Committee prior to its European visit?
Ms Killen: When is your European
visit?
Q58 Chairman: Next week.
Ms Killen: We may have something.
At the moment from what we are getting back it does not look like
things have changed a great deal and the same problems are still
there, but that is very tentative. We would need to look at information
by individual countries, in particular the qualitative information.
When I get back to Paris I will see whether the first range of
analysis will be available by next week.[8]
Chairman: Mr Sheridan makes the point
that we are to meet the secretariat on Friday of next week.
Q59 Jim Sheridan: A separate survey
has been carried out by Denmark and Vietnam. Is there anything
you can share with us in that regard?
Ms Killen: The first phase of
that evaluation is whether Paris is being implemented, and the
second phase after Accra is to consider whether that is having
an impact on development. At the moment it is touching on some
of the same themes that came out of the survey about ownership.
My colleague picked up the political nature of aid effectiveness
and the fact that it is a political process, not just a technical
one.
Mr Deutscher: I am a little concerned
that Accra as a political process has not been taken sufficiently
into account. This is not a new technical exercise. I am asking
all ministers to show up at Accra and demonstrate that this is
an important event. This is a mid-term review, but we are dealing
with realities. A very important reality is the upcoming Doha
agenda. We cannot uncouple these major events, that is, the development
co-operation process called for by the UN Secretary General on
25 September and Doha. It is my deep conviction that this is a
mid-term review but we are on the way to establish that aid works
and that we are maintaining the effectiveness of it. This also
has to do with convincing the public in donor countries that aid
makes sense.
1 International Monetary Fund Back
2
Ev 91 Back
3
Ev 91 Back
4
International Development Committee, Fourth Report of Session
2007-08, Reconstructing Afghanistan, HC 65 Back
5
Non-governmental organisation Back
6
Ev 61 Back
7
The Economic and Social Council of the United Nations Back
8
Ev 82 Back
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