Examination of Witnesses (Questions 95-99)
MR SHAHID
MALIK MP, MS
BELLA BIRD,
MR MIKE
HAMMOND AND
MS SARAH
COOKE
2 JUNE 2008
Q95 Chairman: Good afternoon, Minister,
and welcome to this session of the International Development Committee.
It is the first time you have appeared in front of us as a Minister;
I know you have replied to debates in Westminster Hall, answering
our questions, but welcome. I wonder if just for the record you
could introduce your team.
Mr Malik: Of course. On my right
is Bella Bird from Nepal—not originally but at the moment—to
her right is Mike Hammond, whom you met in Ghana, and on my left
is Sarah Cooke who works on aid effectiveness here. I am Shahid
Malik.
Q96 Chairman: As you know, this is
the final oral evidence session on this. We did visit Ghana, looking
at co-ordination on the ground in a developing country and we
also did a tour of Europe—we were in Rome, Berlin and Copenhagen—looking
at different approaches, and I would say fairly radically different
approaches, to international development and co-ordination. At
this stage we obviously want to draw those threads together and
check DFID's role in promoting co-ordination, but perhaps we could
pick up on the (DAC) Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which, while
they gave DFID a generally positive report on co-ordination, did
say that there was an element of DFID promoting its own model
rather than leading and encouraging complementary donor action;
in other words we are in favour of co-ordination as long as you
agree with us. First of all, do you accept that that is the case,
and if it is the case is it because you believe the DFID model
is one that we need to sell to other people because it is a positive,
proactive strategy, or is it just because you are the biggest
kid on the block?
Mr Malik: Chairman, I certainly
accept that it is a perception and in some cases it evidently
is the case that DFID is seen as the lead body in international
development. The Easterly bit of research that was done by New
York University just a few months ago put DFID out there as number
one, but it is really not that relevant comparing ourselves to
other aid agencies; what is most relevant is ensuring that year
on year we have improvements. On occasions we may well have been
a bit more confident perhaps than we ought to be about some of
the models and the mechanisms that we use, but we are a learning
organisation and we are keen, where we believe that aid is being
used effectively, in actually trying to influence other donors
and the like. I suppose our response would really be that by building
the evidence base of what is effective through the DAC and joint
working groups we can make a real difference and get a more objective
way of thinking about these things. What I would like to do if
I may, Mr Bruce, is perhaps just outline the approach that we
advocate and then perhaps come more specifically to the peer review
question.
Q97 Chairman: I might stop you on
that because we have got quite a lot of questions and you will
get the opportunity to bring those points out. I do not want to
inhibit you, but at this stage if you can bring the points in
as you answer the questions that would probably be helpful. I
just have one follow-through on the basis of the evidence we had.
We met the German agency GTZ and their comment was that they felt
DFID was "too ideological" in its approach and the Danish
Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave a mixed response, "the big
boy in the class, the one we tend to defer to", but on occasions
implying that "we are expected to defer to". These are
two significant and important donors and if DFID, perfectly reasonably,
is the largest donor in the whole of Europe it has justification
for taking a leadership role but it is equally important that
those kinds of donors feel comfortable with that and that implies
they do not entirely. Do you accept that that is a point of issue?
Mr Malik: Again, I accept that
that is a perception. It tells us that it is something we have
got to work on and it is crucial that other donor partners are
actually working with us in an environment that is comfortable
for them. I would like to think that we try to influence where
we think aid is being used effectively but also we are willing
to listen and to learn from others. In terms of leadership there
are many examples in country where we are happy to defer and allow
other people to lead who are better suited to lead. There is no
doubt that DFID is seen as top of the class by many; I hope that
there is not some arrogance that has crept in with that but we
are constantly looking at ourselves to learn as an organisation.
Q98 Chairman: Finally on that, do
you feel that proactively as DFID there are occasions when you
do actually want to promote your approach? That is not necessarily
unreasonable when you are very well-respected, and there is no
doubt about it, you are seen as a leader, you are a big player,
so all those things are true. Is there a conscious, proactive
case where it is actually an occasion to say we are wanting to
sell our approach, promote our approach?
Mr Malik: In all honesty there
are occasions when we are confident that our approach is perhaps
the best approach and on those occasions it is our job to try
to influence others who might have a contrary opinion. I can speak
about Nepal, for example.
Chairman: We have a division so do that
when we come back.
The Committee suspended from 4.09 pm to
4.19 pm for a division in the House.
Chairman: Mr Malik, you were in full
flow but I am going to ask Marsha Singh to carry on with his question.
You will be able to bring in your examples of Nepal, I promise
you.
Q99 Mr Singh: Minister, the memorandum
that DFID sent to us says on this topic that "DFID has performed
above average compared to other donors on aid effectiveness, having
either met or being on track to meet all the 2010 targets in the
Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness." However, the ODI
(Overseas Development Institute) said that DFID ranks "comparatively
low" or "little better than average" on key alignment
and harmonisation indicators. How do you explain that? Secondly,
what does average mean in this context, is the average very low
or is the average very high and what targets have we met and what
targets are we on track to meet?
Mr Malik: I would firstly say
that we recognise the Paris Declaration monitoring survey as being
the most rigorous and internationally-recognised measure of aid
effectiveness, and I am very pleased actually that you have pointed
out that we have either met or are on track to meet our commitments
by 2010. I have to say in terms of the areas where we perhaps
are not performing as well as we would like, we are really looking
to some of those countries—they are Nordic countries in
the main—looking at working with them to get a better understanding
of why they are ahead of us in terms of some of those targets.
We will shortly learn from some forthcoming case studies of individual
donors as part of the Paris Declaration evaluation and this we
think will give us a valuable insight as to why some of the Nordic
Plus group in particular seem to be quite advanced in terms of
some of the indicators. In terms of specifically which ones we
have met and which ones we need to improve upon, I might just
defer for a second to Sarah.
Ms Cooke: The three targets where
although we are on track to meet we are performing less strongly
are aid on budget, predictability and programme-based approaches,
so although all the other targets we have already met, those are
the three where we are on track to meet the targets but obviously
they are not due to be met until 2010. Those are three areas,
therefore, where our performance is strong but we feel we could
do more, and we have put in place quite challenging targets in
these three areas in our business planning round for the next
three years to ensure that we are having an even stronger performance
over the next few years on those three particular areas.
Mr Malik: Just to add really,
it is quite complex, aid on budget. For example, some of this
on occasions is due to the poor capture of data behind partner
governments and we are actually looking to work with partner governments
to identify some of the bottlenecks to capturing the data which
prevents it being included within the budget itself. The Paris
Declaration is something that we have mainstreamed throughout
the organisation as part of our planning processes now; as well
as teams in country having access to training we have a monthly
aid effectiveness newsletter that goes out as well, so we are
very much committed to the Paris Declaration but we are equally
very confident that by 2010 despite, on some of the targets, not
being as advanced as we would like to be, we will actually meet
all the targets.
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