Memorandum submitted by ActionAid
AID EFFECTIVENESS—TECHNICAL
ASSISTANCE
1. Technical Assistance (TA—aid money
spent on consultants) is a long criticised and little evaluated
area of aid with a continued negative impact on aid effectiveness.
In 2006, the IDC made a number of recommendations to DFID on the
subject of TA, including requests for DFID to both carry out a
full analysis of how its TA can maximise local capacity development,
participation and impact on poverty; and to outline the process
by which it evaluates external consultants. DFID's Annual Departmental
Report 2007 however, failed to respond to the concerns put forward
by the IDC, and TA was largely excluded from the report. Yet TA
remains an issue of great concern to both partner countries receiving
it, and to NGOs within the wider development community.
2. TA accounts for more than 20% of DFID's
bilateral aid budget. Globally, TA has a long history of being
ineffective, overpriced and donor-driven. DFID's TA is no exception
yet attempts to reform this aid instrument have to date been half-hearted,
despite it accounting for around £500 million in 2005-06.
There are three main areas where DFID should be focussing on improving
TA.
Untying TA
3. Six years after untying aid from UK goods
and services 80% of TA contracts go to UK firms and around only
5% go to developing country firms. DFID should commission an independent
review into consultant costs which analyses why the TA market
is highly uncompetitive and is not delivering value for money.
— With around 80% of the value of
consultants' contracts going to UK firms and only 5% to developing
country firms, what steps is DFID taking to ensure that untying
aid in principle is matched by untying aid in practice?
Evaluation of external consultants
4. Last year DFID made a commitment to the
IDC that they would set out progress on evaluations in its 2007
annual report but they have failed to do so. It should now make
this a priority, particularly in light of its White Paper recommendations
on the importance of developing country ownership of the TA process
at all stages including selection, design, management and evaluation.
— What process does DFID have for
evaluating external consultants? Can DFID give an example of where
an evaluation has made a difference to the awarding of a subsequent
contract?
Transparency
5. Whilst DFID have now begun setting out
the proportion of funds spent on consultancy fees in the annual
Statistics on International Development there are still significant
obstacles to transparency around DFID TA. These impede DFID's
own analysis and objective measurement of its commitments on TA.
DFID should commit to reforming the way it records and makes available
TA data so that it can measure the extent to which it is developing
the local market and making use of local expertise.
An example of the lack of data transparency
6. ActionAid attempts to obtain information
have been held up at several stages, by actions which sit at odds
with DFID's formal transparency policy. In December 2006, ActionAid
requested a list of TA projects launched in 2005-06 and projects
completed in 2005-06, information which according to DFID's transparency
policy should be automatically available on Aida, the online system
onto which DFID loads all project related documents. We were however,
told that it would prohibitively expensive to compile this information,
and had our Freedom of Information request officially terminated.
Only after several follow-up requests was the information given
to us in the form of a delegated authority report on projects
over that time period which had been compiled over eight months
before we put in our initial request. This signals that there
are significant problems associated with DFID's transparency over
TA projects—which is particularly concerning given it is
an area of aid so widely hailed as ineffective and donor-driven.
— What steps is DFID taking to ensure
that information on its use of consultants and the projects that
they are working on is open and accessible to the public?
DFID's review of its technical assistance
7. All of these issues should be addressed
by the review that DFID has committed to undertaking in 2008.
The review should ensure that DFID evaluates the areas recommended
by the IDC including:
(a) To what extent DFID's TA maximises the
development of local capacity.
(b) How participatory and country-owned DFID's
TA is.
(c) What impact it has on poverty reduction.
8. DFID's last evaluation was not fully
independent. To ensure this next review is sufficiently developing
country-driven and owned, and to meet DFID's own commitments on
TA and ownership, it is absolutely essential that the review is
independent, is seen to be so, and is led by the recipients and
stakeholders involved. DFID must ensure that the review is overseen
by an independent steering group from start (TORs) to finish,
which is led by a representative of DFID TA recipients, and involves
other key stakeholders, particularly from developing countries—including
civil society organisations, with final sign-off by the steering
group.
— Will DFID commit to ensuring that
its review of its technical assistance is fully independent from
start to finish?
THE COHERENCE
OF DFID'S
POLICIES AND
PRACTICES WITH
THOSE OF
OTHER GOVERNMENT
DEPARTMENTS
9. Now that DFID has been given an expanded
remit, with trade policy shared with the Department for Business,
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, it is in a better position to
ensure that all of the Government's trade policies help efforts
to reduce poverty rather than hinder them.
— What is the division of labour
between DFID and DBERR on trade? Will the UK's trade policy be
driven by development needs or its development policy by UK trade
interests?
10. Given DFID's expanded remit on trade
it will need to better get to grips with investment and supply-chain
issues in developing countries. Efforts to increase the quantity
of foreign investment must be matched by efforts to increase its
quality. DFID needs to push for strong regulation where it is
required and punitive measures against bad practice as well as
building on existing work to promote best practice though corporate
social responsibility.
— What plans does DFID have to increase
its resources on investment and supply-chain issues?
CLIMATE CHANGE
11. DFID has recently expanded its climate
change team, in line with the 2006 White Paper, recognising that
poor countries stand to be hit first and worst by climate change.
Under the previous administration efforts by DFID to improve the
Government's mitigation policies were blocked by other departments,
notably the DTI in the face of fierce lobbying from the Confederation
of British Industry. Rather than adopting the scientifically-necessary
target of an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, the previous
Government adopted the "compromise" target 60% by 2050.
— Will DFID now use the change of
Government to push for the 80% target to be included in the Climate
Change Bill?
GENDER
12. DFID has made a decent start on re-integrating
women's rights across the work of the department with its Gender
Equality Action Plan. The Plan predominantly focuses on mainstreaming
gender equality issues throughout a wide range of DFID policy,
programmes and processes. But while the document recognises that
"more action is needed to promote women's rights and freedoms
as ends in themselves" we are yet to see the details of the
stand-alone policy and programmes on women's rights that DFID
plans to carry out.
— What plans does DFID have for
complementing gender mainstreaming with a strong stand-alone approach
to improving the lives of women and girls?
13. The implementation of the Gender Equality
Action Plan is already proving a cause for concern. While responsibility
for implementing the Plan lies at a senior level, with Mark Lowcock,
Director-General for Policy and International, recent evidence
suggests that his commitment is not shared across the Department
as a whole. For example:
(a) The draft Public Service Agreement targets
included no indicators for measuring gender equality.
(b) In the draft South Asia strategy no mention
was made of gender-based violence, even though in Asia it is estimated
that 60 million women are "missing", mainly due to sex-selective
abortions, infanticide and neglect.
(c) The draft Latin American Regional Assistance
Plan made only one reference to gender, stating that DFID will
"take a proactive approach to addressing gender and social
exclusion throughout all its work". Yet there was no further
analysis of the problem, nor an explanation of how DFID intends
to deliver this commitment or monitor progress.
— What plans does DFID have for
ensuring that commitment to implementing the Gender Equality Action
Plan is shared across the department?
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