Transparency and Advocacy are the key levers for aid effectiveness

Advocacy and Transparency as Levers for Aid Effectiveness There is a lot of hype at the moment to promote Rigorous Impact Evaluations in order to improve aid effectiveness. One line of argumentation goes that there is a lack of knowledge and rigorous impact evaluations will provide valuable knowledge about what works and what doesn't. The other line of argumentation is that more rigorous impact evaluation will provide transparency as to who is doing good work and who isn't. This will increase the control of tax payers and donor governments and weed out ineffective aid. Both lines of argumentation are not very convincing. As I argue in my recent opinion piece on aid transparency at the Atlantic Community neither more knowledge nor more control will do the job. Studies on evaluation and decision making show that stakeholders within the aid system are often very apt at using evaluations, including rigorous impact evaluations to market their work, not to allow critical assessments. Positive evaluations are highlighted, negative evaluations are easily forgotten. What is needed in development cooperation is a change of incentives and public pressure. Read more ...