By E. Gyimah-Boadi, Executive Director, Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD)
OECD donor countries channel about US$ 5 billion – some 5% of their aid – directly to the budgets of developing country governments. The OECD in their report - "An Evaluation of General Budget Support (1994-2004)", showed that this system of delivering aid was an effective way to strengthen the management of public financial systems in developing countries, and also helped to improve access to services like healthcare and education.
Recently, an evaluation of Multi Donor Budget Support (MDBS)to Ghana was carried out jointly by the Overseas Development Institute in London and the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD) in Accra. The main findings are presented in an ODI briefing paper. Professor Gyimah-Boadi, the Executive Director of CDD and a prominent member of the MDBS Evaluation team tells the Forum on the Future of Aid (FFA) what he thinks of MDBS in Ghana...
"I like the concept of MDBS. I support it in principle because it aims to provide much needed resources for a democratically elected government to fulfil pledges and promises made in its election campaign and which constitute part of its mandate. Moreover, MDBS has the potential to stimulate domestic accountability processes - as more resources are channelled through the budgetary process.
Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that Ghana’s MDBS has helped to reduce domestic debt stock and contributed to increased public spending in poverty-reducing sectors such as education and health. MDBS has helped to orient the “Christian democratic†NPP administration towards poverty reduction and somewhat away from its initial focus on “wealth creation.†In addition, participation of non state actors and of civil society and independent research and advocacy organizations in the budget process has begun to grow over the period of MDBS.
However, I remain concerned about other aspects of the MDBS. It is irresponsible for donors to write a cheque to a government and then look the other way. There is substantial risk that rather than empower, MDBS resources would be abused by government. This imposes a difficult-to-enforce obligation on donors to ensure that recipient governments are not only democratically elected but that that there are adequate mechanisms for domestic civil society to hold government accountable.
In the absence of official transparency and effective domestic accountability mechanisms (which remain the case in Ghana today), MDBS resources are subject to capture by personal and private networks in control of the state and resources may be allocated in partisan ways to kin/ethnic groups and cronies. Despite credible elections and given the weak involvement of parliament in the budgetary process, there is a real risk that MDBS resources would be diverted principally to serve the interests of NPP administration and the individuals that control the executive arm of the government."
Please send your response to this opinion to coordinator@futureofaid.net or click on 'add new comment' below
Other relevant resources
Evaluation of General Budget Support.
OECD DAC Network on Development Evaluation.
A review of Multi Donor Budget Support
ISODEC, Ghana
How MDBS works in Ghana
DFID
Multi-Donor Budget Support and Capacity Development: Emerging Lessons from Ghana
DFID
Multi Donor Direct Budget Support in Ghana. The implications for Aid Delivery and Aid effectiveness
Centre for Policy Analysis, Ghana
The GPRS and Multi Donor Budget Support (MDBS): Strengthening the Links of Accountability – the Role of Parliament
World Bank
The GPRS and Multi Donor Budget Support (MDBS): Strengthening the Links of Accountability – the Role of the Media
World Bank
From earmarked sector support to general budget support: development partners experience - Analysis of Norwegian donor budget support
Norad
General budget support evaluation study phase 1: final synthesis report Projects to programmes: does budget support improve the quality of governance in developing country contexts?
DFID
Effects of budget support: a discussion of early evidence: Review of General Budget Support programmes
SIDA
Does general budget support work? Evidence from Tanzania"
ODI
Money can’t buy you love: Partnership prospects for donor budget support
EURODAD
Further GBS related resources on the Gerster Consulting homepage
Source: AfriMap
AfriMAP has launched a report on the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) self-assessment process in Ghana. The report outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the Ghana process, and makes recommendations both for Ghana's implementation of the APRM programme of action going forward, and for similar processes in the continent.
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Source: Ghana Civil Society
Participants at a forum on the "Grand Debate" on the formation of a United States of Africa in Tamale on Thursday advocated for the formation of a United States of Africa now. They contented that since the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in the early 60s, the African continent had continued to face a lot of challenges, politically, economically and militarily and were therefore of the opinion that only a continental government would be able to salvage Africa from its misery.
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Source: Ghana Civil Society
This is the first edition of the Civil Society News, a publication of the Civil Society Resource Centre, of UNDP Ghana. The newsletter is intended to be a source of information about civil society activities in Ghana, particularly, those activities that enhance the growth of the sector and assist the nation achieve its development targets as contained in the MDGs and the GPRS. It will capture challenges faced by CSOs and good practices in the delivery of service by CSOs in the country. We would like to make Civil Society News a great resource for every practitioner, donor, researcher and student in the civil society sector in Ghana. This issue includes:
Civil Society Resource Centre (CSRC)
UNCT Ghana CSO Advisory Committee
CSO Profile: Advocates and Trainers for Women’s Welfare
Advancement and Rights (ARWWAR)
Identified Weaknesses of Ghanaian CSOs
Civil Society in a free Ghana
Regional Consultative Meeting
Click on the attachment below to view the newsletter
Source: Ghana Civil Society
The second edition of Civil Society News presents to readers interesting articles on the current climatic changes globally and an article on the preferred alternative to conflict resolution among others. Inside this issue:
Aid is only effective when it fosters development
Mediation: The Preferred Alternative for Conflict Resolution
Economics of tackling Climate Change
Q & A: NEPAD
Ghana Civil Society proposes elected African Parliament
CSO Centre represented at the CIVICUS 2007 World Assembly
Click on the attachment below to view the newsletter
Source: AllAfrica.com
Speaking on 11 and 12 June 2007 at the British University city of Oxford at a conference on “New Directions in Development Assistance’, Mozambique’s former president, Joaquim Chissano, admitted that the foreign aid granted to Mozambique when he was in power “came with the imposition of prescriptions and the questioning of the predominant development paradigmâ€. Freed from the constraints of office, Chissano could now give his real opinion of the aid industry - and it is largely in line with what critics of the IMF, the World Bank and bilateral donors have been saying for many years.
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Source: Bank Information Center
The purpose of this Primer is to provide basic information about: 1) how the African Development Bank (AfDB) works and what its priorities are; 2) who controls its activities; 3)why it might be worth the attention of African civil society organizations; and 4) what people can do to learn more about and change AfDB projects and policies that concern them. Difficult or key words are bolded throughout the text and defined in the glossary at the end of the
Primer.
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Source: AFRODAD
In Tanzania as is the case in many other developing countries much of the impetus for privatization came from creditor institutions, above all the IMF and the World Bank, as part of their push for structural adjustment. This is, however, not to say that privatization was or has been completely based on external influence alone. There is ample evidence which show that most parastatals were seriously underperforming and were becoming too much of a burden to the government in terms of financial assistance.
Thus, in some areas privatization has produced good results in terms of improved performance, increased tax revenues, employment, efficiency and competition. This is articularly in reference to some few industries like TBL and TCC. However, in some other sectors particularly the infrastructural utilities privatization has produced poor results with little or no improvement in the quantity and quality of the services such as electrical and water supply. A Case Study 23 The prices of these services have risen so much to the extent of making the services not accessible and unaffordable by many people particularly the poor population.
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Source: AFRODAD
This research undertakes a comprehensive analysis of Nigeria's stolen wealth and foreign loans conundrum within the current global context. In essence, the work establishes a critical linkage between the two variables-stolen wealth and foreign loans-on the one hand. It sets out to show that the inflow of foreign loans generated a pool of funds from which thieving Nigerian leaders and their elitist collaborators created stolen wealth, most of which were then stashed abroad in banks located in the West. At the end of the day, therefore, these loans later became unsustainable debts since they didn't
deliver their target projects in Nigeria.
On the other hand, the research points out that the IFIs and sovereign governments of the West contributed to the scourge A Case Study 45 of stolen wealth and foreign debt in Nigeria. Firstly, for instance, this is so because they provided a safe haven for the nation's stolen wealth in fragrant violation of their own laid-down banking and anti-money laundering laws. Secondly, the IFIs and the West are implicated in Nigeria's debt crisis because they consciously gave loans to incompetent and corrupt regimes in Nigeria even when they also realized that Nigeria's projected export earnings could not sustain the repayment of the loans they were giving.
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Source: AFRODAD
The question of the legitimacy of the loans that came with SAP has already been competently answered by AFRODAD 2005 report (Illegitimate Debts - The Case of Malawi). The report found that:
"Most of the official foreign debt of Malawi was incurred when the country was under the despotic rule of Banda. Creditors gave loans to prop up this oppressive regime and not to serve the interests of the people. In other words, this debt is odious.
The loans from the IMF were not sanctioned by the nation through Parliament. Creditors continue to give loans to Malawi when they know fully well that the new regime is blatantly corrupt and wasteful in the use of resources. Again, most of the loans from the IMF are not sanctioned by Parliament."
This study has attempted to add more information to substantiate the illegitimacy of debt. The approach was to look at the citizen's human rights violation and their denial of social services. It has been noted in the paper that poverty itself is a violation of human rights. Furthermore it causes vulnerability to a denial of a wide range of other human rights. Malawi's case is one where poverty has worsened over the years, especially after the economic reform programs ewere introduced.
By examining liberalization in agriculture sector, the health and education sectors, the statistics give clear evidence that the conditions that came with the reform programs have made Malawian citizens became worse off, hence should not be repeated.
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