Aid is a vital tool in the fight against global poverty. But too often, aid delivers less than it promises.

If you follow the debate over development aid, you’ve probably heard that there was a big conference last year in Korea that was meant to make aid work better. Oxfam’s new briefing paper—“Busan in a Nutshell”—is intended as your guide to what happened at that conference, the “Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.” “Busan in a Nutshell” explains what happened at Busan, and how implementers and advocates need to work together to make sure the global community delivers on its promise of more effective aid.

Since the Paris Declaration of 2005, donors, recipients, advocates, and others have been working to improve aid so it delivers better poverty fighting results. Last year, in Busan, these groups met to form the “Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation,” which sets the international standard on the principles of effective aid and good development to which all development actors should subscribe.

“Busan in a Nutshell” documents the commitments made at Busan, and recommends how to ensure aid effectiveness commitments are implemented. These principles include:

• country leadership and ownership of development strategies;
• a focus on the ‘right’ results that matter to the poor in developing countries;
• inclusive partnerships among development actors based on mutual trust and transparency and accountability to one another.

Alice collecting some of her ground nut crop, Copperbelt, Zambia (2006) Emma Walsh/Oxfam

All development stakeholders—including traditional donors and emerging providers—must respect and uphold these key principles by fulfilling the promises they made at Busan. For this to happen, the Global Partnership will need to rely on strong vision, high-level political engagement and a robust but flexible global accountability mechanism.

The US government has already begun its efforts to implement its Busan commitments. A few big changes include their efforts to increase transparency of the aid they give, put more American aid dollars through local systems, and end complicated rules that make local investment difficult. Ultimately, however, the real verdict on US efforts will come from how well citizens and leaders in developing countries think the US is supporting their efforts to develop themselves.

Check out “Busan in a Nutshell” to learn more about what is at stake for the leaders of the Global Partnership at their first meeting next week in Tokyo.

Sounds like the start of a really lame joke, right? In fact, it’s a clue to the breadth of the coalition that wants the US to invest more aid dollars directly in the success of local governments, community groups, and businesses in poor countries. Yesterday this broad coalition of activists, companies, NGOs, and think tanks wrote to USAID Administrator Raj Shah to support USAID’s efforts to put more development dollars directly in the hands of the leaders and activists who are trying to change their countries from the ground up.

Over the last several years, we’ve had the privilege to work with many of these leaders to get the US government to change the way it gives aid—to put poor people and their leaders in the driver’s seat. Some are local entrepreneurs who think aid should do a better job of helping firms in poor countries create jobs and opportunity. Some are human rights lawyers and anti-corruption whistleblowers who want the US to fund reforms in their governments to improve respect for rights and the rule of law. And some are US firms—like Nike—who know that there are huge opportunities for American businesses if we can help poor countries lead their own development.

With her successful fish farm, Kim Nay Heang is a leading entrepreneur in her village of Kampong Preh, Cambodia. USAID support for mending value chains is transforming livelihoods for villagers and providing growth opportunities for women. Omar Ortez/Oxfam America.

These leaders are all voicing their support for USAID’s Implementation Procurement Reform (IPR)—a package of reforms meant to direct more aid to where it can do the most good, strengthening citizens and governments in the fight against poverty. And by implementing the reforms at the institutional level, we can effectively fight corruption and ensure that aid reaches those who need it most.

But don’t take our word for it—take the word of the heroes who are fighting to make their countries and communities more just and less poor. USAID’s reforms make sure that US aid dollars are working best to support these brave men and women on the front lines of the fight against poverty and injustice.

Livingstone Sewanyana. Source: http://www.fhri.or.ug

My name is Livingstone Sewanyana, and I am a human rights lawyer and Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) in Kampala, Uganda. I have worked in the field of human rights for 25 years at the national and international level. I support USAID’s Implementation and Procurement Reform, and I signed this letter to send a message to the US Congress that if they also want to fight corruption and promote development, they must work more with local people, the principal actors in the development process.

I have seen that development dollars, when directed at both the civil society groups and local governments, add more value and reduce the risk of waste and abuse. More support to local civil society actors means more support for campaigns against corruption. In Uganda, civil society groups like the Coalition Against Corruption and the Uganda Debt Network, among others, have spearheaded campaigns against corruption. Citizens are monitoring electoral votes to protect democracy, and Ugandan civil society has been instrumental in shining a light on development projects where there have been failures or misuse of funds.

In one high profile case, when the Ministry of Health misallocated funds, some of which came from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, citizen groups monitoring health care delivery discovered that funds were being misused. As Ugandan citizens, they were highly motivated, watching their fellow countrymen and women die due to lack of drugs and other related services. It was precisely because of strong civil society groups that the Global Fund was aware of the corruption. It was civil society efforts that led to an audit, which uncovered massive misuse of funds. Even a sophisticated operation like the Global Fund, which has in place safeguards to reduce corruption and increase transparency, needed local partners to hold their government accountable.

But the fight against corruption isn’t just about money—it is also about education, trust building and partnership. Groups like the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative work with both civil society organizations and local governments.

On the government side, we train local leaders, judiciaries, and Members of Parliament and their staff on human rights issues and legal procedures. This is especially important because Uganda adopted a decentralization policy in 1997 with an objective of bringing services closer to the people. While local governments are closer to the people, they do not always have the knowledge, skills and motivation to achieve this objective. So the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative has for several years engaged local government in programs that enhance their human rights knowledge, skills in budgeting and policy formulation and monitoring, and help them set up committees to develop initiatives targeting women, the disabled, and youth.

On the civil society side, we work with citizens to ensure they know their rights and can speak out when they detect problems or rights being violated. In order for these anti-corruption campaigns to be successful, there must be space for people to blow the whistle while knowing that they will be protected. Having the support of strong partners and leaders like the US can go a long way in making it easier.

As a human rights activist, I support initiatives like USAID Forward where the US government works more directly both with my government—even though it is not perfect—and through local civil society groups like mine, because direct support to these groups reaps high rewards in creating a better Uganda.

Sometimes a quote says more, much more, than the person saying it intended. Today an article in POLITICO looks into how potential reforms to international food aid programs in the US farm bill could impact the shipping industry.

In defending the wasteful and inefficient practice of mandating that virtually all US food aid is grown by preferred growers and then shipped by preferred shippers from the US to countries-in-need, Clint Eisenhauer, vice president for governmental relations for Maersk, a Danish-based shipping company, said, “but if you could grow the grain in Somalia, people wouldn’t be starving.”

Well, yes. Exactly. Let’s leave aside for a second the irony of an executive of a Danish shipping company lecturing anyone on why Congress should double down on regulations supposedly set up to promote American interests. The real issue is that Eisenhauer’s quote displays a fundamental misunderstanding of why people end up struggling to find enough food in the first place. In many food emergencies, food availability is not the challenge. The challenge is that people are too poor to afford to buy it, or they are displaced by conflict or crises. There is ample food available, often very close to where the hungry people are, but because of economic, political or other shocks, many people just cannot access or afford enough of it to support their families.

But more important than those basic facts is that even in many of the countries that most often require emergency assistance, countries like Sudan, Niger, Ethiopia, and yes Somalia, there is vast, untapped potential to grow food.  Lots and lots of food that could sustainably support the livelihoods of millions of people.  Suggesting that it is impossible to grow food in these countries is not just offensive, it’s factually wrong. Transforming how aid is delivered so that more can be invested in building self-sufficiency and resilience is exactly what we should be doing with our scarce foreign aid dollars.

“His stomach lurched as he realized that tinny, tiny sound was coming from his own midriff. He could barely believe it. The recorder he had taped to his stomach, its wire lead and microphone stuck to his breastbone, had somehow switched into ‘play’ mode. The voices of the two men before him were now being relayed back, potentially exposing him as what he was: spy, sneak, mole . . . He scoured his two colleagues’ faces for signs of suspicion. If they had noticed what had happened, he could expect to be arrested that night, his office sealed, staff sent away, files seized, house raided . . .”

So begins Michela Wrong’s gripping book, It’s Our Turn to Eat, the story of John Githongo’s effort to uncover corruption inside the administration of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. The book tells the story of how Githongo risked his life and livelihood to help make his country more just and accountable to average Kenyans—and the challenge that entrenched corruption poses for development.

Caption: John Githongo participates in a policy workshop on country ownership in Washington, DC. Credit: Oxfam.

Githongo is a compelling figure and a true hero—the very type of person you would expect the United States to seek as a partner in fighting corruption and injustice in developing countries. But too often, the United States makes it hard for anti-corruption fighters to actually do their job. The problem is that Congress is still too often focused on avoiding corruption in developing countries, rather than actually working with others to do something about it. In this effort to avoid the risk of corruption, the US government has often bypassed local organizations and governments rather than working with them, missing opportunities to help local watchdogs root out corruption and strengthen democratic institutions, reducing waste, fraud, and abuse for the long-term.

Thankfully, USAID is seeking to fix this problem. A new reform called “Implementation and Procurement Reform,” or IPR, is designed to help countries deliver for their own people and help people hold their governments accountable. The agency plans to spend 30% of its funds through local actors, whether they’re local nonprofits, businesses, or governments, by 2015 (up from 11% in 2011). After assessing public financial management systems to manage for risks, USAID will boost its funding through host country systems to reach 25 country governments directly; they will cut out the middleman by hiring 576 local nonprofits directly instead of spending through contractors.

USAID officials say they are moving cautiously but deliberately to change their practices.  But Congress is still nervous; recently, several Members wrote to USAID asking for more information about these reforms. Githongo and his peers are more enthusiastic; this week, Githongo and fifteen other anti-corruption and human rights activists sent an open letter to Congress, expressing support for USAID’s reforms. They write:

“USAID is strengthening its ability to partner with us by eliminating large, inflexible contracts and by working more directly with local governments, businesses, and civil society organizations like ours. These are crucial requirements for fighting corruption and defending human rights . . . Bypassing local organizations and governments defeats the purpose of aid, which is to help countries help themselves.”

It might seem strange that anti-corruption activists would support direct funding of this sort flowing to their countries. But they support it precisely because they know that Washington can’t solve developing countries problems for them. As Githongo says:

“Ownership is ni sisi. It is up to us. It is us who own our problems. And it is us who will come up with the solutions.”

You can add your own voice to that of these anti-corruption heroes. Send a note to your Member of Congress asking them to stand with anti-corruption activists around the world.

Last November, in Busan, Korea, donors reaffirmed their past promises to make their aid more useful to people developing countries. They also agreed to measure themselves so the world could track how well they were implementing these promises. But the debate over *how* they are willing to be measured is still raging—and won’t be decided until June. At the World Bank on Friday, Oxfam will be hosting an event to talk about progress towards implementing the Busan Partnership. New research by Oxfam and others provides new data as to how important keeping score is for driving political change—as well as suggesting how to best measure the promises made at Busan.

Bureaucracies are hard to move; they seldom ever move when bureaucrats feel comfortable. So, one of the key components of forcing political change is being able to make policymakers uncomfortable enough with the status quo that they make hard changes.

One thing that gets policymakers’ attention is being compared to one another. A government that is shown to be falling behind its peers can be shamed into making changes to catch up. But that shaming requires good, comparable data that governments cannot hide from. Naturally, governments are often reluctant to endorse effective scorecards because it shines a light on their behavior.

This new research affirms that keeping score on implementation of the Paris Declaration helped push implementation of Paris principles. Signatories to Paris instituted a global monitoring framework to measure and account for how well governments were living up to their promises. A review of donor peer reviews conducted by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee indicates that the global monitoring system was a success in incentivizing policy changes in donor capitals.

The Busan Outcome Document emphasizes that the focus of work to make aid more effective should be “global-light, country heavy”; in other words, the emphasis should be on progress made at the country level. And development progress indeed happens at the country level. Nonetheless, accountability for such progress requires comparing the progress of different countries against one another. In fact, the research shows that Global Monitoring is a huge guiding factor in determining the strength of national results frameworks. To quote one partner country respondent, “The Paris framework was crucial to getting donors to agree that they should be monitored.”

Of partner countries who are successfully implementing National Monitoring Frameworks (NMFs):

Some research respondents went so far as to argue that the biggest constraint to a national framework was the lack of political commitment on the part of their donor partners. In fact, some respondents said most donors were not willing to increase their national level obligations beyond what Paris called for.

So from this evidence, what conclusions can we draw about what the Busan monitoring system look like? Here are some thoughts:

• You need globally comparable indicators to drive country level change. A key feature of the Paris monitoring framework was the ability to hold stakeholders accountable by comparing them with their peers.

• The framework needs to monitor all major Paris, Accra, and Busan commitments, in line with the Busan Partnership Declaration. Rule #1 of development strategy is, “what’s measured is meaningful.” If any particular commitment is left out of the final monitoring framework, it will inevitably be deprioritized by stakeholders.

•Civil society stakeholders should be included in the design, implementation and accountability of the global monitoring framework through a transparent and representative process. If civil society isn’t actively engaged and does not have the space to hold their government accountable, the monitoring framework won’t push those changes that poor people most need.

•The new monitoring framework must integrate cross-cutting gender equality and women’s empowerment targets in all commitments measured, as stated in the Busan Partnership Declaration. Again, without measuring against these criteria, gender issues could be neglected.

The truth is that in the villages women work very hard. At times they work for 12 to 14 hours a day. They even work on Sundays and public holidays. Women who live in the villages work harder than anybody else…

-Former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere

March 8 marks the 101st International Women’s Day (IWD). IWD is not a typical Hallmark moment in the US (though you can honor a special woman in your life with an Oxfam E-card). But in many countries, it is a national holiday. And in China, Nepal, and Madagascar, only women get the day off—which is ironic for many women living in poverty, for whom there is no such thing as a day off.

When many Americans picture a farmer, they see a man, possibly in overalls, frequently on a tractor, often in Iowa (I’ve asked a lot of audiences this question—that is what I always get in response). But the truth is that every day, holiday or not, women work hard to feed their families—and the world. In sub-Saharan African countries, women constitute 75% of the agricultural workers. Across all developing countries, the average is 43%.

Women can help set a table for 9 billion people by 2050, but they need two things: resources and rights. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, if women had access to the same resources as men, they could potentially feed 100-150 million more people. If women’s rights to land, education and other key inputs were respected, they could set a bountiful table. So if you want to honor women on IWD, the real gift is equal access to rights and resources.

On March 8, over 75 women leaders from the US and around the world will convene in Washington for Oxfam’s International Women’s Day Summit. These amazing women—leaders from the business, non-profit, political, faith, military, and philanthropic sectors—will walk the halls of Capitol Hill, urging the US government to help women access the resources and rights they need to feed the world. Oxfam will focus on two policy innovations that will help women farmers build their capacity and access markets while increasing global food security:

Support Feed the Future: President Obama’s 2013 budget includes $1.2 billion for Feed the Future, a program that invests in farmers—especially women—to improve agricultural productivity, build resilience to climate change, expand markets and trade, and increase economic resilience in vulnerable rural communities.

Reform Food Aid: As Farm Bill hearings start in DC, Oxfam is advocating to increase regional and local purchase of food aid and end give-aways to commodity and shipping interests that come at the expense of women and communities worldwide. These reforms can cut costs, save more lives, and ensure our aid helps build self-reliance and enable local farmers—inducing women—to thrive.

So this IWD, let’s forget roses and start a new tradition that gives women what they really deserve: a level playing field and the rights and resources they need to set the table not just for their families, but for the world.

Hillary Clinton is no stranger to thoughtful stagecraft. But this week, she will have to give the performance of a lifetime if she wishes to protect America’s efforts to fight poverty around the globe.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Secretary makes the ritual annual trip to Capitol Hill, to testify before key Congressional Committees about next year’s foreign affairs budget request. The Secretary has long been a champion of robust, effective global development programs. But with the economy still weak, and the deficit still big, the Secretary is going to need to make her strongest possible case if she is going to be able to avoid cuts to US diplomatic and development efforts.

The Obama administration has been forcefully arguing why our investment in fighting global poverty is so important to the United States’ core interests. The President’s FY13 budget request explicitly links foreign affairs funding to efforts to advance “the security of the American people, the prosperity and trade that creates American jobs, and support for universal values around the world.” And Congress seems to be agreeing; last year, Congress eventually voted to maintain US spending to fight global poverty.

I say “eventually” because, at the beginning of last year, some Members of Congress wanted to eliminate all international affairs spending. Some called for cuts to prove their commitment to cutting the deficit—despite the fact that, at only one percent of the budget, cutting all foreign aid wouldn’t even dent the deficit. Others wanted to cut foreign aid because they don’t think the problems of other countries are actually important to US interests. Meanwhile, those cuts would put America at risk, and pull the rug out from under the very people who are trying to fix problems like poverty, hunger, and human rights abuses that cause problems for us here at home.

It’s worth listening to the critics of development assistance in these upcoming hearings. A few key questions to Secretary Clinton, and how she answers, can help shed light on which direction the US will take over the next few years. In particular, watch for questions on:

• Long term focus: Development investment can take a long time to pay off. But Congress is eager for quick results. Will Members of Congress play “gotcha” on individual projects that didn’t pan out? Or will they try to get the Secretary to outline longer-term outcomes that they can hold the Administration accountable for?

• Passing new laws: the Obama Administration has put sweeping reforms in place over the last few years to make our development assistance work better. But few of these have been passed into law, meaning they could be easily changed before they have time to pay off. Will Secretary Clinton embrace a role for Congress in reform? Or will she try to tell Congress that legislation isn’t needed (despite ample evidence to the contrary)?

• Corruption in oil, gas & mining: corruption is always a staple argument for aid critics. Congress has passed rules to require US-based oil, gas & mining companies to disclose payments to governments, so citizens can actually follow the money their government spends. Yet companies are pushing for loopholes and exemptions to water down its impact. Will Members of Congress speak up for these rules intended to help citizens blow the whistle on corruption?

• The response to the Arab Spring: in light of the halting progress towards democracy in Egypt, some Members of Congress want to cut off all aid to Egypt. The President has proposed a different approach; rather than cutting of our nose to spite our face in Egypt, why not direct more resources towards those countries making more progress towards democracy? In other words, why not stop talking about punishing bad behavior and start trying to support—and incentivize—democratic behavior? To see how Congress feels about this, watch to see if they support or criticize the President’s proposed $770m “Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund,” and how well the Secretary is able to defend it.

The debate that happens this week around these key questions will help map out the strategic course the United States will take in the next few years—and tell us how committed our government is to investing in lasting solutions to poverty and injustice around the world.

“The neo-liberal project in Haiti has failed.”

Robert Fatton, Haitian professor and Associate Dean in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia, said these words earlier this month at a roundtable discussion marking the second anniversary of the Haiti earthquake.

You can imagine the collective intake of breath from the room full of policy experts from Oxfam, USAID, and the State Department who had gathered at a roundtable discussion to commemorate the second anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. Some were shocked. For others, it was a brutally honest assessment of what has gone wrong in Haiti.

The aptly-titled roundtable on “Aid, Governance, and the Status of Reconstruction” had stumbled onto the discussion about the role of the donor vis à vis the state. This theme is not often discussed, but understanding how the US and other international donors have bypassed the Haitian government in the past is key to understanding the choice that they now face.

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Most people probably weren’t paying attention to the Washington Post business page on Dec 25. (Myself, I was trying to corral two toddlers and navigate a sea of legos and torn paper). But for people in poor countries who are trying to lead their societies out of poverty, Christmas day brought good news: USAID is changing the way it works to get closer to the people it’s trying to help.

Since Administrator Rajiv Shah came on board, USAID has been trying to rebuild itself so it can build stronger partnerships with poor countries and their people. It’s based in the reality of good development, which is that development isn’t something done by USAID—development is done by poor people and poor countries themselves. In order to be a better partner, USAID needs to get closer to poor people to know better what they actually need and want. That means having more USAID people talking and working directly with people in poor countries.

Dy Yong keeps the books for the rice Bank Committee so that everybody can see how it run and maintained at the Rice cooperative in Takom village, Battambang. The rice store committee has many members and they introduce villagers to the principles of trading rice to give them security at a much reduced rate than the market offers. Photo by Jim Holmes/Oxfam.

This isn’t a new idea; it’s called “partnership,” and the hard-working people at USAID have been trying to do it since the agency was created 50 years ago—with varying degrees of success. The problem is that budget cuts in the 90’s gutted the agency’s ability to do this well. Budget cutters defined “efficiency” as more dollars managed by fewer people, rather than judging the depth and effectiveness of USAID’s partnerships. As a result, things deteriorated to the point where USAID contracting officers were each managing five times the amount of money that federal guidelines said they should. By necessity, USAID’s business model was reduced to “shoveling money out the door” rather than getting to know countries, communities, leaders, and their needs.

Increasingly, to manage this, USAID starting relying on “intermediaries”; often well-meaning partners like big NGOs and contractors that could manage the money for them. US-based NGOs and contractors each have distinct roles and contributions to make to development. But in this case, the way they were used was both a substitute for USAID expanding its own knowledge and expertise, as well as an impediment to change leaders in poor countries being able to tell the US government what they really needed.

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