This is a cross-post from the Gates Foundation’s Impatient Optimists blog.

Aid does not cause development; people do.  I’m talking about the local leaders who can access and actually use that aid effectively towards development outcomes.  Oxfam is hearing that local leaders are starting to give the US government better marks for how the US invests its aid.

These local leaders are not telling us that the US government has fixed all its problems.  And they still have many criticisms of the US approach.  But they are observing positive changes in how the US government seeks to engage them and support local priorities.

For too long the aid that the US government provided was not a useful tool for local leaders.  Too often it actually undermined what they were trying to accomplish.  But over the past few years, as the United States has confronted the limitations of this approach, a number of US policymakers and political leaders have increasingly tried to reorient US development policies and programs to make them more responsive to and useful to local partners.

But have changes in US government development policies in Washington changed practice on the ground?

The beginning of the current reform trend can perhaps be dated to the establishment of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, but since then, it has gained momentum.  The US government now has a range of policies designed to support and leverage the leadership of local partners, such as:

• Millennium Challenge Corporation – investing in locally-defined priorities and rewarding good governance;
• Feed the Future – Increasing support for and investments in national agriculture plans, and engaging smallholders in an effort to boost their success;
• Country Development Cooperation Strategies (CDCS)  – restoring investment choices to the country level, and doing it via a deliberate process that begins with country priorities;
• Implementation and Procurement Reform (now called local solutions) – actually making direct investments in local leadership.

Oxfam has applauded these policy approaches along the way.  They are not all directly related or comparable, but they all have the same DNA; they are built around the priorities and agency of local leaders.

But we wanted to know:  Have changes in US government development policies in Washington changed practice on the ground?  Do local leaders see a change?  And do they like the changes they see?  So we conducted extensive field interviews with citizens, civil society representatives, business people and public officials in Bangladesh, Ghana, Malawi, Peru, the Philippines, Rwanda, and Senegal to find out.

The overwhelming response we heard?  YES: 83% of the local leaders we surveyed saw a significant, positive change in the US approach over the previous few years.

This is not to say that local leaders are completely happy with the behavior and practices of the US government.  In fact, we often heard continued frustrations about difficulties working with the US government, as well as demands for the US government to continue to improve partnerships.

Oxfam spoke to a narrow number of people in a group of countries where US reforms are most advanced.  Thus it would be wrong to generalize too broadly about how what we heard might apply in other cases and contexts and it is much too early to draw conclusions about the developmental impact of most of these still short-lived reforms.

But, what we can say is that we are getting early positive feedback on how local partners are observing changes in US approaches.  Those we interviewed overwhelmingly observe increased US alignment with partner country priorities, more stakeholder engagement, and ultimately, more opportunities for local leaders to build partnerships with the US government that they didn’t have before.

In particular, the US government has a lot more work to do to close the feedback loop with local actors.  While three out of four of the people we surveyed told us they were having more and improved communication with US government development personnel, two thirds still felt they lacked influence over US government decisions regarding development in their country.  This information can help inform how these steps in the right direction are taken forward and strengthened.

The fight now is not only to ensure that these reforms prevail politically in Washington, but also to help improve their implementation and accelerate their progress, in order to restore the United States’ historic role as a global development leader.

These US government reforms to support local ownership have been hard to implement, both politically and practically.  But Oxfam believes this remains the most direct path to supporting local leadership over the development agenda.  One civil society leader in Bangladesh framed the ownership challenge thusly:

“If you have a direct road or a diverted road, which way do you go?  You go the direct road.”

You can read the survey findings and Oxfam’s recommendations by clicking here. 

ren·ais·sance  (REN-nay-sahnce and Re-NAY-Sahnce)

(noun)

a. A revival or rebirth of intellectual or artistic achievement and vigor.

b. The period of such a revival.

A couple of years ago, a number of new initiatives and reforms were introduced to change the model of how parts of the US government provide poverty-reducing aid to developing countries.

These reforms—the four Oxfam examined included Implementation and Procurement Reform (now called Local Solutions), Feed the Future, Country Development and Cooperation Strategies, the Millennium Challenge Corporation—all bring attention to country ownership of aid.

Photo: Rajendra Shaw / Oxfam

Ownership is the idea that countries, governments, and citizens,—not donors like the US—are the lead actors in development around the world.

So with these reforms in place, Oxfam set out to talk to people living and working in seven developing countries, leaders in recipient governments and civil society, to find out how they think the US is doing as a donor.

Oxfam surveyed 148 non-US government officials of the total 257 people who participated in in-depth interviews. The survey was not intended to be a statistically significant sample of development stakeholders; rather, Oxfam intended to capture a quick, but broad snapshot of how officials who are familiar with US foreign assistance witness changes in US practice.

Oxfam today will share that local development leaders are noticing—and valuing the change. Of the people Oxfam interviewed and surveyed last year, 83% said they see that the US government is a better donor than they were four to five years ago.

Those interviewed observe increased alignment with country priorities, more stakeholder engagement, and ultimately, more opportunities for local leaders to build partnerships with the US government that they didn’t have before.

Photo: Rebecca Blackwell / Oxfam America

Oxfam found that US reforms are helping the US government’s ability to work with partners in two important dimensions: 

The Power to Decide—Changes to US policy and practice are helping the US government to invest more aid in the things citizens and governments say they need and want.

Photo: Patrick Brown / Oxfam America

The Power to Execute—New policies allow the US to partner with local institutions in ways that strengthen them, support domestic accountability, and ultimately help citizens find long-term solutions that do not require US assistance.

Photo: Patrick Brown / Oxfam America

The policy changes have aroused opposition in Washington DC among those interests that want to protect the status quo. So now is the time for the US government to accelerate and deepen these reforms if it hopes to meet the expectations of people in developing countries.

Despite the promise of increasing the impact of US assistance through country and local ownership, respondents remain unsure of the future direction of US policy reforms.

Respondents in Oxfam’s interviews overwhelmingly wanted to know…

Will the US government continue down the same path? 

Read the report summary and Oxfam’s recommendations here. 

Tariq Sayed Ahmad is a Researcher with the Aid Effectiveness Team at Oxfam America.

On Wednesday Raj Shah will release USAID’s internal progress report on its “USAID Forward” reform agenda. The report will provide a wealth of aggregate numbers that fill out the broad picture of the changes that have been brewing at USAID over the last half decade.

Here’s one such story of why this matters.

Photo: Alexis Huaccho Magro / Oxfam America

Manuel Dominguez, mayor of Alao in the San Martín region of northern Peru, had been trying for years to access funds from the Peruvian government to deal with the increasing piles of trash in his growing city. While Dominguez was fully committed to using his limited city budget as best as he could to tackle the problem, it was not until USAID began investing in the Ministry of Environment, that Dominguez and his staff succeeded in obtaining significant funds from the national government, working with the Ministry of Economy and Finance. (You can learn more about Dominguez’ story here.)

In Peru, Oxfam America’s own forthcoming research shows that US reforms are enabling USAID staff to find ways to work with those leaders who are doing the right thing, and to enable regional governments like the government of San Martín to respond to local needs.  In 2011 USAID got the chance to use its new risk assessment tool, the Public Financial Management Risk Assessment Framework (PFMRAF) with regional government officials.  As a result, USAID was able to understand and weigh the strengths and weaknesses of San Martin’s systems, and they “did not identify any insurmountable risks that prevent USAID/Peru from moving ahead in utilizing the financial and procurement systems of the regional government.”^[1] The regional government then took the initiative to manage USAID programs directly, enabling the US to provide more funds through Peruvian country systems to help leaders like Mayor Dominguez respond to the needs of his people.

Of course working through country systems can be tricky. Partner governments are not monolithic entities. Rather, they are a mish-mash of institutions, bureaucracies, with a varied array of talent, accountability, and professionalism.  As more capacity assessments have been undertaken under IPR however, USAID is seeing that many local institutions are very effective, and provide great investment opportunities for the US.

“What the USAID partnership allowed us to do was to bring together all these different needs, actors, and resources at national, regional and local levels, which already existed in Peru, to solve a shared problem,” says Rosa Salas, director of the project at the Peruvian Ministry of Environment, who joined forces with Magda Ushiñahua, a counterpart at the Peruvian Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Municipalities like San Martín Alao had been neglected before the decentralization process began and deepened in Peru, giving local civic leaders a greater opportunity to unlock domestic resources to protect the health and well-being of their citizens and the surrounding Amazon. The relationship between USAID and the Ministries is helping mobilize domestic resources in addition to US funds. Peruvian taxpayer money has now been allocated for 127 municipalities to participate, benefitting an expected 5.65 million people.

The success of the USAID’s work in Peru is not that USAID delivered benefits, but that the agency helped Peruvians utilize their own resources.  In 2010, USAID initiated USAID Forward, a series of seven policy reforms intended to change the way USAID does business, including Implementation and Procurement Reform (IPR) and Country Development and Cooperation Strategies (CDCS). USAID Forward changes internal rules and regulations to better utilize country systems to enable local ownership of aid, something for which Oxfam America has long advocated.  These reforms built on previous efforts to rebuild USAID’s staff numbers, to make sure the agency has the professional staff they need to make local investment work.

We’re keen to see what USAID’s report has found. Our research is finding that USAID Forward is identifying local partners where US foreign assistance can be used effectively and allowing the US to look in places they haven’t looked before.

Manuel Dominguez, for one, couldn’t be happier. He says,

“My people and I can stop pollution in our district. We just needed a partner. We know how to get it done.”

Photo: Alexis Huaccho Magro / Oxfam America

“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.