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Aid flaws highlight need for improvement not cuts - Oxfam report

by Megan Rowling | @meganrowling | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Thursday, 20 May 2010 08:31 GMT

LONDON (AlertNet) - Overseas aid could be done better but has helped save millions of lives in the world's poorest countries, Oxfam says in a report that hits back at rising criticism of development assistance.

The paper, entitled 21st Century Aid: Recognising success and tackling failure, argues that calls for foreign aid to be reduced or cut entirely are dangerous, while acknowledging that some of the money is misspent.

Waste in aid is a reason to work on improving the ways it is provided so it becomes more effective in tackling poverty, not to eliminate it, Oxfam says.

The UK-based international agency's report outlines how aid has contributed to economic growth in poor countries by getting 33 million more children into school, boosting access to HIV drugs tenfold, funding tens of millions of anti-malaria bed nets, and building up health services.

"Thoughtful criticism continues to play a vital part in improving aid and addressing its weaknesses but too many of the recent attacks have been ill-informed, ideological and ultimately irresponsible," Oxfam campaigns and policy director Phil Bloomer said in a statement.

The charity is concerned that huge budget deficits could tempt governments to use the negative views as cover for not delivering promised aid increases.

A spokesman told AlertNet the agency is not responding to any particular incident but said criticism has been rising in recent years, leading to a polarised debate.

The report lists the arguments of well-known critics of aid, including Oxford University professor Paul Collier, New York University economist William Easterly and Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo.

Moyo made a splash last year with her book Dead Aid, asserting Africa not only has little to show for more than $1 trillion in aid over the past 50 years, but is worse off because it has distorted economies and encouraged bureaucracy and corruption.

Oxfam's report is an attempt to engage with people who have "reasonable concerns" about the impact of overseas assistance, and to counter the alienating effect of cases where it has clearly gone wrong, the spokesman said.

It also comes at a time when the largest party in Britain's new coalition government - the Conservatives - is likely to start pushing for greater evidence of results from international development spending.

"Pulling the plug on aid now, or even in five or ten years' time, would almost certainly result in vast increases in poverty, the collapse of burgeoning health and education systems, and major reverses in the progress that has been made," the report warns.

Bloomer said ordinary people rely on the services provided by aid, and should not have to pay the price for corruption "in the corridors of power".

"We need a grown-up debate that recognises the many successes of aid as well as the isolated and high-profile failures," he said.

NEED FOR REFORM

The report cites Mozambique as one example of a country where aid has achieved positive outcomes. Twenty years ago, it was the world's poorest nation, but it now has an anti-poverty plan, and has boosted health spending by more than half, cutting the number of children who die before age five by nearly a fifth in the past decade.

Nonetheless, the paper also sets out the need to reform the aid system and reduce dependency on donor largesse.

"Aid that does not work to alleviate poverty and inequality - aid that is driven by geopolitical interests, which is too often squandered on expensive consultants or which spawns parallel government structures accountable to donors and not citizens - is unlikely to succeed," it says.

The global economic crisis - which the World Bank predicts will tip 64 million more people into extreme poverty by the end of this year - has made the need for good-quality aid more pressing than ever, alongside increasing vulnerability to climate change, according to Oxfam.

The charity says aid "fit for the 21st Century" must not be driven by the political incentives of rich countries, nor used to support their economic interests by stipulating it is spent on goods and services from the donor country.

Instead it should be focused on meeting targets to ease poverty and spur economic growth in recipient states. And more should be given through national budgets in a transparent and predictable way.

Developing-country governments, in turn, should clamp down on corruption, uphold human rights, and use the money to support small-scale farmers - particularly women - and build essential infrastructure and public services.

Some aid should also be used to strengthen citizens' ability to hold their governments to account and take part in spending and policy decisions that affect their lives.

For example, an Oxfam research project in Georgia helped local activists show how the country's social protection system excluded thousands of the poorest unemployed, pushing the government to extend the assistance to 34,000 more families.

"In recent years we have seen more of this good 21st Century aid but we need to see a lot more still, and soon," the report notes. "This is aid that will work itself out of a job."

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