Assessing the Impact of Foreign Aid

Value for Money and Aid for Trade

1st Edition - November 10, 2015

Editors: Viktor Jakupec, Max Kelly

Paperback ISBN:

9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 0 3 6 6 0 - 0

eBook ISBN:

9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 0 3 6 7 1 - 6

Assessing the Impact of Foreign Aid: Value for Money and Aid for Trade provides updated information on how to improve foreign aid programs, exploring the concept and practice of… Read more

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Assessing the Impact of Foreign Aid: Value for Money and Aid for Trade

provides updated information on how to improve foreign aid programs, exploring the concept and practice of impact assessment within the sometimes-unproblematic approaches advocated in current literature of value for money and aid for trade.

Contributors from multi-lateral agencies and NGOs discuss the changing patterns of Official Development Assistance and their effects on impact assessment, providing theoretical, political, structural, methodological, and practical frameworks, discussions, and a theory-practice nexus.

With twin foci of economics and policy this book raises the potential for making sophisticated and coherent decisions on aid allocation to developing countries.

List of Contributors
Author Biographies
Preface
Chapter 1: Official development assistance and impact assessment – theoretical and practical frameworks
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Aid, ODA, and resource flows to the developing world
- Background to foreign aid
- Contemporary debates, aid effectiveness, value for money, and aid for trade
- Aid, development, results, and impact
- Conclusion
Chapter 2: Conceptualizing impact assessment in foreign aid
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Results and impact
- The evolution of impact assessment
- Impact assessment in theory and practice
- Conclusion
Chapter 3: Competing development paradigms and alternative evaluations of aid effectiveness: challenging the dominant neoliberal vision
- Abstract
- Introduction
- A political economy background
- The quest for modernization: the neoclassical foundations
- Dissenting voices from the south: the challenge of the dependency theory
- Basic needs
- The rise of neoliberalism: globalization and development theory
- The global financial crisis and emerging challenges to neoliberalism
- Concluding thoughts: toward a new development paradigm and a new role for aid
Chapter 4: Aid for trade: a critical analysis
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Unpacking “aid for trade” within a context of ODA
- The increased quest for accountability
- AfT from theoretical underpinnings to conceptualization
- A critique of AfT
- Toward a paradigm shift in AfT
- Paradigm shift: AfT as a subset of VfM
- Around and around; back to assessing impact and aid for trade
- Conclusion
Chapter 5: The rhetoric and reality of results and impact assessment in donor agencies: a practitioners’ perspective
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Understanding the “results culture”
- The push for impact assessment
- Results reporting and impact assessment in a contested, dynamic, and political environment
- Looking forward
- Conclusion
Chapter 6: Beyond aid distribution: aid effectiveness, neoliberal and neostructural reforms in pacific island countries
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Overview of development aid
- Economic reforms in pics: key issues
- The limitations of economic reforms
- Conclusion
Chapter 7: Regulatory impact assessment: the forgotten agenda in ODA
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Defining RIA
- A critical analysis of MDB’s contemporary approaches to RIA
- The neoliberal agenda
- Inference: the policy cycle and the project cycle
- Applying RIA for ODA projects and programs
- Problematics of ex-ante RIA
- Conclusion: a case in favor of RIA in ODA
Chapter 8: Can we assess the overall impact of development agencies? The example of corporate results frameworks in multilateral development banks
- Abstract
- Setting the stage: pressing for results
- What are corporate results frameworks?
- How are corporate results frameworks used in practice?
- Defining limitations
- New avenues for new realities
- Conclusions
Chapter 9: Assessing the impact of knowledge on development partners
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Donor initiated evaluation research
- Case study 1: accelerating the flow of scientific knowledge in Indonesia
- Case study 2: institutional capacity building in the Maldives
- Case study 3: choosing funding modalities for project integrity in Pakistan
- Case study 4: computer-assisted instruction in Sri Lankan schools
- Summary and conclusion
Chapter 10: From evidence to action: stakeholder coordination as a determinant of evaluation use
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Background
- Determinants of evaluation use
- Evaluation stakeholders
- Points of coordination
- Conclusion
Chapter 11: Inside the black box: modeling the inner workings of social development programs
- Abstract
- Introduction
- The intellectual roots and grounding of meta-modeling
- The five steps of meta-modeling
- The application of meta-modeling
- Final thoughts on meta-modeling
Chapter 12: Impact assessment and official development assistance: ethnographic research of the World Bank’s community-based rural development projects in Ghana
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Applied ethnography
- The four dimensional ethnographic impact assessment framework
- The World Bank’s CBRDP in Ghana: summary of ethnographic research findings
- Discussion
- Conclusion
Chapter 13: Finding balance: Improving monitoring to improve impact assessments of development programmes
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Part 1 – key definitions and concepts
- Part 2 – the rise of impact assessment
- Part 3 – the status of monitoring and its future
- Part 4 – emerging approaches to improve monitoring
- Conclusion
Chapter 14: Impact assessment in practice: case studies from save the children programs in Lao PDR and Afghanistan
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Save the Children Australia
- Primary health care program, Sayaboury and Luang Prabang provinces, Lao PDR
- Children of Uruzgan Program, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan
- Challenges associated with impact assessment
- Conclusion
Chapter 15: The nongovernmental development sector and impact assessment
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Contemporary debates in impact assessment
- Impact assessment methods and tools
- Challenges of impact assessment and the way forward
Chapter 16: Impact assessment: from theory to practice
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Development theory and global economic paradigms
- The elephant in the room…politics and foreign policy
- Complexity
- Impact…
- Conclusion
Index

Viktor Jakupec

Viktor Jakupec is Honorary Professor of Education at Deakin University. He also holds a professorship at Potsdam University, Germany. He held academic positions at University of Technology, Sydney, University of South Australia, Queensland University of Technology and Deakin University. His research over the last 3 years has focused on Impact Assessment within a context of Official Development Assistance and Political Economy Analysis for Official Development Assistance projects and programmes.

He worked as an international consultant for World Bank, Asian Development Bank, International Financial Corporation, Millennium Challenge Corporation and AusAID funded projects in Bangladesh, PR China, Georgia, Jordan, Kyrgyz Republic, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. Viktor Jakupec has produced a range of ODA project design and project implementation reports, strategic plans. He has advised on implementation of IA and has undertaken IA and other associated evaluations within the education and social sectors in developing countries.

Prof. Jakupec is: Member, Leibniz-Sozietät der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Academy of Sciences); Member, International Society for Development and Sustainability; Member, Arbeitskreis für Internationale Politische Ökonomie.

Affiliations and expertise

Deakin University, Warrnambool, Australia

Max Kelly

Max Kelly is Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development Studies at Deakin University, Australia. Dr. Kelly’s areas of expertise include development policy and practice, with particular emphasis on, social development, livelihoods, food security, agriculture, community participation and community engagement, gender, and natural resource management. She previously worked at RMIT University, Melbourne. Her recent research focuses on Impact Assessment in development policy and practice, Political Economy Analysis of ODA, civil society in post conflict settings, and Organizational and social networks in post conflict settings. She has experience in Malawi, Uganda, Timor Leste, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.

Affiliations and expertise

Deakin University, Warrnambool, Australia