ABSTRACT
Many donors rank poverty reduction as one of their major aims. For some, it is the most fundamental. If these aims are to be put to work, then it is necessary for poverty to be ‘mainstreamed’. Procedures, evaluations, strategies and management must all be shaped to serve the goal of poverty reduction. Measuring progress towards the objective both in terms of inputs and impact is a critical part of achieving the objective. Through evaluation, much needed lessons can be learned on how to apply the poverty reduction objective most effectively and efficiently. Through measurement of inputs, donors can be held accountable for the degree to which their aid spending is following their stated priorities. Here, The Reality of Aid documents some recent progress in the measurement and mainstreaming of poverty reduction. DAC donors' efforts to measure and mainstream poverty reduction https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">
Progress towards improved measurement and evaluation of aid to poverty reduction
Progress towards mainstreaming poverty eradication as the overall goal of aid
Australia
In 1995 a new Activity Management System was introduced into AusAID, enabling more reporting by sector and cross-cutting issue. Markers relating to WID, environment, commercial benefit, population, health impact and human rights are included. Targeting specific percentages at poverty reduction was resisted by the previous government as inflexible and unresponsive to individual country needs. The objective stated to Parliament was to have a combination of projects which alleviated poverty directly (short term) and indirectly (long term). However, there are no special steps being taken to assess the impact of all aid on poverty.
The previous government made no reference to poverty reduction as a primary role or function of the aid programme in the May 1995 budget statements. Poverty was mainstreamed to the extent that the former Minster said, ‘By tackling poverty, good governance, promoting peace building and addressing health and environment issues, the aid programmeme enhances our own national security and economic interests…an act of altruism is also a fundamental matter of self interest.’ The incoming government has, however, made clear that it intends to specifically increase the proportion of aid allocated to humanitarian and poverty reduction purposes, with an increased focus on community health, education of women and girls, rural development and agriculture and housing. It is too early yet to assess the implementation of these measures.
Austria
Sectoral policy is the instrument used by the Austrian government to indicate how development policy principles, such as the concentration on the fight against poverty, should be implemented in the context of particular sectors. The three-year programme talks about defining standards for programme and project development.
Austria’s three-year programme for 1996 – 1998 states as its basic objective the promotion of viable economic growth that reduces poverty in a direct way and, amongst other things, meets the basic needs of growing populations. It promotes the development of poor majorities and stresses the role of education and training.
Belgium
No official estimates are made of the amount of aid spent on poverty reduction. The question of assessing the impact on poverty is not raised explicitly. Lack of capacity on assessment and evaluation is under discussion.
The new Minister has shown increased interest in social and poverty issues and announced that more attention will be paid to sustainable social improvement. Basic needs sectors – described as food security, health, education, transport and communication – will be prioritized.
Canada
CIDA is working on a more sophisticated systematic coding of its programmes which will enable performance to be measured against targets of spending on basic human needs. Overall, there is to be a standard methodology for accounting for expenditure against policy objectives. CIDA will use a three-fold classification for addressing poverty: targeted poverty programmes (working directly with the poor); poverty focused programmes (benefitting the poor disproportionately); and policy interventions (whose impact is crucial to poverty reduction).
The 1995 Foreign Policy Statement stated that the mandate for ODA was ‘to support sustainable development in order to reduce poverty…’. A Policy on Poverty Reduction was published in June 1995 and provides a framework for poverty reduction in each of the programming areas. Poverty profiles and reduction strategies will be integrated into country and regional policy frameworks. All programming will be consistent with the goal of poverty reduction and all non-poverty programming will be assessed for its impact on the poor. Guidelines are being established for implementation.
Denmark
Danida has perceived a need for better documentation of the ‘poverty reach and the poverty-reducing impact of various types of intervention and assistance strategies’. To this end it has embarked on a major process of evaluation of poverty impact of Danish development assistance which will assess, amongst other things, the extent to which Danida’s development assistance has had measurable effects and impacts on poverty. 1995 saw the publication of the first in a series of three evaluations of poverty impact. In 1996 reports on the poverty alleviation impact of aid to Uganda and Zimbabwe will be published along with a more general report on making the poverty-perspective operational. Danida hosted a seminar in July 1995 on Methods of Evaluation of Poverty Oriented Aid Interventions.
Combating poverty forms the fundamental principle of Danish aid and has been underlined in the Danish Strategy for Development in 1994. Attempts are being made to concretize the fight against poverty on all levels, for instance in connection with the preparation of country strategies and in the implementation and evaluation of projects and programmes. Danida will report to Parliament in 1996 on the methods for operationalizing the poverty strategy.
Finland
In 1995, the evaluation of Finnish aid to Tanzania and an evaluation of Finnish bilateral aid between 1988 and 1995 drew out key points on poverty alleviation in practice. Sectoral analysis is being seen, increasingly, as an unreliable way of analysing aid spending since it is too easy to classify projects under a number of different headings. Following the wishes of Parliament, evaluation and internal auditing have been given their own budget line, making these activities more visible
The aim of reducing poverty is given in the March 1995 Government Programme Declaration (along with combating global environmental threats and promoting equality, democracy and human rights). The willingness to strengthen the poverty focus is there but existing commitments prevent a large scale shift of emphasis. It has been recommended in a Green Paper that Finland should prepare poverty profiles, do research on poverty and income distribution, and target limited resources on basic health and basic education.
France
There is no precise figure available on the incidence of French aid on poverty. A lot of official reports in recent years have pointed out the lack of a global evaluation of French cooperation policy. Evaluation reports are beginning the study the incidence of aid which addresses basic needs and the implications of population growth policies.
The general objective of French aid – to reduce poverty and help development – has never been pure and is mixed with other preoccupations, The Prime Minister declared in June 1995 that he intended, among other things, to make French cooperation more coherent and to prioritize social development.
Germany
The definitions of ‘self help oriented poverty reduction’ and ‘basic needs’ – the means by which German spending on poverty oriented areas is assessed – have been put into the public domain for the first time. There is a lack of specific criteria for the targeting of, and participation in, the poverty programme but a major study on criteria for self help oriented poverty reduction has been commissioned by the government to address these issues.
Poverty reduction is a key objective, together with education and the protection of natural resources. The feminization of poverty is a key issue for analysis.
Ireland
The Department of Foreign Affairs is working on measuring aid to poverty reduction and on the classification of projects. They hope that amendments to their accounting system will mean they can provide better information in future.
Poverty and basic needs are prioritized in the Irish aid strategy plan. Major country programme reviews will address the degree of attention to basic needs.
Italy
To make the Italian ODA system more efficient and transparent, Italy is now implementing a ‘Project Cycle’ approach; ex-ante appraisal, ongoing supervision and ex-post evaluation phases for its work in general. It has also established technical evaluation unit in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to evaluate development projects.
In the past, the objectives of Italian aid did not include poverty reduction as such, but the most recent guiding principles have given priority to a poverty reduction strategy based on a human development approach.
Japan
The Japanese government uses a definition of Basic Human Needs to classify aid spending. It is strengthening its efforts to evaluate projects on a case by case basis.
At the WSSD the Prime Minister said that Japan regarded social development as important and would give priority to tackling its problems.
Luxembourg
There is no classification of aid to direct poverty reduction.
The Netherlands
Under the 1992 Poverty, Women and Environment Assessment Procedure each bilateral project is assessed on how it contributes to poverty alleviation. The Operations Review Unit makes its assessment of the impact of Dutch policy on poverty alleviation.
All development cooperation is supposed to be directed to poverty alleviation. However, in the context of a Foreign Policy Review, the coalition Government argued that combating poverty alone was not enough and that more attention should be paid to political factors that influence international cooperation. The Netherlands is a strong advocate of social investments and it was the Dutch government which requested the international conference to operationalize the 20/20 compact and define basic social priorities hosted by Norway in 1996.
New Zealand
As yet there has been no specific move to develop measures or reporting mechanisms to assess the impact of NZODA on poverty.
The government reports that it focuses on the eradication of poverty through the delivery of ODA in general. There are no references to poverty in the Principles guiding New Zealand’s ODA but there are points that could refer to poverty programmes. For instance, particular attention must be given to the way assistance improves the living conditions of people on lower incomes in rural areas, and to safeguarding the interests of vulnerable groups.
Norway
A review of evaluation studies issued in December 1994 found that few studies were analysing the effects on poverty. Those projects and programmes which best benefited the poor seemed to be those which had identified the poor as target groups, but even studies of these cases had not substantiated the impact on poverty reduction. The Government has now taken a further initiative in this field but it is not taking steps to assess the impact of all Norwegian aid on poverty.
Poverty orientation is still one of the main aid principles, at least in verbal declarations. But there is a clear tendency towards emergency relief, the promotion of political pluralism and commercial cooperation taking an increasing share of the budget.
Portugal
Aid to poverty reduction is not measured in Portugal
Neither poverty nor development is prioritized in Portuguese ODA.
Spain
There is no classification of aid to poverty eradication or basic needs. However, although there are no results yet, the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECI) is making some progress in measuring aid to basic needs.
Theoretically, one of the main objectives of the Spanish aid programme is to give priority to LLDCs and to the poorest people. This has little to do with the reality of Spanish aid.
Sweden
Swedish aid has always focused on poverty reduction, but without any clear analysis of either the different dimensions of poverty, or of development methods that prove to be the most efficient in reducing poverty. The Sida Task Force on Poverty proposes a system of in-depth studies of poverty linking micro and macro phenomena, and will include definitions of poverty reduction.
The Sida Task Force on Poverty has prepared an agency-wide programme for action to be completed during 1996. This programme has the highest priority. It includes Poverty Profiles for 21 Swedish programme countries. The proposal is to establish country strategies to assess how Swedish aid could best address poverty problems, using a system of poverty assessments. The Task Force indicates a list of areas which, from a poverty reduction perspective,
should be of particular relevance for Sida. These include democracy/human rights; gender aware strategies; systems for financing public services, including progressive tax reforms; strategies for labour-intensive employment; health development in general; institutional capacity building; environment; and support for the disabled
Switzerland
For years, little quantified information on the poverty orientation of Swiss ODA has been available. A new statistical sector coding system, introduced in order to allow more precise information on sectoral spending and, as a result, poverty focus, is more difficult than originally thought and will need to be revised before reliable results can be published. A working group has been mandated to prepare a definition of what is to be counted as ‘poverty alleviating activities’ to overcome the problem of the lack of an objective definition.
Poverty alleviation has been one of the major aims of Swiss ODA for some time and was confirmed as such in the ‘North-South Guidelines’ released in 1994. Poverty is mainstreamed in the sense that the government stresses the fact that ‘Poverty, environmental degradation, migration, ethnic strife, international crime, drugs and AIDS are global problems from which we cannot isolate ourselves … ODA is … a long-term investment into our own survival… as well as a means to live in solidarity’.
UK
The Policy Information Marker system marks most aid spending against ODA objectives. It therefore assesses how much British aid addresses ODA priority areas, but it does not produce data on the output, quality, or impact of spending. Aid to direct poverty reduction is defined and measured. The Administration commissioned a detailed study of aid effectiveness in 19 countries receiving British assistance from a macro economic perspective, looking at the extent to which aid flows encourage economic growth and development.
Poverty reduction is part of the overall goal of ODA. The degree to which it is mainstreamed in the management and administration of British aid is the subject of continued debate. The way that subsidiary objectives and major decisions on resource allocations are harnessed to the overall goal of poverty reduction remains obscure. The Administration recognizes that more work needs to be undertaken on impact, with greater emphasis being placed on ‘output to purpose’ reviews and the adoption of ‘real world’ targets based on results to be achieved in developing countries.
USA
Aid’s effectiveness in poverty reduction is stressed by pointing to gains in child survival, life expectancy, food production and consumption, and education and literacy in the developing countries and specific examples of successes.
Poverty reduction is not, per se, an objective of US aid. Nonetheless a number of bilateral sectoral and geographical priorities seem closely related to poverty reduction. Instead of emphasizing good project design, as in the past, USAID is increasingly focusing on performance (‘results’) in achieving strategic objectives. These include broad-based economic growth, democratization, and stabilizing population growth.
