Tal
7 oktober 2011
Gunilla Carlsson, Biståndsminister

Taking international development into the 21st century - Results, transparency and accountability

The focus of the agenda for change in Swedish international development cooperation is on results, transparency and accountability. International discussions on aid are now more dynamic than ever before. This is welcome, because it is through dialogue and debate that we can learn and improve and, in the end, better help those in need.

If we cannot transparently and systematically report on how our aid budget is spent, and what is achieved in the form of results, the credibility of development cooperation itself will be undermined. Mutual accountability is only possible if transparency is our guiding star and results our foremost ambition. Consequently, results are, by definition, at the very heart of aid effectiveness..

A myth is being propagated that the focus on results has gone too far and that the results agenda encourages a focus on quick, short-term wins. Some even refer sarcastically to "obsessive measurement disorder". It would be more accurate to recognise that today's focus on results by countries such as Sweden and the UK is a reaction to what could be called 40 years of "obsessive neglect of results" or "obsessive aversion to evaluation."

Insisting on results and value for money in development cooperation should not translate into avoiding difficult questions and/or working in difficult contexts. The Swedish Government has increasingly focused development cooperation on "fragile and conflict states". Yet these are, for obvious reasons, the hardest places of all to make aid work.

As Sweden's minister for international development cooperation, I have made results, transparency and accountability the focus of my agenda for change in Swedish international development cooperation. Today, international discussions on aid are more dynamic than ever before. I welcome this, because it is through dialogue and debate that we can learn and improve and, in the end, better help those in need.

Foreign aid is one of many sources of development finance. By 2007, only 17 per cent of the developed world's financial flows to the developing world was in the form of government aid. The other 83 per cent was comprised of private capital investment, remittances and other sources. This is fundamentally a good thing. It means that the time when foreign aid enjoyed a quasi monopoly as a source of external finance for developing countries is long gone. The financial globalization since the mid 19802s has translated as a surge in capital flows to developing countries, notably in foreign direct investments and portfolio flows. In addition, new actors and new donors, be they private, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, or countries, such as China and India, are all contributing to a fundamental change in the landscape of international aid.

Today's international aid architecture, however, does not reflect this new reality. Arguably, both bilateral and multilateral agencies reflect the challenges of the developing world as perceived by donors 20 or 30 years ago, and what was thought at the time to be the best way to contribute to development. Now, the ways in which we organise, prioritise and measure the outcome of development cooperation have to change and adapt to the world of the 21st century.

If we cannot transparently and systematically report on how our aid budget is spent, and what is achieved in the form of results, the credibility of development cooperation itself will be undermined. Mutual accountability is only possible if transparency is our guiding star and results our foremost ambition. Consequently, results are, by definition, at the very heart of aid effectiveness. The aid effectiveness discussion is probably as old as development cooperation itself. But it has never been more relevant.

Insisting on a results-oriented aid agenda is therefore an essential and very natural priority for the Swedish Government. Since I took office in October 2006 we have strengthened our focus on results with the aim of achieving more effective and higher quality development cooperation. Our ambition is to provide aid that makes a real difference in the global effort to combat poverty and oppression. Clear guidelines and structures for dealing with results can help our development partners, as well as our own staff, to keep the objectives of each aid contribution clearly in focus. I am proud that Sida, the Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation, is now at the forefront of developing ways of measuring and following up results, as well as ensuring transparency and accountability.

A key issue is of course how we actually use the results. In this, there are three things I believe to be essential:

"We need to become better at learning from evaluations and audits
"We need to improve our use of evidence-based research
"We need to constantly ask ourselves what works and what does not
And we need to act upon that information. I am convinced that we as donors can do far better when it comes to putting the conclusions of evaluations into practice. We must at all costs avoid the situation where evaluation becomes a mere formality or something that must be done and ticked off at the end of a project.

Focus on results is not just something that is demanded by the Swedish Government and Swedish tax payers but, even more importantly, by our partners in developing countries. They rightly demand concrete outcomes. They do not simply want reports of money disbursed. An important part of our development cooperation is therefore to develop and improve our partners' systems for managing results.

This work is intimately linked to the need for continuous efforts to improve transparency. Providing clear and accessible information to all is not just an act of courtesy towards our taxpayers. Access to data concerning ongoing development projects enables the people we are working together with in our partner countries to ensure that both we as donors and their own officials and politicians can be held accountable. That is why I introduced a transparency guarantee into Swedish development cooperation. With the launch on April 4 of the website www.openaid.se, all documents and public information in this area are now successively made available online. Currently the site contains information on 90 000 aid contributions and 40 000 documents.

Measurement and evidence of what works and what does not work in development is one of our most powerful weapons in the battle against global poverty. At the same time, the focus on results has come under criticism. A myth is being propagated that the focus on results has gone too far and that the results agenda encourages a focus on quick, short-term wins. Some even refer sarcastically to "obsessive measurement disorder". It would be more accurate to recognise that today's focus on results by countries such as Sweden and the UK is a reaction to what could be called 40 years of "obsessive neglect of results" or "obsessive aversion to evaluation."

Let us be honest about the lack of clarity on how a lot of donor money has been used. Huge administrative overhead costs, complex and bureaucratic meetings, exorbitant consultancy fees and sometimes very few concrete results for the people that we intended to assist. For far too long hard questions about the actual outcomes and results of activities labelled with buzz-words such as "technical assistance" and "capacity building" were simply not asked. Any donor who takes democracy building seriously cannot be satisfied with this lack of clarity.

Consequently, we shouldn't be surprised that not everybody is comfortable seeing the phrases "development cooperation" and "value for money" used in the same sentence. There is no denying that the so called development industrial complex is a reality. I can even understand that those who have grown accustomed to administrating and earning a living from traditional development cooperation don't approve of the results agenda. However, that does not mean that I accept it.

The fear of an insistence on results often arises from confusion over what "results" are. An often cited concern is that aid bureaucracies pressed to produce "results" will increasingly resort to supporting projects that offer easily measured "wins" (bednets delivered, books distributed etc), while not giving enough priority to "system issues" and "institution building." Focusing on results must mean focusing on both quantitative and qualitative results.

I am well aware of the fact that an increased focus on results implies many challenges. There are a number of issues that need to be better defined and discussed more thoroughly. However, difficulties to work with the results agenda cannot in itself be used as an excuse to not follow up and report on results. A solid and well structured approach to results and results reporting is a prerequisite for more effective aid contributions to poverty reduction.

Insisting on results and value for money in development cooperation should not translate into avoiding difficult questions and/or working in difficult contexts. The Swedish Government has increasingly focused development cooperation on "fragile and conflict states". Yet these are, for obvious reasons, the hardest places of all to make aid work. Clearly, the results agenda does not mean that we shy away from working in difficult environments or with complicated thematic issues. Instead, it means that we constantly need to follow up on what we are doing and to work actively with defining risk and making risk analysis. This is my agenda and I will continue to pursue it vigorously.