Assessing the Impact of Foreign Aid

Table of contents

1. Cover
2. Title Page
3. Copyright Page
4. Contents (1/2)
5. Contents (2/2)
6. List of Contributors
7. Author Biographies (1/2)
8. Author Biographies (2/2)
9. Preface
10. Chapter 1 - Official development assistance and impact assessment – theoretical and practical frameworks
    1. Introduction
    2. Aid, ODA, and resource flows to the developing world
    3. Background to foreign aid
    4. Contemporary debates, aid effectiveness, value for money, and aid for trade
       1. Aid effectiveness
       2. Value for money
    5. Aid, development, results, and impact
    6. Conclusion
    7. References
11. Chapter 2 - Conceptualizing impact assessment in foreign aid
    1. Introduction
    2. Results and impact
    3. The evolution of impact assessment
    4. Impact assessment in theory and practice
       1. Transparency and accountability
       2. Ex-ante and Ex-post IA
    5. Conclusion
    6. References
12. Chapter 3 - Competing development paradigms and alternative evaluations of aid effectiveness: challenging the dominant neoliber...
    1. Introduction
    2. A political economy background
    3. The quest for modernization: the neoclassical foundations
    4. Dissenting voices from the south: the challenge of the dependency theory
    5. Basic needs
    6. The rise of neoliberalism: globalization and development theory
    7. The global financial crisis and emerging challenges to neoliberalism
    8. Concluding thoughts: toward a new development paradigm and a new role for aid
    9. References
13. Chapter 4 - Aid for trade: A critical analysis
    1. Introduction
    2. Unpacking “aid for trade” within a context of ODA
    3. The increased quest for accountability
    4. AfT from theoretical underpinnings to conceptualization
    5. A critique of AfT
       1. Trade not aid
       2. Critique of the neoliberal ODA agenda
    6. Toward a paradigm shift in AfT
    7. Paradigm shift: AfT as a subset of VfM
    8. Around and around; back to assessing impact and aid for trade
    9. Conclusion
    10. References
14. Chapter 5 - The rhetoric and reality of results and impact assessment in donor agencies: A practitioners’ perspective1
    1. Introduction
       1. The changing aid environment
       2. The pursuit of success
    2. Understanding the “results culture”
       1. The accountability and transparency agenda
       2. The learning and efficacy agenda
       3. A fly in the ointment?
    3. The push for impact assessment
       1. The changing face of impact assessment
    4. Results reporting and impact assessment in a contested, dynamic, and political environment
       1. Program design
       2. Programme delivery and management
       3. Reporting, accountability, and (impact) evaluation
       4. Lesson learning and application
       5. An evolving context?
    5. Looking forward
       1. The implications for aid investments and the framing of results
       2. The implications for impact assessment
    6. Conclusion
    7. References
15. Chapter 6 - Beyond aid distribution: Aid effectiveness, neoliberal and neostructural reforms in Pacific Island Countries
    1. Introduction
    2. Overview of development aid
    3. Economic reforms in pics: key issues
    4. The limitations of economic reforms
       1. Case study 1: Sovi basin conservation area in Fiji
       2. Case study 2: ongoing ADB reform “promoting economic use of customary land” in Samoa
    5. Conclusion
    6. References
16. Chapter 7 - Regulatory impact assessment: the forgotten agenda in ODA
    1. Introduction
    2. Defining RIA
    3. A critical analysis of MDB’s contemporary approaches to RIA
    4. The neoliberal agenda
       1. A brief ideological critique
       2. A brief implementation critique
    5. Inference: the policy cycle and the project cycle
       1. The policy cycle
       2. The project cycle
       3. A pointer to procedures: transcending policy and project cycle
    6. Applying RIA for ODA projects and programs
    7. Problematics of ex-ante RIA
    8. Conclusion: a case in favor of RIA in ODA
    9. References
17. Chapter 8 - Can we assess the overall impact of development agencies? The example ofcorporate resultsframeworks in multilateral...
    1. Setting the stage: pressing for results
    2. What are corporate results frameworks?
    3. How are corporate results frameworks used in practice?
       1. Focus on agency results and performance
       2. Powerful communication tools
       3. Simplicity and economy
       4. Strategic alignment and focus
       5. Flexibility
    4. Defining limitations
       1. The assumed global causality
       2. From corporate results to country results
       3. From operational performance to corporate results
       4. From institutional reforms to operational performance
       5. Issues of data aggregation
       6. Results versus risks
       7. Short-term versus long-term impact
       8. Ownership and politicization of the agenda
    5. New avenues for new realities
       1. Improved conceptual underpinning
       2. Quality matters
       3. Toward a culture of results
       4. Priorities and ownership
       5. Toward joint integrated frameworks
    6. Conclusions
    7. References
18. Chapter 9 - Assessing the impact of knowledge on development partners
    1. Introduction
    2. Donor initiated evaluation research
    3. Case study 1: accelerating the flow of scientific knowledge in Indonesia
    4. Case study 2: institutional capacity building in the Maldives
    5. Case study 3: choosing funding modalities for project integrity in Pakistan
    6. Case study 4: computer-assisted instruction in Sri Lankan schools
    7. Summary and conclusion
    8. References
19. Chapter 10 - From evidence to action: stakeholder coordination as a determinant ofevaluation use
    1. Introduction
    2. Background
    3. Determinants of evaluation use
    4. Evaluation stakeholders
    5. Points of coordination
       1. Procurement and evaluation predesign
       2. Design
          1. Value for money
          2. Counterfactual designs
       3. Dissemination
    6. Conclusion
    7. References
20. Chapter 11 - Inside the black box: modeling the inner workings of social development programs
    1. Introduction
    2. The intellectual roots and grounding of meta-modeling
    3. The five steps of meta-modeling
    4. The application of meta-modeling
       1. Step 1: define the research question
       2. Step 2: search and retrieve studies
       3. Step 3: relevance appraisal
       4. Step 4: code studies
       5. Step 5: develop a meta-summary
    5. Final thoughts on meta-modeling
    6. Studies included in review
    7. References
21. Chapter 12 - Impact assessment and official development assistance: ethnographic research of the World Bank’s community-based ru...
    1. Introduction
    2. Applied ethnography
    3. The four dimensional ethnographic impact assessment framework
       1. Planning
       2. Participative presence
       3. Reflective flexibility
       4. Ethical representation
    4. The World Bank’s CBRDP in Ghana: summary of ethnographic research findings
       1. “Highly functional” decentralization system and CDD programs
       2. When empowerment disempowers
       3. Community-based program in nonexistent communities
    5. Discussion
    6. Conclusion
    7. References
22. Chapter 13 - Finding balance: Improving monitoring to improve impact assessments of development programmes
    1. Introduction
    2. Part 1 – key definitions and concepts
    3. Part 2 – the rise of impact assessment
       1. Gold standard methods
       2. Independence
    4. Part 3 – The status of monitoring and its future
    5. Part 4 – emerging approaches to improve monitoring
    6. Conclusion
    7. References
23. Chapter 14 - Impact assessment in practice: case studies from Save the Children programs in Lao PDR and Afghanistan
    1. Introduction
    2. Save the Children Australia
       1. Save the Children’s global theory of change
       2. Measuring our results
    3. Primary Health Care Program, Sayaboury and Luang Prabang Provinces, Lao PDR
       1. Background
       2. Understanding and working within local systems
       3. A contextually relevant approach to measuring results
       4. Building the evidence base – making the case for scale-up
       5. The importance of time
    4. Children of Uruzgan Program, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan
       1. Background
       2. Understanding and working within local systems
       3. A contextually relevant approach to measuring results
       4. Building the evidence base – making the case for scale-up
       5. The importance of time
    5. Challenges associated with impact assessment
       1. Timeframes
       2. Cost-effectiveness
       3. Ex-post evaluations
    6. Conclusion
    7. References
24. Chapter 15 - The nongovernmental development sector and impact assessment
    1. Introduction
    2. Contemporary debates in impact assessment
    3. Impact assessment methods and tools
       1. The logic model
       2. Program logic and theory of change
       3. The most significant change
       4. Participatory rural appraisal/participatory learning action
       5. Tiny tools
          1. NGO practices in impact evaluation
          2. Lessons from case studies
    4. Challenges of impact assessment and the way forward
    5. References
25. Chapter 16 - Impact assessment: from theory to practice
    1. Introduction
    2. Development theory and global economic paradigms
    3. The elephant in the room…politics and foreign policy
    4. Complexity
    5. Impact…
       1. Conceptual understandings
       2. Methodology and method
       3. Impact assessment in the real world – ex-ante, ex-post, or somewhere in between?
    6. Conclusion
    7. References
26. Index (1/3)
27. Index (2/3)
28. Index (3/3)
29. Back Cover