Keeping Tabs: Making Aid Accountable and Effective for Women
ActionAid published ground-breaking reports in 2005 and 2006 that revealed startling statistics on how foreign aid to poor countries is actually spent.
Only about half of the “aid” money from donor governments actually ends up addressing development needs such as recovery from tsunamis and other disasters, the fight to end HIV & AIDS, or support to anti-poverty programs. Of the remainder, much is spent on consultants, even though studies have found no positive connection between the technical assistance they provide and the ultimate performance of development programs. The remainder goes to meet conditionalities related to debt obligations, purchases and remittances to the donor country and other costs.
It is time to examine the details on how governments are spending foreign aid budgets, and to make those funds more effective in fighting poverty.
Because of ActionAid’s priority focus on women’s rights, we have a special interest in how effectively foreign aid initiatives address the particular needs of women in developing countries. Through our Accountability to Women Project (AWP), ActionAid country programs in Sierra Leone, Nepal, Malawi, India and Haiti are working together with the ActionAid policy staff in the United States to track the assistance provided by donors and governments and to analyze the impact of the funding on the ground. This money is intended to help women make better lives for themselves and their families. But too often, the stated goals of the donors are not met.
Building on the findings of the Show Us the Money report, this project is tracking aid flows that aim to support women’s programs. ActionAid staff and women’s organizations in the target countries are tracking aid money to measure progress towards achieving its purpose on the ground. The project will examine the impact of conditions placed on foreign assistance, and how the money is spent.
The Accountability to Women Project will build the capacity of women’s groups to monitor the impact of policies and to track how aid money is spent. ActionAid is piloting a monitoring system for investigating impacts and outcomes of the money that is supposed to be helping the women. By putting the tools in the hands of the aid’s purported beneficiaries, ActionAid is empowering women to hold their governments and donor agencies accountable.
The findings of these investigations will provide a solid base of evidence to demonstrate what works and what does not in providing assistance. The findings will highlight and promote practices that work while providing practical alternatives to those that do not.
ActionAid will share this information with policy-makers, political leaders, the media and women’s groups in the United States and around the world.
