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More Governance in Government’s Governing

3 May

By William Easterly

The new World Bank blog People, Spaces, Deliberation has already achieved one milestone: it covers exhaustively the field of “governance” with little or no usage of words that have historically been prominent in such discussions (see chart).

How to get these numbers: Click on one of these words in the list of “tags” and count the number of pages with search results. No tags existed on ‘consent’ or ‘liberty.’

We were inspired by the new blog to translate one historical document that is now badly out of date and frame it as a practical roadmap for further engaging civil society:

Original

Translation
We hold these truths to be self-evident The mainstream consensus among experts is
that all men are created equal, All efforts should be inclusive,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, Development as a Multi-Stakeholder Initiative must be Broad-based and Community-driven,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Including Social Sector Goals, Participation, and the pursuit of Capacity-Building.

This community-driven participator is unfortunately not adhering to Governance best practices set out by the authorities.

Our Winner for Best Insulting Picture

27 Jan

At the Exploiting Africa Academy Awards is…

Machine Gun Preacher.

The strange contrast between evil violent African males with the saintly violent white male, who frequently boasts “I am saving African children,” was apparently a clincher for our voting audience.

(more…)

Exploiting Africa Academy Awards

26 Jan

Following the Academy Award nominations earlier this week, we introduce the Exploiting Africa Academy Award (EAAA) nominations to recognize films who do the best against stiff competition to portray the most insulting and exploitative images of Africans, usually being heroically saved by some white people.

We include links to the trailers.

(more…)

The World Bank Clock

24 Jan

UPDATE V January 24, 2012: 123 days later, the CAO is on the case 

Yesterday we heard from Oxfam that the World Bank has finally announced an independent investigation into complaints from two communities in Uganda who lost their land in forced evictions to make way for forestry plantations.

The Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) reports directly to the President of the World Bank and examines cases brought by people affected by World Bank private sector lending projects, usually dealing with social and environmental problems.

This announcement comes 123 days after the Bank promised to investigate. Forgive us for being a tiny bit underwhelmed that it took so long to start an investigation that will now take another six months.  The CAO’s mandate is to make the Bank more accountable by responding “quickly and effectively” to complaints from affected communities. Allowing 123 days of obfuscation and confusion to pass instead was a disaster for such accountability.

(more…)

EVALUATION: Major Problems with the “Christmas Gifts” Aid Program

22 Dec

Lack of Rigorous Methodology: Regrettably, this evaluation had to proceed without the required Randomized Controlled Trial on Christmas Gifts, which failed to be completed as planned. Project managers did a poor job explaining the advantages of RCT participation to the Control Group.

Lack of Targeting: The Christmas Gifts aid program was not sufficiently well-targeted to the poor.  Recipients of Christmas Gifts indiscriminately included well-off regions, groups, genders, and individuals.

Lack of Efficient Modalities: The Christmas Gifts appeared to consist largely of in-kind aid.  This contradicts abundant evidence of best practices emphasizing cash transfers as superior to in-kind aid. There was some evidence of #SWEDOW (“Stuff We Don’t Want”) in-kind transfers, the worst possible kind of aid, usually involving fruitcakes.

Lack of Efficient Timing: Contrary to the recommendation that aid consist of an even, predictable flow, the Christmas Gifts program is mostly concentrated on one day, with a few unpredictable lags ranging from a few days (“late deliveries”) to months (“handmade gifts”).

Lack of Net Flows:  Evaluators found Christmas Gift recipients engaged in behavior that frustrated the aid program, with Recipients acting as Donors to their own Donors, reducing their own net aid intake. They explained their counterproductive behavior with non-standard concepts such as “Tis more bless’d to give than to receive.”

Merry Christmas

from the  NYU Development Research Institute

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