Study faults EC over awkward aid dispensation

from IPP Media

By Perege Gumbo

A latest research has mentioned the European Commission (EC) as the most inept institution in aid dispensation to poor and developing countries.

The study was undertaken by consultants of Dar based Daima Associate Ltd and was commissioned by UK�s Department for International Development (DFID).

The EC is the executive branch of the European Union responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union`s treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union.

Presenting the final findings in Dar es Salaam recently, the Director of Daima Associate Ltd Dr. Samuel Nyantahe said that most non governmental organisations (NGOs) and Community Based-Organizations (CBOs) viewed the aid from the European Union as the most bureaucratic, and consequently perceived as generally being ineffective in fighting poverty.

The research was based on the premises of the March 2005 Paris Declaration, which committed developed countries and organisations to continue to increase efforts in harmonisation, alignment and managing aid for results with a set of monitorable actions and indicators.

The overall objective was to help developing nations and poor nations overcome poverty in more meaningful ways.

Subsequent to the Paris Declaration, an agreement was reached that intensive researches be carried out seeking to analyse to what extent donor aid has been effective and what the recipient countries would prefer be done for such aid to be seen as becoming more results oriented.

For one thing, the Declaration commits donor and developing countries to be mutually accountable for development results.

The study covered six countries of South Africa, Zambia, India, Bangladesh, Ghana and Tanzania from where data has come to conclude that recipients of donor aid wanted funds to pass through the United Nation Development Programs (UNDP) and the African Development Bank (ADB) rather than other channels.

In Tanzania, research involved stakeholders such as parliamentarians, government ministers, civil servants, the private sector, and representatives from NGOs and CBOs.

From the results of the study, the UN organizations such as the UNIDO and UNICEF were most preferred because of their emphasis on building capacity needed by the recipients and for being in line with most government policies Nyantahe said.

One of the criteria for measuring the effectiveness of aid was governance which seems to exert important influence on disbursement preferences.

Under this criterion, the overall responses were that Africa Development Bank (AfDB) was rated poorly for the most of the 15 effectiveness indicators.

However, despite, AfDB poor rating, respondents in three of the four African Countries studied preferred it over the European Commission and the World Bank as disbursement channels for aid.

The study had also come to discover that recipient stakeholders perceptions on aid effectiveness differ from the donors understanding.

For instance, bilateral donors would place more emphasis on outputs and outcomes while recipient stakeholders appeared to be much more interested in ownership and governance.

In the upshot, it has become unquestionable that ownership of the development process was critical to aid effectiveness, while taking into account aid recipient`s perceptions was even more critical while assessing the overall effectiveness of donor assistance to poor countries.