Archive for the 'resources' Category

In 2009 Oxfam America published a brief on “smart development,” in which the authors advocate for increased transparency and predictability in US overseas assistance (ODA). In defining the challenge and the opportunity, Oxfam America identifies three reforms central to their strategy: provide increased access to information to recipient countries; build capacity and help countries lead their own development; and finally let countries lead by opening control.

In making the case for reform 1 (increasing access to information), Oxfam America gives three examples of the information entanglements that arise from massive aid programs that lack effective information sharing regimes:

For years, Afghans have heard about billions of dollars being promised by foreign  donors, yet they have no way to find out where that money is going. Even their  government does not know how one-third of all aid (some $5 billion) has been  spent since 2001.13 In Uganda, a mapping exercise in 2005 found twice as much  aid being spent than what the government was told.14 In Sierra Leone, the government knows little of the 265 different aid projects that donors are funding.15 And
in Malawi, there was a $119 million difference in what donors reported they were  providing to the government of Malawi and what donors reported to the OECD.16

“How” the authors ask, “can recipient governments use donor aid to plan in such circumstances?”

In reading the report, which is a sleek 40 pages, I realize there is a tremendous innovation opportunity here – which is to develop better tools, standards, and administrative reforms that will lead to the kind of information coherence across ODA actors necessary for effective development planning. In a sense, a GPRA for aid that harnesses the open data reforms of the last decade and the flexibility of information sharing tools available on the web.

A problem with enough technical challenges to be of interest to MIT management and programming talent?