Is General Budget Support (GBS) a relevant, efficient, effective and sustainable mechanism for poverty reduction? This report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) presents an Evaluation Framework to guide the conduct of joint evaluation work on GBS at the country level. The Framework is intended as a practical tool that can be used to guide a number of country-level joint evaluations. It outlines what is required to create positive outcomes.
GBS is the channelling of donor funds directly to the partner government’s budget, using the government’s own allocation and accounting systems, with any conditionality focused on policy measures related to general budget priorities. A Logical Framework diagram is used to show the causal linkages that are the implicit thinking behind recent GBS programmes. Six types of inputs are considered: (1) funds paid into the national budget; (2) policy dialogue linked to the budget funds; (3) any associated conditionality; (4) technical assistance or capacity building linked to the budget funds; (5) efforts to align GBS donor aid with national goals and systems; and (6) efforts to harmonise GBS donors’ aid with that of other donors.
So long as GBS inputs are not offset by countervailing actions by government or by non-GBS donors, then they will have an immediate effect on the relationship between external assistance as a whole, the national budget and the national policy process. These immediate effects are:
- An increased proportion of external funding is made subject to national budget processes.
- The form of policy dialogue changes, so as to focus more on national public policy and public expenditure issues and processes.
- Technical assistance and capacity-building efforts are re-oriented towards mainstream activities of government (public policy and public expenditure rather than project management and administration).
- External assistance is more aligned with national goals and systems.
- Donor activities are more harmonised.
Over the short to medium term, it is possible that GBS will generate positive changes in the financing and institutional framework for public spending and public policy. In the medium to long term, the following outcomes may be possible:
- The creation of a stable macroeconomic environment, conducive to private investment and economic growth.
- An improvement in the quality of services delivered to the public, particularly in the delivery of pro-poor services and in the targeting of those services to the poor.
- Government more effectively assumes its role as a regulator of private initiative.
- Provision of a framework ensuring justice, law and order and respect for human rights.
- Appropriate public actions to address market failures, including those arising out of gender inequalities.
- Poor people be empowered and socially included and poverty, in all of its dimensions, be reduced.
