Both Indonesia and the Philippines provide considerable assistance to other developing countries, typically capacity building and sharing expertise about a range of development themes from agriculture and rural development to ICT, microfinance, education, health and welfare, amongst others. While most cooperation occurs at a regional Asia-Pacific level, Indonesia and the ...» more
Aid Instruments
Trust Funds and the Private Sector
A ‘Trust Fund’ or ‘Multi Donor Trust Fund’ (MDTF) is a multi-agency funding mechanism, designed to receive contributions from more than one donor (and often also the recipient government), that is held in trust by an appointed administrative agent. This report focuses primarily on trust funds in conflict or crisis-affected contexts that have been designed to support recovery of ...» more
Impact and VFM of Capacity Building Support for Conflict Parties in Negotiations
This report assesses the impact and value for money (VFM) of international support to government and rebel capacity building for negotiations. It finds that there has been little sustained analysis of the impact of this kind of support. Few donor evaluations focus specifically on these activities and those that do are often not made public (expert comments). No studies were ...» more
Research Capacity Strengthening
Lack of an enabling legal framework, poor quality of secondary-school education, an absence of research leaders and role models, and the relatively low priority attached to research are all frequently cited as barriers to research capacity development in developing countries as a whole, and Africa in particular (Whitworth et al 2008). Studies have noted that previous research ...» more
The impact of Area-Based Programming
Area-Based Development (ABD) approaches use the geographic ‘area’ as the main entry point for intervention, rather than a sector or target group. Area-based programming is widely used in conflict-affected parts of Europe, the Middle East, South and Central Asia. ABD has been less commonly used in Africa, and where it has been applied, the programmes tend not to be as ...» more
Multi-Year Funding to Humanitarian Organisations in Protracted Crises
There has been growing consensus amongst donors that multi-year funding is a critical tool for improving the allocation and effectiveness of humanitarian aid to protracted crises. A number of donors have developed mechanisms to allocate funding in these contexts on a multi-year basis, channelling funding directly to NGOs, the UN and other multilateral agencies, and to ...» more
Output-based aid in water and sanitation
Output-based aid (OBA) is one of a range of results-based financing approaches which aims to improve development outcomes by linking the disbursement of aid money to achievement of specified outputs by service delivery partners. There is considerable experience with OBA in the transport sector and in Latin America, but very little experience and evidence in the water and ...» more
Governance/anti-corruption indicators in budget support
Key findings: Budget support is untied aid channelled directly to a country’s budget in support of a national development strategy (or in the case of sector support, in support of a particular sector or purpose).While there is literature that discusses the design and effectiveness of governance indicators generally, there is very little documentation specifically on the ...» more
Engaging Private Sector Actors in Delivering Development
Donors, both bilateral and multilateral, are using a range of creative approaches to encourage private sector actors to participate and invest in activities that help deliver development. Donor initiatives that engage private sector actors can help to provide better quality jobs, goods and services, and can innovative solutions to development challenges. However, more ...» more
Cash transfers in fragile/conflict-affected environments
There has been a rise in the implementation of cash transfer schemes in fragile and/or post-conflict environments. However, these programmes have often been small in scale compared with commodity distributions. Concerns about implementation in such contexts include insecure delivery and corruption. However, many methods have been used in unstable contexts to safely transfer ...» more
Experience with Health SWAps
Experiences with SWAps have shown that they can have a positive impact on improved national ownership and leadership; donor harmonisation and alignment; and greater coherence, transparency and accountability along the policy-result chain. This query examines the key determinants and prerequisites for success in health SWAps. It also looks at the success of different SWAp ...» more
Trust Funds in Fragile and Low Capacity States
A ‘Trust Fund’ or ‘Multi Donor Trust Fund’ (MDTF) is a multi-agency funding mechanism, designed to receive contributions from more than one donor (and often also the recipient government), that is held in trust by an appointed administrative agent. There are many different types of trust fund, operating at a sector-wide, national, regional and global level. This query will ...» more
Development Assistance and Social Capital
Most studies on social capital examine the impact of social capital variables on particular development outcomes. There are few studies that provide evidence of the impact of development assistance on social capital, and even less that focus specifically on Sudan and more widely on Central and East Africa. A common theme among the available studies from the regions is the ...» more
Role of Aid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Aid has played a significant and complex role in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPt). Total foreign aid stood at $2.6 billion in 2008, which represented a 1,350 per cent increase on 1993 levels. The literature focuses on the following areas:the role of aid in fostering developmentthe complex political effects of humanitarian aidthe impact of aid on the peace process and ...» more
Development Finance Institutions and Development Outcomes
Evidence about the development impacts of DFIs is limited. DFIs carry out evaluations of their investments, but these are generally limited to examining direct outputs and economic impacts; comprehensive evaluation of impacts is complicated and expensive, and is very rarely undertaken. DFIs argue that financial performance and development outcomes go hand-in-hand, as ...» more
Trust Funds to Pay Security Forces Salaries
While there is much literature on aid modalities, including MDTFs; and on police reform – there is little that discusses the use of trust funds to pay security forces salaries. This helpdesk research report focuses primarily on the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA), which is profiled most frequently in the literature that does address this area.LOTFA was set up ...» more
Political Economy of Cash Transfers
Cash transfers are a form of social assistance in which money or cash-like instruments (e.g. vouchers) are distributed to vulnerable individuals or households. They can vary in targeting (eligibility requirements, such as age, poverty, and disability) or conditionality (specific actions required to receive payment, such as requiring children to attend school or a health ...» more
Financing and Cost-effectiveness of Cash Transfer Schemes
There is widespread agreement in the literature that cash transfers are effective in achieving a range of development objectives and that fears of creating dependency or enabling misuse of funds by recipients are groundless. While there are many impact evaluations of cash transfer programmes, there is very little hard data on cost-effectiveness, particularly compared with ...» more
Conflict Prevention and Local Engagement
Conflict prevention refers to approaches to avoid, minimise, and/or contain potential violent conflicts, and to prevent violent conflict from re-emerging. Engagement with local actors such as civil society, politicians, and community groups can have an important positive impact on conflict prevention, both in situations that have not yet experienced violent conflict and in ...» more
Performance-based Funding
Performance-based funding, also referred to as performance-based financing or results-based financing, comprises a broad variety of mechanisms. It includes donor-to-country disbursement mechanisms designed to improve aid effectiveness, intergovernmental transfers, donor-to-supplier disbursement mechanisms, and a range of tools that national governments can adopt. The vast ...» more
