This study represents the cumulative evidence of five years gathering evidence from people living in societies that are recipients of international aid. CDA’s Listening Project organised teams of ‘listeners’ across 20 countries and contexts to gather the voices, insights, and lessons from people both inside and outside the aid system.
The Listening Project held conversations with people who represented broad cross-sections of their societies, ranging from fishermen on the beach to government ministers with experience in bilateral aid negotiations. Local leaders and average villagers, government officials and civil society activists, teachers and students, small business owners and wealthy ones, men and women, young and old, dominant and marginalised groups were all included.
From such a range of locations and people, one might expect many ideas and opinions, and, indeed, the Listening Project heard a lot. However, cumulatively, from all these conversations with all these people in all these places, remarkably consistent patterns and common judgments emerged. In the midst of difference, there was striking unanimity and consistency about the processes and the effects of the international aid system.
This publication represents the lessons that have come forth through conversations with nearly 6,000 people. Using their words, their experiences, and their ideas, the book describes why the cumulative impacts of aid have not met expectations and describes a way forward to make changes that, according to those on the receiving end, will lead to more effective results.
Key Findings:
- The voices reported here convey four basic messages: first, international aid is a good thing that is appreciated; second, assistance as it is now provided is not achieving its intent; third, fundamental changes must be made in how aid is provided if it is to become an effective tool in support of positive economic, social, and political change; and fourth, these fundamental changes are both possible and doable.
- Many people talk about what they expected or hoped aid would do, and most say they were disappointed. Was this because their expectations were unrealistic, or was it because international assistance failed? Most say that both factors are present. They acknowledge that they expect too much, and they also say that, in their experience, the very processes and systems of the international aid system undermine its intended effectiveness.
- Many describe how assistance begins as a boost to people’s spirits and energies, but over time, becomes entrenched as an increasingly complicated system of reciprocated dependence. A number say that they believe aid providers depend on the recipients’ “needs” because responding to these needs justifies the providers’ existence and work. They also recognise that their countries, communities, and neighbours (and sometimes they, themselves) rely on continuing international assistance to function, even when this assistance creates a dependency that they dislike and decry.
- Even as most aid providers focus on raising and allocating more funds to the assistance enterprise, people on the recipient side talk about using the funds already allocated in better ways. Very few people call for more aid; virtually everyone says they want “smarter” aid. Many feel that “too much” is given “too fast.” A majority criticise the “waste” of money and other resources through programs they perceive as misguided or through the failure of aid providers to be sufficiently engaged.