Make Foreign Aid 'Smarter,' Candidates Told

Hi!
I have just put forward, and I am in discussion with how aid can be made smarter.
One suggestion is to make aid a computer user friendly, and not base it so much on after 'Disasters'.
For example, after the Sidr Cyclone in Bangladesh, nobody was interested in giving to a large Disaster Emergency Appeal, as people are now becoming more reluntant as some organisations take off an administration charge for this purpose.
The newest idea is something on the lines of an Aidmatrix (which is an American based idea), and also trying to get children involved in aid as well.
There are so many things to look into, about how this can be done, and who is to ba accountable for this aid.
There are so many targets that still need to be met under the UN Millenium Development Goals (UNDMGs), by 2015 to reduce or get people out of poverty.
This has to include the Economical, Medical and Humanitarian Grounds of selective areas and where the funds for Aid would be most appropriate.
Some of the funding for Aid goes into the hands of the Rebels for weapons and new technology, some goes to the Governments, and this is very frustrating.
The thinking behind a user friendly computer Aid driven package would not only be educational, but for the younger generation to get involved in the Aid Giving process.
As for the "War on Terror", this should be more of a gl;obal issue rather than single /individual countries putting Aid into
this.
How Aid should be divided up is a matter of opinion, but there are many setbacks for those people living in poverty, especially if they have been in violent conflicts over the decades.
There will be, hopefully a new think tank looking into what can be done to make aid smarter, whether it be changing the way the Disaster Emergency Committee portrays itself, or whether it be a whole new long-term strategy dealing with transparency and whom should be accountable, or even having an aid giving system online.
Please let me know of any suggestions that could be put forward to the Department for International Development (DfiD) or to other organisations that may be involved in this.
Thank you
Rosa

AWN members may also be interested in the Forum on the Future of Aid, accessible at www.futureofaid.net, which is an online community dedicated to research and opinions about how the international aid system currently works and where it should go next

Hi!
The effectiveness of aid has recurrently been a subject of much investigation. Though the results have been mixed, and it has emerged from a consensus that foreign assistance does not generally benefit its recipients succesfully.
For example let us start by asking ourselves a very simple question, as an outsider, what would be the simplest definition of 'aid' - the answer would be to help someone by whatever means possible.
For those of us in the know, aid has far more reaching and complex issues within financial institutions, governments and the Commonwealth.
So, let us look at the aetiology of 'aid' as a whole.
Foreign Aid, or Official Development Assistance (ODA) is a transfer of resources on concessional terms which is undertaken by offical agencies, has the promotion of economic development and welfare as its main objectives( at least outwardly); and has a 'grant element' of 25% or more.
a major basis for the development of today's aid structure was international actions following the second world war. Indeed several institutions have evolved from organisations originally created to contribute to post-war reconstruction. The development world of the United Nations (UN) began with the UN Relief Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA) founded during the war, and the World Bank or the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development which provided loans for recovering Western-European nations, making its first loan to a developing country only in the 1950's (to Colombia). The final popst-war manifestation of importance was the Marshall Plan, whose success was seen as a model for development elsewhere, and whose approach was reaffirmed in the donor co-ordinated effort for the Colombo Plan for South and South-Eastern Asia. A final featrure of the popst-war international scene of importance was "the first wave of independence (from colonial rule), and creating a consituency for aid. The first meeting of the non-aligned movement in 1955 gave a focus to this voice, as did the various organs of the UN, notably UNCTAD. Despite the existence of Multilateral programmes, Bilateral technical assistance to independent countries and even the emergence of the Soviet Aid Programme in 1956. The 1950's may be described as a decade of US hegemony in aid distribution, as it alone accounted for two thirds of total aid in that decade. Although the programme was subject to continued commercial pressures (especially in the use of food aid), the intensification of the cold war gave US aid a strongly strategic orientation, which it has retained until this day. Aid was quite consciously used to stop countries 'going communist', and development aid and military aid mixed as necessary. In the 1960's the second wave of independence and the troubled financial state of some already independent countries (notably India), prompted the emergency of greater amounts of Bilateral programmes.
By 1969, the aid system grew and its channels multiplied and became tangled. There was unnecessary duplication of economicreporting and feasibility studies. Inadequacies of co- ordination implied a lack of purpose and direction in development assistance . To remedy these deficiencies, the Pearson Commission advocated many changes, among them strengthening of Multilateral development agencies, which have grown in number and size over the past fifty years. The first group the UN and the sister institutions created at Bretton Woods, commenced operations after the war, but it was several years before the UN and the World Bank concentrated seriously on development. The IMF was not then- and is not now - a development institution, although its work in many spheres, national and international has a considerable impact on developing countries. a second group, the regional development banks, began to grow in the late 1950's from the start, their objectives were developmental. In 1970, UN development agencies accounted for more Multilateral ODA than any other channel. By 1977-78, however, they had been overtaken by the World Bank group, while the regional development banks, such as the African Development Bank , the Asian Development Bank and the Arab fund for Social and Economic Develpment grew exponentially in their import. Today, approximately 25 % ODA aid is Multilateral, while the other 75% is Bilateral.
Since 2001, our perception of aid has changed on a global scale for any outsiders to grasp.
Aid has moved into the realms of 'Survivability', as a new and more powerful war on terrorism has began, so, must the implications of aid.
The main factors could be be to untangle the unnecessary economic duplication by rewriting a new consitutional report on the Pearson Commision, and setting up a one year programme for an "Aid Distribution Mediation Team" to assist with expertise in this field.
Rosa

I think AWN should consider banning people who plagiarise on their posts to AWN -- maybe one warning and then, if it happens again, you are out?

Attribution is very simple to do online, and there's no reason not to do it.

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Jayne Cravens
www.coyotecommunications.com/development/
Bonn, Germany

Hi!
I do apologise most sincerely fro plagerising the work of Daniel Ehrenfeld in the journal of Humanitarian Affairs.
I would very much like to explain why I did this, to prove just how complex and hoe complicated matters to do with aid have become.
There are too many organisations dealing with aid, isn't it about time that all this organisations co-ordinated with each other, or were placed under one organisation that dealt with the wealth and distribution of aid.
Recently, in an article published by the 'Stanley foundation' on US POLICY OPTIONS TOWARD PAKISTAN: A PRINCIPLED AND REALISTIC APPROACH - February 2008, there is a whole pargraph on US aid programmes especially in Pakistan.
This explains about a relatively free hand in spending the massive amounts of US aid it has been given.
Since 9/11 the US aid programme has increased twofold.
This report is available at: http://reports.stanleyfoundation.org
The Pearsons commisssion rewritten all those years ago should be reformed and more constitutional reforms need to be written regarding the amount that is distributed to each country.
Many countreis are getting less, and these are even organsiations that come under the umbrella of the United Nations.
One example is: The World Food Programme (WFP) is asking for more cash and aid to aid not only the poor but the middle classes as well, as the increase of wheat has gone up due the droughts in Australia.
More needs to be done in giving equal distribution to all.
I apologise once again, for the plagerism, but I was just trying too prove how for an outsider, 'aid' is so difficult to understand.
Most outsiders what to give everything and anything they do not understand the consequences of their actions.
Rosa