Development assistance is once again the focus of intense debate. This time the discussion is in the Netherlands and Denmark, respectively, but the relevance of their deliberations goes beyond the borders of their two countries.
The Netherlands and Denmark have for many years been considered fairly “like-minded” in relation to development cooperation: They are both generous donors close to the top of the league and their tax-payers have, thus far, been staunch supporters of this generosity.
But aid is also questioned in both countries: Does it work well enough? And what should be done to make it work better?
The debate is linked to the Netherland’s and Denmark’s policy cycle, where both governments have decided to launch new policies and strategies for development cooperation. (Incidentally, meanwhile, the Dutch government has dissolved itself, and the Danes have had a government reshuffle with a new minister for development cooperation, Soren Pind, being appointed).
To qualify the debate, the “Scientific Council for Government Policy” in the Netherlands published its long awaited report ‘Less pretension, more ambition: development aid that makes a difference’.
The report concludes: “It is not the quantity but the quality of our contribution to a world in which people and countries are self-sufficient and in which international public goods are adequately safeguarded, that should be the point of departure for what we now still refer to as development aid, but what may later be referred to as ‘global development’. Global development is about targeted strategies, the capacity to work in various fields at the same time, knowing when to hold back, and differentiating between goals and thereby between levels of intervention. It is about combining ambition with the awareness that you can only play a modest role”.
The report has sparked an intense debate (partly in English), hosted by The Broker, an internationally renowned magazine with a track record of contributing to the debate on development cooperation. The questions raised by the Broker are far reaching: What could or should a new paradigm for aid or global justice look like? Can the world community proceed along the known tracks, or is it high time for new analyses, priorities and a truly global vision on what development means and needs in a world of shifting powers and unprecedented challenges?
In Denmark, the government is expected to publish a draft new development cooperation strategy shortly. Meanwhile, the Danish Institute for International Studies has launched a debate around a thought-provoking paper by Lindsay Whitfield titled: “Reframing the Aid Debate. Why aid isn't working and how it should be changed”. The paper argues that the most important factors undermining aid’s effectiveness have been neglected and need to retake center stage in the debate.
These factors include reasserting what is at the core of economic development and the role of aid in achieving it; the politics of aid relationships in aid dependent countries and how they generate perverse incentives; and the everyday practices and bureaucratic routines of aid agencies and how they diminish the impact of aid.
The paper offers some principles for reforming the way aid is given and some steps to put them into practice. The bloggers commenting on the paper discuss, among other things: the European aid architecture, questioning whether national bilateral European aid agencies add value given their multitude, or whether a multilateral European aid institution should eventually replace the bilaterals.
Both the Dutch and the Danish debates have attracted comments from prominent academics and aid practitioners, and we recommend www.capacity4dev.eu users to visit the blogs, enjoy the reading and contribute to the debate!
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