Dilemmas in Donor Design: Organisational Reform and the Future of Foreign Aid Agencies
| Published date | 01 May 2015 |
| Date | 01 May 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1713 |
| Author | Nilima Gulrajani |
DILEMMAS IN DONOR DESIGN: ORGANISATIONAL REFORM AND THE
FUTURE OF FOREIGN AID AGENCIES
NILIMA GULRAJANI
1,2
*
1
Global Economic Governance Programme, University College, Oxford University, United Kingdom
2
London School of Economics, United Kingdom
SUMMARY
With growing uncertainty over the value and impact of traditional bilateral foreign aid to advance development in poor coun-
tries, there is disquiet about the future of national public agencies and ministries with responsibility for managing and delivering
international assistance. Growing reputational damage to foreign aid has triggered a lively discussion in development policy cir-
cles about the best structural configuration for organizing and governing international development functions within donor
countries. To date, public administration scholars with expertise in questions of bureaucratic design and performance have
yet to weigh in on this debate. This article is an attempt to present current controversies about donor governance and offer guid-
ance for resolving current dilemmas by exploring the potential contributions of public administration. Copyright © 2015 John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words—donors; foreign aid; organisational reform; aid architecture; aid; effectiveness; bilateral aid; aid agency
INTRODUCTION
It is a truth, although not at all universally acknowledged, that an international foreign aid agency in search of
higher performance must be in want of some kind of reform. Given the stubborn persistence of disease, poverty,
conflict and unemployment, efforts at continual improvement are the modus operandi for most donor organisations
struggling to demonstrate their effectiveness and self-worth. As the world continues to perceive the international
aid system as having failed to achieve the elimination of poverty—or worse, contributed to the endemic problems
of corruption, inflation and aid dependency in developing countries—donor organisational reform has almost be-
come endogenous to the act of aid-giving itself.
The dimensions of donor effectiveness—the donor-related organisational features that have a credible and pos-
itive impact on aid effectiveness—demands closer scholarly attention. Its importance is certainly underlined in
high-level global statements (Development Assistance Committee, 2005; Development Assistance Committee,
2008; Wood et al., 2011). Early on, the Paris Declaration of Aid Effectiveness set critical benchmarks for donor
performance; never before had donors been held to specific, time-bound commitments to conduct their operations
according to a globally accepted standard (Development Assistance Committee, 2005). Discouragingly, almost ten
years later, an evaluation of the Paris Declaration noted donor ‘unevenness’in meeting aid effectiveness targets and
unmet ‘commitments’to changing ways of working (Wood et al., 2011; Wood June 15 2011). A lack of policy
structures, poor compliance, arbitrary decision-making and disconnects between corporate strategies and agendas
are just some of the reasons attributed for donors not meeting their performance targets.
This article explores whether a tremendous desire for reform and change to donor organisation has the potential
to yield productive and promising outcomes. It offers a review of the ways donor organisations have been
*Correspondence to: N. Gulrajani, Global Economic Governance Programme, University College, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 4BH
United Kingdom. E-mail: ng-geg@univ.ox.ac.uk
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 35, 152–164 (2015)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1713
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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