Comments for Accountability Matters

Comment on Aid Effectiveness – Key pre-Busan readings by A Busan reading list | Development Policy Blog

A Busan reading list | Development Policy Blog — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:47:14 +0000

[...] The following reading list has been supplied by Alan Hudson, the senior policy manager for governance (transparency and accountability) at ONE. He has also shared the list on his blog. [...]

Comment on Aid Effectiveness – Key pre-Busan readings by Pauline Rose

Pauline Rose — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:08:40 +0000

The list is extremely useful, many thanks for sharing.
To add a no. 16, the Education for All Global Monitoring Report has just produced a policy paper to show how aid effectiveness principles impact on education. See ‘Beyond Busan: Strengthening Aid to Improve Education Outcomes’
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/gmr2011-pp02-beyond-busan.pdf

Comment on My Ph.D. – Globalization, regulation and geography by Q: What does the Paris Declaration, the computer game Tetris and a ball of string have in common? « Serpents and Doves: A development policy blog

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:26:46 +0000

[...] my old PhD dissertation and put it out there in the world. Time to swallow the vertigo, follow Alan Hudson’s example, and give the people what they [...]

Comment on Development 3.0: Disempowering donors? by alan hudson

alan hudson — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:22:16 +0000

Thanks for your comment Charlotte. I agree that monitoring – done properly, in a way that takes account of the ways in which the landscape of governance changes, and the roles that donors do (and don’t) play in influencing those changes – is key. OM seems pretty promising. Someone needs to demonstrate that its promise is not illusory.

Just to clarify … disempowering donors would, in my view, be a good thing on the whole. Or, more precisely, things would be better if donors were to do the things that they can do effectively, recognise that they can’t and shouldn’t try to do everything, and then either stand back or preferably enable the primarily local actors who are better placed to contribute to the emergence of context-appropriate solutions to do their thing.

I’m leaving DFID at the end of March, so … that will put me in a different position in relation to these sorts of things ….

Comment on Development 3.0: Disempowering donors? by Charlotte Örnemark

Charlotte Örnemark — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:00:20 +0000

Hi Alan!
I like this line of thinking, especially around feedback loops. But I think we as development professionals have a tendency to over-emphasise positive (as opposed to negative) feedback loops. We need to monitor in order to find out whether our interventions actually lead to positive alignment = positive emergence, or to negative alignment = backlash and chaos. That’s where monitoring comes into the picture, and that’s where we go wrong when we are disputing the whole notion of having traceable (not necessarily measurable) indicators.

RCTs have a place and role in its own limited way in order to sometimes challenge pre-conceived ideas or as a platform for socialising evidence/create debate. But only combined with other tools like OM for programmers to keep his/her “finger on the pulse” to see what is actually happening. Anything that can widen the ‘expert interpretation’ of reality is clearly progress — and new technologies have a great role to play in that regard… I don’t think that is automatically “disempowering donors” (as per the heading of this blog post). But I do think donors will always (and rightly so) be concerned about having spent their money wisely and be able to justify that that is the case — it’s up to us to convince them, and stop taking assignment after assignement in the blind search for silver bullets or ‘global blueprints’.

Best, Charlotte
cor@ncg.dk, http://www.ncg.dk

(PS. Would be interesting to do some consultancy assignment together sometime in this field if you also work as an independent consultant beyond your current position!).

Comment on Aid and Accountabilities in Ethiopia by alan hudson

alan hudson — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:08:30 +0000

Hi Todd, No, the DAG did not look at programmes supported by the Global Fund. There is supposed to be a second phase to the work however. You might be interested in the recent DAG-Human Rights Watch exchanges

Comment on Aid and Accountabilities in Ethiopia by Todd Summers

Todd Summers — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:57:52 +0000

Alan –

Thanks for this. You don’t mention the Global Fund, which is a major aid provider in Ethiopia. I didn’t see mention of it in this study, so wondered if DAG had looked at GF-supported programs as part of this review.

Thanks

Comment on Governance: Complexity, emergence and measurement by Lee

Lee — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:30:22 +0000

Yeah…. not so sure about that outcome mapping thing…

Comment on Departure Day by alan hudson

alan hudson — Thu, 27 May 2010 07:33:05 +0000

Thanks Owen. I’ve learned a lot from our occasional disagreements (different emphases?), which is as it should be! Yep, see you back in the UK, if not before.

Comment on Departure Day by Owen Barder

Owen Barder — Thu, 27 May 2010 06:51:55 +0000

Alan – Thanks for all your work here; your thoughtfulness; your dedication; and for focusing on the key issue of accountability.

I like the new WordPress theme.

Good luck with your exciting next steps. See you in Blighty.

Owen