From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

5 THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM AIDTHE QUALITY OF AIDGood aid can transform lives; bad aid undermines development. Aiddonors have always been motivated by a mixture of altruism, hubris,and self-interest. Sadly, when it comes to determining the prioritiesand methods of aid spending, dedicated and knowledgeable aidpractitioners are too often overruled by the dictates of domesticpolitics or geopolitical calculations. An analysis of President Bush’sbudget request for fiscal year 2008 showed that the largest recipients ofUS aid were Israel and Egypt (which between them absorb one out ofevery four US aid dollars), and concluded ‘the lion’s share of US foreignaid still goes to ten countries, the majority of which are geo-politicalallies in the “global war on terror” or the war on drugs’. 135 A highproportion of aid is tied to purchases of goods or services in the donorcountry, with aid programmes designed according to commercialself-interest rather than need. Aid can also fall prey to the shortattention span of politicians and their publics, who prefer projectsthat can show ‘results’ in a year or two to those that make a long-termcontribution.Aid allocation is often distorted by geopolitical interest. A recentstudy showed that when a developing country becomes a non-permanentmember of the UN Security Council, its aid from the USA increaseson average by 60 per cent. 136 In Europe’s case, cultural ties (for examplea shared language) and post-colonial guilt are also factors, with adisproportionate amount of aid going to former colonies. Otherproblems include Byzantine procedures, the policy changes thatdonors demand as conditions for giving aid, waste caused by tied aidand an over-reliance on technical assistance, and overlapping and unco-ordinatedapproaches that undermine state structures. Thesereduce the effectiveness of aid and can handicap the effort to buildactive citizenship and effective states.The delivery of aid is extraordinarily complex and cumbersome.Developing countries with limited numbers of trained officials mustgrapple with a proliferation of international ‘financing mechanisms’,including 90 global health funds set up to address specific diseases orproblems. Uganda has over 40 donors delivering aid in-country.Government of Uganda figures show that it had to deal with 684different aid instruments and associated agreements between 2003/04363