From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERand 2006/07, for aid coming into the central budget alone. Theisland of St. Vincent (population 117,000) was asked to monitor 191different indicators on HIV and AIDS. 137In 2006 some Malian civil servants spent over 100 days managingdonor missions (a telling expression) from just two of the country’sdonors, the World Bank and the IMF – that is one in every threeworking days. A senior official from the Ministry of Finance in Malinoted,‘They usually come three to four times a year and stay for morethan one week, visiting up to ten ministries at a time when here.Our hands are completely tied.’ 138 A survey of 14 countries by theOECD and the World Bank showed an average of 200 donor missionsper year, three-quarters of these by a handful of donors (the ‘chronictravellers’). Cambodia and Viet Nam each received 400 missions,Nicaragua 289, Bolivia 270, and Bangladesh 250. 139Most aid is still given on a short-term basis (one to three years) 140and its volume tends to fluctuate,undermining the ability of developingcountryofficials to undertake long-term planning and investment. Arecent study by the IMF, for example, revealed that aid flows are morevolatile than fiscal revenues, and the higher the aid dependency of acountry, the more the volume fluctuates. Worryingly, the studyshowed that aid volatility has increased in recent years. 141 Unable tocount on steady revenue, developing-country governments hesitate toinvest in recurrent costs, such as the salaries of public sector workers,which are a crucial step in providing essential services such as healthcare, education, social protection, and water and sanitation.Donors continue to force developing countries to give back a considerablepart of their aid money by making them purchase inappropriateand expensive goods and services from the donor country. TheOECD estimates that such ‘tied aid’ raises costs by between 15 and 30per cent. 142 In 2001, OECD members agreed to untie all their bilateralaid to least developed countries (LDCs), except for food aid and technicalassistance. However, as of 2006, only the UK, Sweden, Ireland,Luxembourg, and the Netherlands were abiding by this agreement,with all other donors falling far short. The USA was the worst culprit,with 70 per cent of its bilateral aid to LDCs remaining tied. 143The professionalisation of the aid field over the past 30 yearshas led to improved levels of monitoring, evaluation, reflection, and364