Harvard Debate ‘11
Aid Conditionality Good
**TOPIC**
Resolved: Placing political conditions on humanitarian aid to foreign countries is unjust.
*Definitions*
Definition of Political Conditionality /Good Governance
ATTACHING CONDITIONS TO AID TO PROMOTE GOOD GOVERNANCE, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ARE POLITCAL CONDITIONALITY
Mark Robinson, Institute of Development Studies-University of Sussex, 1993, European Journal of Development Research, June, Vol. 5, Issue 1, [EBSCO], p. 89-90
Political conditionality only came on the aid policy agenda in a major way in the early 1990s despite the fact that political considerations figured in aid allocation decisions in the past, even if these were not always made explicit. Political conditionality refers to the linking of aid to administrative and political reform in recipient countries, in the pursuit of what is termed ‘good governance.’ There are four components to this: sound economic policies, that is, adherence to market principles and economic openness; competent public administration; open and accountable government; and respect for the rule of law and human rights.
POLITICAL CONDITIONALITY SOMETIMES CALLED "DEMOCRACY PROMOTION" AND "GOVERNANCE"
Andrew Mold, OECD, 2009, Policy Ownership and Aid Conditionality in the Light of the Financial Crisis: A Critical Review, Development Centre Studies, p. 57
Yet most donors are still reluctant to accept the idea that they impose “political conditionality” (Baylies, 1995), preferring the more acceptable terms of “democracy promotion” or “governance” conditionalities. Democracy promotion was largely unheard of during the Cold War. It was only with the collapse of the Soviet Union that western countries felt confident enough to pursue not only economic but also democratisation goals through their aid programmes. Buiter (2004) points out that all process conditionality (where donors try to impose certain ways of carrying out policies or decision taking) is in fact political or governance conditionality, with sometimes only a fine line between the two. For instance, of 20criteria applied by the World Bank and the African Development Bank in annual CPIA to determine eligibility for aid, six criteria concern governance. These cover matters such as anti-corruption, property rights, tax collection and public consent for policies (Sogge, 2002, p. 132).
GOOD GOVERNANCE AGENDA INCLUDES ANTI-CORRUPTION, RULE OF LAW, AND ACCOUNTABILITY EFFORTS
Heather Marquette, Department of Politics, University of Durham, 2001, Crime, Law & Social Change, 36:395-407, p. 395
The great political upheaval of the early 1990s changed the way donors approach foreign aid, and ushered in an era of good governance and political conditionality. Along with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of command economies, came what has been referred to as a “Third-Wave” of democratization in the developing world. Combined with the rise of neo-liberalism and economic liberalisation, ever-shrinking aid budgets and increased media attention on dictatorial Third World regimes squandering foreign aid, donors offered support for the removal of authoritarian governments and the spread of democracy in the Third World, largely in the form of election assistance, but also judicial reform, training of the media, and support for civil society, among other things. Concurrent with assistance for democratisation efforts has been a growing concern with the effects of corruption on development, and an increasing emphasis within the donor community on assistance for anti-corruption strategies. For most donors, these changes have gone hand in hand. Good governance, or good government, equals democratic government, and anti-corruption tends to be placed within an overall strategy of assistance for democratisation efforts, which also includes related themes such as enhanced participation, strengthening of the rule of law, multi-party elections, institution building and making governments more accountable to their electorates.
Definition of Humanitarian Assistance
HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE : RELIEF MEASURES FOR POPULATIONS IN DISTRESS
Catherine Lu, Political Science Professor-McGill University, 2006, Just and Unjust Interventions in World Politics: Public and Private, p. 139-40
I will use the terms "humanitarian action" and "humanitarian assistance" to refer to relief measures for populations in distress, provided mainly by international or nongovernmental humanitarian organizations, and "human rights advocacy" to describe the work of human rights organizations, which includes investigating, monitoring and reporting of human rights violations. In reality, all of these practices--military action against a sovereign state for humanitarian reasons, the delivery of humanitarian assistance to victims of intrastate violence and human rights advocacy -- are forms of "humanitarian intervention." That is, they are all inteventionary in the sense that they challenge, albeit using radically different means, the way that a domestic sovereign authority is treating people within its borders, and they all share a common justificatory framework for their actions that is located within a cosmopolitan moral orientation.
**STATUS QUO**
*Aid Subject to Political Conditionality Now*
Current US Assistance Conditioned on Good Governance
MCA INCREASES US DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE AND TIES IT TO GOOD GOVERNANCE CONDITIONALITY
Wil Hout, Associate Professor World Development in the Hague, 2007, The Politics of Aid Selectivity: good governance criteria in World Bank, US and Dutch development assistance, p. 70
With around $19.7 billion allocated to Official Development Assistance (ODA), the United States was the world’s largest bilateral donor in 2004. As ODA was only 0.17 percent of its gross national income, the United States, in relative terms, was at the same time one of the least generous donors in the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 2006a). On 14 March 2002, President Bush announced his plan for the so-called Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which aimed at a gradual increase of the US budget for development assistance and should result in additional spending of $5 billion a year as of FY 2006. In a speech to the Inter-American Development Bank, Bush called the MCA “a ‘new compact for development’ that increases accountability for rich and poor nations alike linking greater contributions by developed nations to greater responsibility by developing nations” (US Government 2002).
US CONDITIONS AID ON GOOD GOVERNANCE – KEY TO MEETING MULTIPLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Lael Brainard, Brookings Institute-International Economics, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 14-5
By contrast, there are no such complications associated with the objective of strengthening governance—loosely defined as transparent and accountable government, predictable and fair administration of laws and regulations, and restraint on corruption. Good governance is a sine qua non of the development process and essential for a variety of other objectives, including reducing conflict and containing transnational threats such as pandemics, illegal narcotics, and weapons proliferation. The World Bank and the broader research community have measured and tested a wide variety of institutional features that differentiate the governance environment in various countries, with results that are starting to provide concrete guidance for practitioners in the field. In recent years, America increasingly has used foreign assistance to purse governance reforms either through program content or conditions for eligibility. Indeed, the newest U.S. development agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, for the first time makes progress on corruption and “ruling justly” –although not democracy per se – an explicit criterion for eligibility. Nonetheless, actually achieving good governance remains an implementation challenge.
Aid Conditionality Inevitable
CONDITIONALITY IS INEVITABLE
Andrew Mold, OECD, 2009, Policy Ownership and Aid Conditionality in the Light of the Financial Crisis: A Critical Review, Development Centre Studies, p. 14-5
Conditionality is therefore inevitable in some shape or form. The controversy remains over its depth and breadth (in other words, how stringent and numerous the conditions are). Conditionality has grown enormously in scale and scope since the 1980s debt crisis: aid has become conditional on wide-ranging economic, environmental or social policies, such as macroeconomic stabilisation, privatisation or increased investment in health or education. Conditions may also cover political governance and reform. This is something which arguably goes against the very spirit of democratisation and the contemporary empowerment discourse – “conditionality gone mad” in the words of Edwards (1999, p. 118). Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist, puts this case most emphatically:
“Why hasn’t hundreds of billions of dollars of aid transformed the continent? It’s because governments listen too much to aid providers and too little to their own citizens. Because the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund give so much money to governments, they find themselves in the odd position of telling national leaders what their people need... from the outside.”
Similar views have been expressed by others. Ravi Kanbur (2000, p. 8), an ex-senior member of staff of the World Bank, argues: “In my view, the real cost to Africa of the current aid system is...the fact that it wastes much national energy and political capital in interacting with donors’ agencies, and diverts attention from domestic debate and consensus building.”
Aid Conditionality Growing
CONDITIONALITY HAS GROWN
Andrew Mold, OECD, 2009, Policy Ownership and Aid Conditionality in the Light of the Financial Crisis: A Critical Review, Development Centre Studies, p. 27
Conditionality has grown over the last three decades in a way probably unimaginable in the early years of development aid. Donors now have an enormous influence on policy decision making and execution in areas as disparate as democracy, judicial reform, corporate governance, health, education and environmental policy (Chang, 2005). As Robert Chambers (2005, p. 39) has noted,
“Now, to a degree that during the 1960s would have been vilified as gross neo-colonialism, in many small and low-income countries –especially in sub-Saharan Africa – lenders and donors not only fund much government expenditure (over 50 per cent in Uganda, for example), but also call many of the policy shots.”
“Normal Means” is Aid Conditionality
AID CONDITIONALITY IS THE NORM
Olav Stokke, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 1995, Aid and Political Conditionality, ed. Olav Stokke, p. 19
This is a striking observation, particularly since social justice has been the main justification and core objective of development aid, especially for the most ardent providers. Conditionality has come to the fore in connection with those objectives which now have gained the ascendancy but which were previously seen as secondary in the aid setting, namely economic and political reform involving neoliberalism, human rights and democracy. This represents a change of perspective, even an overall change of priority, particularly as far as the governments most committed to aid are concerned.
NORMAL MEANS IS TO CONDITION AID
Olav Stokke, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 1995, Aid and Political Conditionality, ed. Olav Stokke, p. 34
Conditions set by the donor are part of everyday life in aid relations – they are the “normal” pattern, involving most aid forms. The donor, more often than not, holds strong views with regard to objectives, modalities, and even implementation. Other types of conditions with an impact on the real value of ODA transfers to the recipients have also been – and still are – applied: the grant-credit ratio (the grant element of ODA) and procurement tying of aid. The more recent trend, and our main concern, is that conditions have been extended to systemic elements, including the very system of government, the legal system and the administrative system on the recipient side.
AID HAS SHIFTED FROM PROJECT LENDING TO CONDITIONALITY
Paul Mosley & Marion J. Eeckhout, University of Sheffield (Development Economics) and World Bank, 2000, Foreign Aid and Development: lessons learnt and directions for the future, ed. F. Tarp, p. 131
Since 1980, overseas aid has transformed itself. Although seeking to perform the same purpose as in the early 1970s – the promotion of economic development, with an emphasis on poverty reduction, and with broadly the same resources (about $50 billion in 1998 prices) – it now uses different instruments to achieve that purpose. As illustrated by Table 5.1, the project aid component of aid budgets has declined severely from the early 1970s (sometimes to the point of collapse) and other aid instruments have expanded to fill the vacuum, notably technical co-operation, policy-conditioned program aid, support for the private sector and for NGOs and emergency assistance.
*Aid Not Subject to Political Conditionality Now*
Current Aid to Middle East Not Conditioned
US HAS NOT CONDITIONED ASSISTANCE TO MIDDLE EAST
Patrick Cronin & Tarek Ghani, Director-International Institute for Strategic Studies & Policy Assistant-Center for Global Development, 2007, Security By Other Means: foreign assistance, global poverty, and American leadership, ed. L. Brainard, p. 202-3
Democratic reform and more accountable governance have not been a priority of U.S. strategic assistance to the region. Congressional attempts to link Middle East ESF to other human rights or economic issues had always been opposed and defeated by successive administrations. Nonetheless, lawmakers have sought to ensure that U.S. assistance supports a range of reforms. For Egypt only, Congress required that any portion provided as cash transfer “shall be provided with the understanding that Egypt will undertake economic reforms which are additional to those which were undertaken in previous fiscal years.” And indeed, cash payments as a percentage of ESF have declined, in part because this form of government-to-government assistance does not offer benchmarks for measuring results.
Aid Conditionality Declining
UNIQUENESS: MOST AID IS NOT CONDITIONED
Joan M. Nelson & Stephanie J. Eglinton, Overseas Development Council, 1993, Global Goals, Contentious Means: issues of multiple aid conditionality, p. 29-30
Focusing more narrowly on aid, it is important to keep in mind two points. First, most aid is not designed to influence the policies of recipients. Second, even where aid donors do seek to encourage policy reforms, they often rely primarily on persuasion and support rather than pressure.
With the exception of IMF financing, most bilateral and multilateral aid traditionally has not been primarily intended to alter policies, but to promote specific goals such as expanded irrigation, agricultural research, or improved roads or schools. Even the World Bank continues to provide most of its aid in the form of projects, which do not have policy reform as their basic aim. A large share of aid – particularly from smaller donors such as the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, and Canada – is designed to reduce poverty directly but does not seek to alter government policies affecting the poor. Similarly, a wide range of projects assist protection of the environment and democratic civic organizations but do not address government policies.
Where donors do seek to influence policies, much of their effort takes the forms of persuasion and support. For example, the World Bank conducts a wide array of short courses for technical officials from developing countries intended to deepen their understanding of economic management and ultimately to influence their policy choices. The IMF regularly reviews with member governments their economic situation and policies. These periodic consultations (mandated under Article IV of the Fund’s charter) are exercises in persuasion intended to encourage better policies and to avoid the need for emergency assistance (and the accompanying pressure) under the Fund’s conditional arrangements. Bilateral donors also engage in regular policy dialogue with aid-recipient governments.