Spain: Evaluating development
Efficiency and quality. These are the 2 key areas that need to be addressed, agreed development organisations in Madrid
di Staff
Efficiency and quality. These are the two key areas that need to be addressed, agreed development organisations that met in Madrid last week to discuss and evaluate the health of Spanish aid delivery.
?We cannot say that we are satisfied. After several decades of experience the impacts of NGOs are small as are, to lesser or greater extent, those of aid agencies. Certainly there have been some improvements, but we had hoped for better.? This is how Josè Antonio Alonso, Director of the ICEI, a Spanish international research centre, summarised the failure of NGOs to combat poverty in the developing world during his speech at the 1st Spanish Development and External Aid Conference, held in Madrid on the 25-26th October.
The conference was attended by development experts, technicians, journalists, politicians, academics, NGOs and even bankers. A diversity of representatives to represent the multiple challenges that development poses. Two themes seemed common to all the voices that were expressed ? the need for coherency and cooperation between development actors. And the need for the government to take on a strong position, to lead the development effort.
Too many projects
?There are too many projects? said Elisabet Janè, a development expert and consultant, ?local governments cannot possibly deal with them all. For example, in 2004 there were 1,580 different development projects in Bolivia?. Janè went on to say that development projects often have too much visibility: ?By displaying the origin of aid the credibility of local governments and local population?s self esteem is undermined, and it shadows their own efforts?. It is also important, she said, for aid agencies and organisations to work together, without competition. ?We should stop being called development agents and begin to see our selves as development facilitators?, she concluded.
In this line, Alonso proposed that the sourcing of resources should be diversified, that new institutions and funding opportunities should be created so as to avoid reflecting existing power structures. New donors, such as Venezuela, China, India must be integrated into the development process and not seen just as a new source of funding.
North-centric evaluation
The president of CONGDE, the Spanish body that coordinates development NGOs in Spain, highlighted the importance of the evaluative stages of development projects while Alonso reminded the audience that evaluation is the means through which the many mistakes that are made in development efforts can be remedied.
Janè, who is a consultant in health systems and policies in Latin America, also highlighted the importance of evaluating projects from the point of view of those that are affected, rather than from the perspective of Northern based donors.
More info:
To read the article in its original context: www.canalsolidario.org/web
