Tackling rural poverty, together

Extract

In order to formulate an answer to the persistent criticism that aid lacks effectiveness, since the mid 1990s bilateral and multilateral donors have developed initiatives to alter the organisation and purpose of aid. The key theme addressed is the need for better coordination of aid: among donors and between donors and recipient governments.

Dutch development cooperation has endeavoured to engage with these international developments. Introduced at the end of 1998, the sector-wide approach was intended to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of the aid. The underlying principle was that aid should be aligned as much as possible with the policy and financial management frameworks of the recipient country’s government.

This was accompanied by a strong preference for providing budgetary aid. These principles were expressed in the policy memorandum Mutual Interests, Mutual Responsibilities, presented to Parliament after the change of government in 2003. The policy memorandum also contained new priorities for sector policy that have influenced all subsequent Dutch bilateral aid.

This evaluation is intended to answer the question of what has become of the policy intentions of the sector-wide approach. In the early chapters it analyses the changes in policy and their implementation. The later chapters examine whether the desired increase in the recipient countries’ ownership of the aid has been achieved and what repercussions this has had on the approach to poverty reduction.