Blog Posts
The Case for Using Project-Level Data to Study Aid Distribution and Impact
"Brad discusses how the detailed data gathered by the AidData project has helped researchers uncover how project aid targeted at certain sectors can reduce terrorism." -- Read it all at The Monkey Cage Blog
Introducing AidData 2.0
"AidData launched its new and improved website last month, featuring more content and new data and marking an expansion in the program's mission and scope. The new website highlights innovative projects to find new ways of gathering, managing, and visualizing development finance information, such as geocoding and crowdsourcing. Maps that show the geographical distribution of specific donor-funded activities offer a powerful way to help decision makers and citizens ask the right questions about aid allocation and effectiveness." -- Read it all at here
Mapping World Bank Project Success Patterns in Afghanistan: Does the Spatial Distribution of Violence Matter?
"The World Bank’s Open Data initiative has demonstrated―in spades―that universally accessible data can provoke new research questions and turn conventional wisdom on its head. However, for a variety of reasons, donors seldom release comparable project evaluation data. The scarcity of reliable project-level evaluation data has created an important gap in the aid effectiveness literature. While economists and political scientists have undertaken hundreds and hundreds of econometric studies to assess the impact of aggregate aid flows on various development outcomes, the research community still knows relatively little about the project-level determinants of successful donor-sponsored projects." -- Read it all at The First Tranche
The Elusive Quest for Effective Aid Management in Liberia
"Augustine Ngafuan has an unenviable task. As Liberia's Minister of Finance, he is responsible for trying to manage the tidal wave of development assistance flowing into his country. The vast majority of Liberia's foreign aid is "off-budget," which means that money goes directly to NGOs and contractors to implement development projects...[C]ountries like Liberia pose a catch 22: how does a cash-poor government go about strengthening its institutions when donors are preoccupied with designing, implementing, and evaluating their own projects?" -- Read it all at The First Tranche
Grassroots Monitoring and Aid Effectiveness: Does Greater Community Involvement Matter?
"There is growing evidence that in many developing countries a substantial percentage of public funding for sectors such as health, education, and infrastructure never reaches the intended beneficiaries... How can the donor community reduce leakage and increase the impact of aid?" -- Read all at The First Tranche
New MDG Strategy Document Signals USG Commitment to Aid Transparency
"One week from today, President Obama is expected to deliver a major speech on U.S. global development policy at a United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals. There is much speculation about whether the President's speech will coincide with the release of the State Department's long-awaited Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). However, those chomping at the bit to gain some initial insight into the administration's priorities should read the new USG strategy to meet the MDGs..." -- Read all at The First Tranche
Leveraging the "Wisdom of Crowds": Enhanced Project View and Crowd-Sourcing
"A growing number of scholars and policy wonks argue that foreign assistance is characterized by a "broken feedback loop": donor agencies and development banks are not, strictly speaking, accountable to their beneficiaries and they generally have weak incentives to disseminate information about the efficacy of their programs... One potential remedy is to make it easier for project beneficiaries and local stakeholders in developing countries to share real-time performance information with Western donor agencies..."
-- Read all at The First Tranche
