Comments

Daisy It is such a shame that this subject matter exists. That it does and that it is globally prevalent remains a plight of humanity. That said, your work and this story is truly inspirational. With more like you taking a meaningful stand, to support those effected, and to work to change behaviours and attitudes, maybe we can imagine a world where violence against women and girls is not only not accepted or ignored, it is extinguished. M

Thanks Don for raising this important issue again - I would have responded even if you had been more polite. The points World Vision made were that: 1. If we can help people to survive and live healthy lives this should be given priority in our assistance to people in poorer countries. 2. The strategies required to provide effective health aid are well understood and aid for health has the strongest evidence base of all aid interventions. There is much less known about how to reliably boost economic growth through aid - there is potential to waste a lot of aid with unproven economic development schemes. 3. Health aid has had a huge impact – helping to halve child deaths since 1990, cut new HIV, TB and malaria infections and deaths etc. 4. Many people are still not receiving adequate health care (eg the 35% of mothers without access to a trained birth attendant, 9 million eligible people still not receiving AIDS treatment, the three million people not receiving TB treatment each year, children not receiving rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines etc) - but most could if more dollars were available. 5. The average cost to save a life reported by both GAVI (http://bit.ly/1hUABlI) and the Global Fund (http://bit.ly/1fvnbJE) is around US$2000. Last month The Lancet published the findings of a detailed investment framework for maternal and child health. The authors found that deaths could be averted at an average cost of US$2240 in 35 low income countries (see Appendix of http://bit.ly/18tb7sJ). It should not be surprising that many opportunities exist to prevent deaths at low cost – many of the major causes of death in developing countries such as malaria, TB, diarrhoea, pneumonia and many birth complications can be effectively prevented or treated for tens of dollars. I think that this is a very important debate and I would be very interested to hear from you and others about which parts of this argument you disagree with.

Garth, your contributions to the aid debate have not been great. Were you the 'genius' at WVA who got Costello to run around using the $2000 per life figure???????

Hi Tess, Thanks a lot for your comment - both very important points. The first is particularly crucial as challenge funds are seen as 'light-touch', which often translates as 'cheap'. That's why prioritisation across the portfolio is important (which I think ECF did well? I remember not all of your projects went for audit) I also agree with the second point - especially when trying to assess intangible aspects like the additionality of the grant, there's no substitute for good local knowledge. Which also doesn't come cheap, and in many places is hard to find at all... ECF just published a report on their experiences of using the DCED Standard, which is well worth a read - http://www.enterprisechallengefund.org/images/publicationsandreports/Designing%20a%20results%20measurement%20system%20for%20the%20ECF%20Nov%202013.pdf Best wishes Adam

Hi Tess, I agree with your concerns around state-based anti-corruption agencies, they have a pretty poor track record around the world, particularly in developing countries. PNG is trying to learn from these experiences. The National Anti-Corruption Strategy Working Group has compared ‘best practice’ to PNG’s draft Organic Law: http://www.actnowpng.org/sites/default/files/ICAC%20public%20discussion%20paper%20May%202013.pdf. While there are some areas where the draft legislation is in line with ‘best practice’, there are still many concerns – including unease about the proposed ICAC’s independence, accountability, ability to pursue past corruption (eg that uncovered by Taskforce Sweep), and processes around securing resources. I’m also disappointed to see that the ICAC will focus on public officials; I think that far more attention needs to be given to private sector corruption in PNG. Parliament has just passed a constitutional amendment for an ICAC, and we are waiting for the Organic Law to get passed. So, we still don’t know what the final law will look like, or if the ICAC will make it over the remaining legislative hurdles. Having said that, I think that in the short-term an ICAC could be useful. It could play a role in better coordinating anti-corruption responses – a key to Taskforce Sweep’s success. It also has the potential to help augment government processes, and to improve prosecution rates. As our survey suggests these improvements would be welcomed. However, by itself it’s unlikely that ICAC will effect long-lasting change. Sustained change will most likely come from a broader cultural shift. As a part of this, anti-corruption agencies will need to prove (not just promote) that transparency and accountability have tangible pay-offs. This is particularly the case in rural and remote areas, where most of the population live. If the public is convinced that corruption is damaging to resources and social harmony, they will be more likely to support an ICAC and other efforts to address corruption. I’d like to see a lot more discussion on shifting public attitudes towards corruption, and what role donors, state-based organizations, NGOs, and GROs could play in bringing this about. Grant

Thanks for this Adam, it is a really clear exposition of some key principles. As a (former) country manager for ECF I was involved in numerous discussions about appropriate principles for monitoring projects and I would agree that the current iteration of ECF monitoring and evaluation is much improved from how it started with it being a much truer reflection of these standards. I would add two things to this. One is implied in what you have written here but bears explicit statement and that is funders need to be prepared to invest in monitoring and evaluation and be explicit in recognising that it is likely to be expensive. Exciting and innovative projects located in rural areas with limited transportation links will require site visits and these need to be budgeted for up front. The second (and this applies to other stages of challenge fund activity including formulating criteria for selection, designing application procedures) is the need to know and understand the context in which (potentially) participating businesses operate (and remember that challenge funds work with existing businesses so that is a good location of knowledge about these things) - this includes legal, regulatory, political and cultural issues which may have an impact on the ability of a business to participate in the fund or contribute to monitoring activities.

Hi Edward Social networks are important and underpin our communities. I wanted to clarify that my comment didn't intend any disrespect toward the wantok system. As you've said, it does come down to the context - the context in which a network is operating and how the it's being utilised. Cheers Jen

Hi Grant You're most welcome to use the Robin Hood analogy :). By framing it with a legend familiar to our culture, I think it makes it easier to relate/understand others' perceptions. Cheers Jen

Two points are worth noting with regards to the comments on overheads. 1. Delivering aid well is hard and success requires staff. The best overheads ratio isn't the lowest but rather the ratio the allows time for staff to learn context, engage with evidence and make informed decisions, while not being wasteful. There's no reason to think the current ratio errs on the wasteful side of the line. 2. OCED data on overheads (unless they have changed since I last looked into this) are based on self-reporting and different countries call different things overheads. Something that renders international comparisons largely meaningless.

I wonder what the millions of people who still can't get AIDS or TB treatment because of a shortage of funding think about the quality of the discussions about aid in our Parliament?

Hi Edward, Nice to hear from you. I'm with you on the importance of context. Although there are also many similarities in the way Papua New Guineans and Westerners understand corruption. It's worth remembering that most respondents were unsympathetic to the scenarios. I think that it is important to understand these similarities when seeking to engage citizens in the fight against corruption. Cheers, Grant

Thanks Jen, interesting comments. Some of the responses do suggest a kind of Robin Hood approach to redistributing gains from corruption, although I most condemned all forms of corruption. I might just borrow the Robin Hood concept for upcoming papers though...hope you don't mind...it's rather catchy. Thanks!! Grant