Western Governments and Good Governance

I’ve read a few pieces recently about bad governance, asking western governments to take note of a local situation. See this post on Rwanda where the author despairs of the government’s authoritarian bent:

I am trying hard but I really do not see how Kagame’s government can be rationally defended.

Or this letter by Easterly and various high profile NGO types on Ethiopia:

America and its Western allies have aligned themselves closely with Ethiopia’s government in the fight against radical Islamists in the Horn of Africa and in efforts to prevent a repeat of the 1984–1985 famine. Worthy as these goals are, we should not allow them to blind us to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s increasingly authoritarian bent—as exhibited by his regime’s 99.6 percent election victory in 2010 and most recently the decision to prosecute Eskinder as a terrorist, along with seven other dissidents.

Or see this news piece where Youssou N’dour, the Senegalese singer and presidential hopeful, says:

“I appeal to the whole world, to those who are not yet clear on this: We need to tell him [President Wade] the truth… Tell him clearly, Obama, Sarko, Cameron, Merkel, et cetera, tell him that the fundamental law, that which governs Senegal, does not allow him to stand. That he must not force it because it is better to be safe than sorry. I say this because generally they (these leaders) stay out of it until there are problems. We don’t need that in Senegal, it is a country of peace.”

David Booth from the ODI had a piece in the guardian a while ago looking at governance and aid. Let me repeat my two penny worth: western governments aren’t good at responding to bad governance by cutting aid. They find it difficult to withhold aid from poor countries when they can see the good it is doing. I think it is also important for people to hear how convincing the argument that ‘governance must be understood relatively’ can be.  Tony Blair on the excellent development drums sounds very compelling. I disagree, but you should feel the weight of the arguments to understand the problem donors have.  It is difficult for donors to consistently withhold aid in the face of bad governance as there is always doubt about whether it is the right course of action. I argue that pragmatic selectivity is more feasible: alter the type of aid not the volume. This means that recipients do have an incentive to reform, while being more realistic about the limits of donor action.

USA follows UK in adding gay-rights to list of aid conditions

A few weeks back, in the first proper post on this blog, I discussed the UK’s decision to make gay rights a key factor in deciding aid receipts. I noted that

1. Aid volumes aren’t responsive to different levels of policy/human rights (Clist 2011)
2. This means adding another thing to be worried about is plain silly.
3. However, the UK are being quite clever, by threatening to alter the type of aid that countries get
4. They can to that (Clist, Isopi and Morrissey 2012)

Well, the US have come out and said that they also want to add gay rights to the list of aid conditions (guardian, bbc and nytimes). First, let’s look at some reaction from Rick Perry’s campaign:

  “Promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money”

NB: he’s falling further behind in the race for the republican nomination. I’m not sure what special rights he means here, as I thought that these were just fairly straight forward rights. Next, Bill Easterly:

“Great: aid to respect rights for gays in poor cos. Next step: respect rights for straights in poor cos”

on twitter (and versions using full words on facebook and G+ no doubt).

My thoughts? Well, the news reports are inconclusive about what this actually means. I certainly wouldn’t expect the US to suddenly vary aid in response to gay rights when it is fairly insensitive to general indicators of policy, and even poverty. Which means one of two things. One, it could be about domestic politics (see Rick Perry quote). Two, this is about part of the on going policy influence that is difficult to measure and so, almost inevitably, widely overestimated or underestimated by various people.

Donors seem to try and use aid to promote multiple contradictory aims, and fail to notice this. Most recipients of aid have noticed this however, and will duly ignore the threats. Which means this news story is probably one you can ignore.

 

Gay Rights Join list of Aid Conditions: Liberals Torn

So, the UK is angry that in Uganda homosexual acts are illegal: bbc article. And David Cameron, showing his liberal side, has talked tough and threatened to cut general budget support to Uganda unless they change this. Where do we start? This is a typically tricky issue for liberals, as they are choosing between the rights of a sovereign country to decide their own laws, and the rights of gay people in those countries. It seems most commentators have come down on the side of the rights of gay people, but neither position is particularly comfortable.

First, obviously we don’t like the idea that homosexual acts are illegal. Sometimes it ends in prison, more often there is violence or a threat of violence towards gay people. This normally isn’t state-backed, but the general feeling is that governments turn a blind eye towards violence towards gay people.

Second, aid conditions have a long and inglorious history. Aid donors justifiably want value for money, and so ask for certain promises. These have included everything from very specific technical financial processes to a very general promise to improve human rights. But do these conditions work? Not really, no. There are a lot of donors, a lot of noise and in the end donors simply don’t want to punish the poor because their governments make decisions they disagree with. They don’t have the stomach for it. Choosing recipients on what they’ve already done (ex post conditionality) rather than promises of what they might do (ex-ante), may seem a more plausible option. But the evidence isn’t good there either (Clist 2011).

But this case is somewhat different. It is a reaction to a very specific piece of law/policy in one country. A good example of this kind of conditionality is the Tanzanian air traffic cotrol system that the Labour party fussed about in 2001, without really coming to a strong conclusion. The internal dialogue illustrated how difficult it is to draw your line in the sand. Back in the present day, I agreed with most of what Jonathan Glennie had to say on the subject: let’s not impose yet more conditions on aid. My reason is that donors are unable to enforce the ones they already try to enforce. He takes a much more liberal viewpoint (“donors should not set themselves up as moral arbiters”), and embraces the liberal panacea: let the UN decide what constitutes good/bad human rights. Hmm. I can’t see the UN having more stomach to punish bad recipients than the UK. They aren’t exactly a body renowned for decisive leadership.

So, what is my take on this? I actually think DFID are being quite sensible in their implementation. If you read the articles carefully, you’ll note that they don’t threaten to cut aid. They threaten to change the type of aid. There is good evidence that donors do already vary the type of aid in response to policy/governance (Clist et al 2011, Knack et al 2009 and hey, why not, my phd’s penultimate chapter). I call this pragmatic selectivity: accepting that you can’t change the volume of aid in response to policy, but you can change the type of aid. But if donors want to have policy input, they need to decide on some priorities. While aid is an important part of recipient budgets, it is spread over many different donors, which dilutes their influence. Owen Barder has expressed similar pessimism over the effect of aid on policy in various places. Diluting influence further by focusing on ‘15 key criteria’ means you end up having no influence. The donor that prioritises everything priorities nothing. A little bit more pragmatism/humility would be good.