Theory in Practice

It’s full speed ahead on building capacity for resilience to climate change and other shocks like earthquakes and droughts and flooding. It’s the thing that everyone (ie: the development community and donors) wants to be good at, known for. Because of course. Of course no one in a country vulnerable to climate change, on the forefront of climate change like small island states (SIDS), could possibly build resilience on their own, or have a concept of what it means. Of course not, because they haven’t projectized it, aren’t carrying a logframe full of indicators of their success and targets for themselves, their family, their community in their back pocket.

If you have 30 minutes to spare, you need to read an article by Matt Kennard and Claire Provost in Mail&Guardian Afric a. It’s long, but well worth your time, particularly if you’re on the fence about private sector financing of international development. Yes, development organizations need more money if the SDGs are to be achieved, and there is certainly space for the private sector to play a role. The question is, what role?

Value for money. Somewhere someone got this confused with aid effectiveness and the results have been disastrous. Where aid effectiveness asks if the money spent is resulting in effective, sustainable change, value for money looks at how much you can get for each dollar spent. While efficiency is important (not hiring six consultants where one will do), efficiency and value for money are not the same thing, and this is causing big problems in the world of development. As I discussed in a previous article, donors are saying one thing (‘our focus is to reach the poorest, the most vulnerable’) and doing another (demanding value for money, restricting development work to the easy stuff), focusing on the safest, easiest-to-reach communities because it is cheaper and demonstrates quicker results. The real result? More and more people are left behind.