How Does the Objective of Aid Affect Its Impact on Accountability? Evidence from Two Aid Programmes in Uganda

Abstract

Recent research indicates that the political impact of aid, including its impact on accountability institutions, is contingent on its objective. This article explains how this occurs. It relies on evidence from two aid programmes in Uganda, one targeted at poverty reduction and one at democratic governance. I argue that the stated objective of aid programmes masks a deeper cause; individual aid managers’ views of what development entails and how it should be pursued. The evidence suggests that the ‘almost revolution’ in which development has purportedly confronted politics is far more partial, contested, and uneven than many admit.

Abbreviations

CSO: civil society organisation; DFID: Department for International Development, United Kingdom; DGF: Democratic Governance Facility; JAF: joint assessment framework; JBSF: Joint Budget Support Framework; MoU: memorandum of understanding; NGO: non-government organisation; NRM: National Resistance Movement; OPM: Office of the Prime Minister; PBO: Parliamentary Budget Office; PFM: public financial management.

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to Philip Oxhorn (McGill University), the editor, and the referees for their comments on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Others doubt the existence of a ‘foreign aid curse’ (see Altincekic & Bearce, 2014).

2. Recent research has questioned the analogy between aid and natural resource rents, particularly oil revenues (Bermeo, 2016).

3. As a result, their ‘economic aid’ captures several categories of aid (including general budget support) that Jones and Tarp (2016) categorise as ‘other’.

4. Originally titled the Public Finance Bill 2012, later the Public Finance Management Bill 2012.

5. The Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Act, 2013 and the Petroleum (Refining, Gas Processing and Conversion, Transportation and Storage) Act, 2013. These are commonly referred to as the Petroleum Act (No. 1) and the Petroleum Act (No. 2).

6. Some interviewees requested that their embassy or organisation not be identified. I therefore identify most donors only as a bilateral or multilateral donor.

7. Requests for relevant documents were submitted to three donors; the United Kingdom (DFID), Norway (Norad and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs), and the EU (European Commission DG International Cooperation and Development). FOI requests made to Norwegian agencies were broader in scope due to the Norwegian government’s long-standing practice of listing all potentially available documents online. Unpublished documents obtained through these requests and cited in this paper are available from the author on request.

8. The World Bank, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.

9. Plans to sign this were well advanced in 2012 but derailed by a corruption scandal at Uganda’s Office of the Prime Minister. In practice this made little difference as for the most-part the MoU simply formalised the existing management structures linked to JBSF (former Head of DFID Uganda, personal communication, 21 September 2015).

10. The Auditor-General referred to the affected funds as budget support but aid managers interviewed were adamant they were a form of basket funding.

11. The Parliament ultimately made several amendments to the PFM Bill. These are discussed in more detail below.

12. This view was expressed by several respondents in interviews conducted by the author in Malawi (June–July 2013) and Zambia (October–November 2013). Respondents included MPs and parliamentary support staff.

13. I attended this meeting as an observer on 4 February 2014. Attendees included the Chair of the Budget Committee, representatives from bilateral donors (including many budget support donors), multilateral donors and the Ministry of Finance.

14. The doctrine of implied repeal holds that when an Act of Parliament conflicts with an earlier one, the later Act takes precedence and the conflicting parts of the earlier Act are repealed.

15. The founders of the DGF were Austria, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the European Union. All were initial members of the JBSF, though by 2012 both Austria and the Netherlands had ceased providing budget support.

16. The relevant provision was section 9 of the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Bill 2012. This ultimately became section 8 of the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Act 2013.