5. Manage risk: Stop the pretense that major scaling up is possible without facing up to and managing risk. As the unsettling recent experience of the Global Fund shows (regarding donor recriminations over fiduciary concerns), there needs to be clear agreement between board and management—and transparency with stakeholders and publics—on the assumption and management of risk. Risk management includes positive reinforcement of accountability and transparency policies that uncover and address corruption or other serious issues. And it means facing up to needed changes in policies and even business models.
6. Have a constant focus on impact at the country level. This means avoiding a narrow view of scaling up, in which each donor goes from its own pilot project to scaling up particular (sets of) interventions. It means scaling up using the agreed upon, experience-based principles of aid effectiveness from the 2005 Paris Declaration: ownership, alignment, harmonization, results, and mutual accountability. Scaling up also must be done as part of broader sector and multisector systems. This applies to scaling up at all levels—specific interventions, broad regional programs (such as rural or community development), sectorwide country programs, and global initiatives like the Global Fund, the GAVI Alliance, or the SUN movement.
7. Match means and ends. The Global Fund aimed to maximize impact by rounds of one-off contests (challenge grants). Experience shows that contests are well suited to producing innovative research or pilot projects, but they are poorly suited to longer-run partnerships or major scaling up; they raise problems of predictability and sustainability, particularly for programs with large, continuing, recurrent costs.
8. Focus on sustainable results. Linking financing in part to results is important, but they need to be sustainable, not just one-off results. This applies whether or not there is a vertical fund.
9. Don’t set exaggerated expectations for results and their time frames. Exaggerated expectation come back to bite, as the
Global Fund (including its main stakeholders) found in its five- year evaluation when it could not measure outcomes.
10. Encourage good practice but avoid top-down prescription. For example, it is reasonable to call for broad national mechanisms for consultation and the participation of key stakeholders, but it is not reasonable to impose specific new institutions parallel to those of government.
11. Align incentives to objectives. This means a sharp focus on the consistency of internal incentives with stated policies and objectives. Conflicting donor incentives often lead, for example, to fragmentation, inconsistency, and frequent changes in priorities. Analysis in the health sector shows that conflicting government incentives—mixed with weak ownership—often lead to the substitution of donor financing for country financing.
Conclusion
In sum, there are valuable lessons for agriculture and rural development—positive and negative—from the experience of existing vertical funds and other global initiatives. It would be well worth considering each of them in determining how to scale up support for agriculture and rural development. For example, the need to think twice before establishing a new vertical fund and consider the availability of IFAD and the GAFSP argues strongly against establishing a new vertical fund, although there may be a case for supplementary funding for both that focuses on scaling up.
For further reading: P. Isenman and A. Shakow, “Donor Schizophrenia and Aid Effectiveness: The Role of Global Funds.” IDS Practice Paper 5, Brighton, UK: Institute for Development Studies, 2010; J. Sherry, S. Mukherji, and L. Ryan, The Five-Year Evaluation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (Geneva: The Global Fund, 2009); S. Lister et al., Mid-Term Evaluation of the EFA Fast Track Initiative (Washington, DC: Global Partnership for Education, 2010); D. Hulls, P. Venkatachalam, K. Kumar, T. Cochrane, H. Kaur, N. Gulati, and D. Jones, GAVI Second Evaluation Report (Geneva: GAVI Alliance, 2010); Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, “4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness,” Busan, Republic of Korea, November 29-December 1, 2011.
Keith Bezanson (
k.bezanson@
sympatico.ca) is an independent consultant based in Canada. Paul Isenman (
paulisenman@aol.com) is an independent consultant in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Alex Shakow (
ashakow@comcast.net) is an independent consultant in Kensington, Maryland.
www.ifpri.org
Copyright © 2012 International Food Policy Research Institute. All rights reserved. Contact
ifpri-copyright@cgiar.org for permission to republish.
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