If donor governments really want results, they should take the money out of the hands of thirty or more separate aid bureaucracies and pool it in one or two places, the most logical being the World Bank in Washington and the International Fund for Agricultural Development in Rome. One or both of these agencies would then have an account with several billion dollars.
Governments in hunger-stricken regions, especially Africa, would then submit national action plans that would provide details on how they would use the donor funds to get high-yield seeds, fertilizer, irrigation, farm tools, storage silos and local advice to impoverished farmers. An independent expert panel would review the national plans to verify their scientific and managerial coherence. Assuming that a plan passes muster, the money to support it would quickly be disbursed. Afterward, each national program would be monitored, audited and evaluated.
This approach is straightforward, efficient, accountable and scientifically sound. Two major recent success stories in aid have used this approach: the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunizations, which successfully gets immunizations to young children, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, which supports national action plans to battle these killer diseases. Both have saved millions of lives during the past decade, and have paved the way to a more efficient and scientifically sound method of development assistance.
Not surprisingly, many UN agencies and aid agencies in rich countries fight this approach. All too often, the fight is about turf rather than about the most effective way to speed help to the poor. Obama, Rudd, Zapatero and other forward-thinking leaders can therefore make a huge difference by following up on their pledges at the G8 and insisting that the aid really works. The bureaucracies must be bypassed to get help to where it is needed: in the soil tilled by the world’s poorest farm families.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
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