Aid Effectiveness

Effective aid programmes require careful forethought and coherence of approach. They must be accountable to the publics who fund them and to those communities whose lives they aim to affect. It is in the interest of policy makers, funders, recipients and taxpayers that when aid is spent it realises the maximum value and impact in delivery, while also mitigating against harm.

The relationship between aid expenditure and its contribution towards stability, accountability and prosperity remains contested in public debate. Many donors are under increasing public pressure to prove the value of their international development agendas. On a global level, the OECD Development Assistance Committee has reported that only one of thirteen Paris Declaration global development targets has been achieved since their formation in 2005.

Development assistance has evolved considerably during the 21st century. Global aid expenditure is higher and more aid is going to fragile and conflict-affected states. The range of donors has diversified, with emerging economies like China, India, Turkey and Brazil expanding their international assistance portfolios. New actors have emerged with an increasing array of multilateral, international, non-governmental, philanthropic and civil society oganisations all spending increasing amounts of money and extending their programming activities. Conventional aid is also increasingly in competition with and dwarfed by other sources of development-related financing, including social impact investment, foreign direct investment, trade and diaspora remittances.

Against this backdrop, there is a growing desire from policy makers, funders, recipients and taxpayers for aid to be transparent, accountable and effective. This requires robust data and evidence; public scrutiny; realism in the face of complexity and the desire to see results; a culture of innovation and learning; cooperative, communicative and coordinated approaches; and consent, participation and co-design with recipient communities.

Integrity was founded on the principle that to be effective, international programmes require robust local cooperation and evidence. Our brand name is synonymous with data accuracy, strong monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL), and a commitment to delivery integrity and transparency.

Evidence-based programme design and evaluation amidst complexity is what we aim to do best. We combine in-house MEL expertise with local technical specialists wherever we work. We know that complex problems require adaptability, innovation and learning to deliver the results our clients need and aid recipients deserve. We recognise that community accountability is as important as accountability to donors. Our emphasis is on understanding context and the communities in which we work.

Integrity has global and cross-sectoral experience assessing aid effectiveness at every level, including strategic reviews for the UK’s Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) in its reporting to the Houses of Parliament; fund-level evaluation and learning for the UK Prosperity Fund; country-level monitoring and evaluation for the UK CSSF programme in Egypt; third-party monitoring of DFID Somalia’s development portfolio; and local-level research in support of USAID’s Syria Essential Services programme. We also help develop the governance, research, monitoring, evaluation and communications capacities of a range of partner organisations, INGOs, institutes and foundations.