Control: Letting countries lead
AidNow series
Oxfam America believes donors should provide aid in ways that strengthen the compact between effective governments and active citizens. Aid delivered in these ways supports recipient governments’ efforts to meet the needs of their citizens and helps citizens hold their government accountable. To assist foreign aid in strengthening the state-citizen compact, Oxfam is calling for reforms that let countries know what donors are doing (information), support countries’ own efforts to manage development (capacity), and better respond to country priorities (control).
Donors can better respond to country priorities when donors let people in the countries have at least some control over how foreign aid is invested in their countries: control over setting the agenda, control over what type of funding is provided and for what aims it is provided, and control over defining what constitutes “success.”