But telling fishermen to change the ways they've been fishing for decades is no easy task. Kondua joined seminars on sustainable management of marine life offered by the Ghanaian non-profit organizations, Coastal Resources Center and Friends of the Nation, with support from USAID. Armed with new information and tactics, he is bringing people together to hold the fishing regulatory agencies accountable for enforcing compliance with fishing regulations.

"We have to re-educate our fishermen to the right type of fishing. [We] help the Ghana government to build up a very good capacity for fishermen in this country," Chief Kondua says.

In his role as chairman of the Western Regional branch of the National Canoe Fishermen's Council, Chief Kondua's is encouraging fishermen to follow current laws and adopt good fishing practices in order to protect their livelihoods. This also includes health education and family planning.

Chief Kondua explains how family size and fishing practices are linked, "Whatever we do in the sea depends upon the children that you see now. If you get plenty children, you have to do all you can to bring more fish [in], whether good practice or not."

Kondua is also working to develop new laws to stop erosion and create marine-protected areas for the future of Abuesi and western Ghana because, as Chief Kondua shares,

"Be you a driver, a shopkeeper, a carpenter or a mason, anything—if you live here, you depend on the fishing."

In recent years, the US government launched policy reforms that make US foreign aid more accountable to you and local leaders like Chief Kondua.

Aid works best when it supports local actors to take action and change the circumstances which place or keep them or their fellow citizens in poverty—supporting them to build a dream, build a business, support their family, or help their community.

That's why Oxfam America is working to deepen the US government's commitment to making aid more effective. They can do so by putting more US aid dollars directly in the hands of people like Chief Kondua.

Read more stories at: www.oxfamamerica.org/aidworks/

Note: Oxfam America doesn't take federal funds, but we do support effective development programs. In 2012, the Aid Effectiveness Team conducted research to highlight effective uses of the 1% of foreign aid the U.S. government spends on poverty reduction and other life-saving assistance. The people featured in this series are not necessarily receiving direct assistance from Oxfam.

I didn't understand then what he meant. Now as an adult, I can appreciate what he was looking for. He was looking for stewardship and the relationship between the farmer and the land they tended. Any farmer worth his or her salt would have straight rows, showing their skills and the pride they had in their craft and their livelihoods.

Emiliana Aligaesha also feels that same pride. I knew it when she said,

"My mother told me, 'If one goes to the farm and finds weeds choking the banana trees, then harvests a banana and proceeds with cooking, one should consider herself a thief.' I have always remembered this principle."

Any farmer worth their salt in Tanzania would ensure that their banana trees were well-tended, free from weeds. This was the sign of a good farmer to Emiliana's mother, the same way straight rows were to my father in Nebraska. You do not take from the land, unless you have upheld your responsibility to it.

Emiliana Aligaesha and her fellow community members know this principle well. They are part of a local group of farmers that formed a successful private company selling coffee and beans in the northwest Karagwe district of Tanzania in 2007, known as Kaderes Peasant Development Ltd. The World Food Programme has been a customer and USAID has been helping them to guarantee better prices.

As well as growing coffee, bananas, beans and maize, Aligaesha owns six cows, operates her own irrigation systems, and also supplies quality seedlings to other villagers. But her efforts were recognized before she was named a Female Food Hero runner-up this year. Even though she has had little formal agricultural training, local leaders declare Aligaesha's farm to be an exemplary one – well-kept and with rich produce. In addition to her encouragement of women to be more involved in agriculture, Aligaesha has become a kind of researcher in the village, testing out new agricultural techniques for others to follow.

Aligaesha is a former teacher. Most important to her is that her eight children have all been put through college as a result of her hard work.

In recent years, the US government launched policy reforms that make US foreign aid more accountable to you and local leaders like Emiliana Aligaesha.

Aid works best when it supports local actors to take action and change the circumstances which place or keep them or their fellow citizens in poverty—supporting them to build a dream, build a business, support their family, or help their community.

That's why Oxfam America is working to deepen the US government's commitment to making aid more effective. They can do so by putting more US aid dollars directly in the hands of people like Emiliana Aligaesha.

Read more stories at: www.oxfamamerica.org/aidworks/

Note: Oxfam America doesn't take federal funds, but we do support effective development programs. In 2012, the Aid Effectiveness Team conducted research to highlight effective uses of the 1% of foreign aid the U.S. government spends on poverty reduction and other life-saving assistance. The people featured in this series are not necessarily receiving direct assistance from Oxfam.

American poverty-fighting assistance saves lives and helps millions of people create a sound future for their nations and their neighborhoods.

And all for less than 1% of the federal budget.

- Martha Kwataine is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to protect the health of people in rural communities across Malawi. Click here to read more or download briefing note. Also see Martha Kwataine on The Hill's Congress Blog: Foreign Aid: A Beltway Outsider Perspective.

- Alexis Nkurunziza is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to open up budgets in Rwanda. Click here to read more or download briefing note.

- Majeda Begum Shiru is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to enable women to speak powerfully to improve health and education in Bangladesh. Click here to read more or download briefing note.

- Tanzanian farmer Emiliana Aligaesha is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to ensure the success of an early-stage, high-potential start-up. Click here to read more or download briefing note.

- Village Chief Kojo Kondua IV is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to train fishermen and protect jobs and the environment in Abuesi, Ghana. Click here to read more or download briefing note.

- Mayor Manuel Dominguez is leveraging a tiny investment of US foreign aid to budget for a sound future for his community in the Peruvian Amazon. Click here to read more or download briefing note.

...and many more stories to come!

Take action.

Oxfam America is working to deepen the US government's commitment to making poverty-reducing foreign aid more effective. We can't afford to let Congress duck their responsibilities and that's why we need your voice right now.

» » » Click here to tell Congress: Don't cut effective, poverty-reducing foreign aid.

Learn more about making foreign aid more effective.

• Foreign Aid 101: A quick and easy guide
• Smart Development: Oxfam on making aid work
• Ownership in Practice: Foreign aid that strengthens the voice of the poor and the responsiveness of the state
• Fighting corruption with aid dollars
• Cutting aid that fights poverty? You must be quackers!

What others are saying about Oxfam's campaign for effective aid

• A compilation from Twitter
• Impatient Optimists: Interview: Oxfam and Gates Foundation Discuss How We Change the Conversation About Aid
• CS Monitor: Changing the face of aid, literally
• Everyday Ambassador: Flipping the foreign aid narrative
• Going International: We're all in this together
• Osocio: Don't Cut Aid: It's Working!
• Spirit in Action: Investing in Individuals
• whydev.org: The changing landscape of advertising on Aid & Africa: Oxfam's new campaigns

Note: Oxfam America does not take US federal funds, but we do support effective development programs.

All development stakeholders—including traditional donors and emerging providers—must respect and uphold these key principles by fulfilling the promises they made at Busan. For this to happen, the Global Partnership will need to rely on strong vision, high-level political engagement and a robust but flexible global accountability mechanism.

Reaching 17 million additional people is the equivalent to feeding every person in Michigan, Oklahoma and Iowa combined. Cutting red tape would also allow the U.S. to respond to hunger crises up to 14 weeks faster.

“How often do we have the chance to reach millions more people with life-saving assistance without asking taxpayers for a dime?” said Paul O’Brien, vice president for policy and campaigns at Oxfam America. “Save lives. Save tax dollars. This is a no-brainer.”

"Our one-size-fits-all food aid system is outdated, but Congress has the opportunity to fix it with this year's farm bill reauthorization," said Timi Gerson, director of advocacy at AJWS. "Our research shows we can reach millions more hungry people by passing long overdue reforms, so why wait?"

The report puts a human face on the negotiations over the Farm Bill in Washington, DC, calculating the number of additional people U.S. food aid programs could reach if long-overdue reforms are enacted. This includes increasing flexibility in food aid programs to allow for the local and regional purchase (LRP) of food, as well as ending the monetization of U.S. food aid programs whereby aid agencies are forced to sell off U.S. food in developing country markets to finance development projects.

The report finds that these reforms would allow food to reach millions more hungry people much quicker during crises and build self-sufficiency in local communities. It also finds that even conservative approaches to these reforms would cut hundreds of millions of dollars in waste and enable life-saving aid to reach millions of additional people facing crisis.

"Food aid is a vital part of U.S. foreign policy, but we are shortchanging millions of hungry people with unnecessary red tape," said Gerson. "U.S. policies are ripe for reforms that will save lives now and reduce the need for aid later by enabling local farmers to thrive."

“In this budget climate there can be no justification for turning down the chance to spend tax-dollars more wisely,” said O’Brien. “Members of Congress face a clear choice: stick with the same old policies that prop up special interest, or reform the program and stand up for American taxpayers and hungry people around the world.”

Notes to editors:
To read a copy of the report, see the infographic or get more information go to:
www.oxfamamerica.org/foodaid
or
www.ajws.org/foodaid

American Jewish World Service
Inspired by Judaism’s commitment to justice, American Jewish World Service (AJWS) works to realize
human rights and end poverty in the developing world. www.ajws.org

Oxfam America
Oxfam America is an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice. Together with individuals and local groups in more than 90 countries, Oxfam saves lives, helps people overcome poverty, and fights for social justice. Oxfam America is an affiliate of Oxfam. To join our efforts or learn more, go to www.oxfamamerica.org

A shorter commitment won't get the job done. It takes time to help people build skills and infrastructure, to get policies changed, and to ensure that governments spend their money more effectively.

Smart development demands monitoring and evaluation. Organizations should be accountable to report not only what they do, but also how they measure it. Don't believe stories that guarantee long-term impact after one or two years' investment; that's barely time to lay some groundwork.

We all crave the easy answer, the quick solution, but if eradicating poverty were simple, people living in poverty would have sorted it out long ago. They may lack resources like land, but they certainly don't lack intelligence or insight. Poverty is a global challenge—one that we can overcome together, but listening and learning from people living in poverty, and developing solutions with them, takes time and sustained effort.

This issue of OXFAMExchange includes inspiring stories, but they are just snapshots from a family album: moments in a long journey together. Each story is ultimately about perseverance and the need for long-term commitment.

In a new report, “The politics of partnership: How donors manage risk while letting recipients lead their own development” released today as part of Oxfam America’s Ownership in Practice series, Oxfam examines the real challenges donors confront in building trust and support for local leaders as well as concrete ways the US can be a better partner and get the most out of foreign assistance.

“Real progress in fighting poverty requires bold, innovative approaches,” said Gregory Adams, director of aid effectiveness for Oxfam America.  “We can’t make real progress against poverty doing the same things we’ve always done.  And yet Congress is often reluctant to let development professionals take on the risk of innovating new approaches.  USAID is working to put more trust in poor people and governments; Congress needs to put trust in USAID’s new approach.”

When donors try to circumvent national governments and impose their own vision, it often leads to weak results. For example, following Haiti’s earthquake in 2010 the international community encouraged the creation of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission to coordinate reconstruction because of Haiti’s long history of both corruption and capacity constraints. Although the commission was established by the Haitian parliament, it is not subject to government audits. There are also questions about whether the commission has improved coordination of aid or merely added to the multiplicity of development actors in the country.

“Instead of trying to avoid risk, donors should accept and manage the risks associated with building more-effective partnerships,” said Adams. “Meaningful partnerships are the only way for donors like the US to get the most out of foreign assistance dollars, especially over the long run.”

Highlighting research from Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Malawi, and Tanzania, Oxfam concludes that that the only way to yield real and lasting development successes is when the US and other donors trust and support local leaders and take concrete steps to manage risk across different contexts.

Said Ghanaian member of parliament Albert Kan-Dapaah, “In Ghana, just like in the US, we rely on independent media and citizen ‘watchdogs’ to keep those of us in government honest. US support to Ghana should help us strengthen that relationship of accountability and transparency, which is ultimately the only way to build a better and safer future for Ghanaians. The US government has not always pursued genuine partnerships with countries like Ghana, but this is slowly starting to change through Partnership for Growth and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.”

The report identifies nine steps that the US can take to pursue partnership and manage risk, instead of seeking to avoid it:

• How to deal with the risk of corruption in poor countries:
1. Identify and support promising leaders, agencies, and public efforts inside and outside government that are seeking to change things for the better.
2. Work to support political and civil rights that let citizens hold their governments accountable.
3. Pair investments in government capacity with investments in civil society “watchdogs.”
• How to deal with the risk that poor countries lack capacity:
4. Commit to support promising in-country partners for longer periods of time.
5. Make direct, long-term financial and technical investments in the success of local institutions.
• How to deal with the risk that poor people will make failed investments:
6. Partner to strengthen existing local rules and systems and resist setting up burdensome and duplicative rules and systems.
7. Fund the priorities that recipients have identified.
8. Demand performance.
9. Encourage and support transparency.

“As new donors emerge, the US risks losing influence if that influence is strictly based on accounting every dollar, rather than the overall results,” said Adams.  “Poor people need to shape how aid is invested to deliver the ‘right’ results. Including recipients in defining and managing aid offers new opportunities for the US in building long-term effective partnerships. However, it is up to the administration, Congress and taxpayers alike to support such efforts, beyond any partisan line, so the US can step up during this closing window of opportunity on the world stage.”