Focus‐Pocus? Thinking Critically about Whether Aid Organizations Should Do Fewer Things in Fewer Countries

Abstract

Abstract The OECD Development Assistance Committee and G7 Finance Ministers have suggested that many bilateral and multilateral aid organizations are too dispersed, pursuing too many objectives in too many countries and too many sectors with too many partners. These organizations are accused of lacking critical mass, failing to follow their comparative advantage, failing to find and exploit a niche, and having high transactions costs and low effectiveness. Such aid organizations are being told to ‘focus’, ‘concentrate’, or be more ‘selective’ in order to become more effective. This article analyses the arguments in favour of greater focus by aid organizations and suggests that, while some of these arguments are valid, some are not and others need to be more nuanced. There are many possible dimensions along which an aid organization could focus and the link — if any — between focus and aid effectiveness is complex along each of those dimensions. The debate so far has also ignored the possibility that less focus may promote more effective aid. There is no clear, simple link between focus and aid effectiveness, but this finding should not be interpreted as carte blanche for spreading aid programmes indiscriminately. Dispersion, like focus, needs careful thought and justification.

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