Aid instruments need to adjust to new challenges and priorities. Global pandemics, climate change, increased inequality, low economic growth, and conflict have made it increasingly difficult for developing countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Retooling Development Aid in the 21st Century: The Importance of Budget Support examines the critical role of budget support by both multilateral and bilateral aid agencies to address the 21st
century's development goals of eliminating poverty and protecting our global commons. Timely and smartly designed budget support remains a powerful tool to help address the new reality developing countries face,
providing fast disbursing finance in support of critical reforms. Set against the background of a dramatically changing international financial architecture, the volume examines how budget support has evolved from its controversial past, addresses the evidence on performance and debates over conditionality, and it reflects on unmet expectations from the 2005 Paris Declaration. With the global financial crisis, the Covid pandemic, and the spillovers from conflict and
climate change, budget support re-emerged as a key financing instrument to support policy reforms and catalyze private capital. Drawing on the lessons of the last two decades, the volume proposes a
retooling of budget support as a versatile instrument to address both essential global public goods and tackle country-specific development challenges.
Aid instruments need to adjust to new challenges and priorities. Global pandemics, climate change, increased inequality, low economic growth, and conflict have made it increasingly difficult for developing countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Retooling Development Aid in the 21st Century: The Importance of Budget Support examines the critical role of budget support by both multilateral and bilateral aid agencies to address the 21st
century's development goals of eliminating poverty and protecting our global commons. Timely and smartly designed budget support remains a powerful tool to help address the new reality developing countries face,
providing fast disbursing finance in support of critical reforms. Set against the background of a dramatically changing international financial architecture, the volume examines how budget support has evolved from its controversial past, addresses the evidence on performance and debates over conditionality, and it reflects on unmet expectations from the 2005 Paris Declaration. With the global financial crisis, the Covid pandemic, and the spillovers from conflict and
climate change, budget support re-emerged as a key financing instrument to support policy reforms and catalyze private capital. Drawing on the lessons of the last two decades, the volume proposes a
retooling of budget support as a versatile instrument to address both essential global public goods and tackle country-specific development challenges.
1: The Purpose and Promise of Budget Support
2: Global Finance and the Changing Aid Landscape
3: The Evolution of Budget Support
4: The Performance of Budget Support
5: Promise, Disenchantment, and Sobriety: Learning from Experience
with Budget Support
6: How Can Budget Support Meet 21st Century Challenges?
7: Conclusion
Bibliography
Shahrokh Fardoust is Research Professor at the Global Research
Institute and Visiting Scholar in Economics at the College of
William and Mary, and a senior consultant to international and
regional development institutions. He has more than 30 years'
experience in crafting economic development policy, analyzing the
global economy and prospects, and evaluating development
effectiveness of international and regional development
institutions. From 2008
to 2011, he was Director of Strategy and Operations, Development
Economics, the World Bank, where he contributed to the research and
policy priorities of the Chief Economist, the G20's development
agenda, and the
quality assurance of the World Bank's flagship reports. He holds a
MA and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Stefan G. Koeberle is the Director, Strategy and Operations, Middle
East and North Africa Region at the World Bank. Dr. Koeberle has
worked in a variety of countries and regions, including postings in
Bangkok and Jakarta. His most recent positions at the World Bank
included the following: Director, Strategy and Operations,
Integrity Vice
Presidency; Director Strategy, Results and Risk in Operations
Policy and Country Services; Country Director for Indonesia; and
Director, Strategy and Operations in the Latin America and
Caribbean Region. Prior to joining the
World Bank, Dr. Koeberle worked as a post-graduate fellow at the
German Development Institute in Berlin. He holds a Ph.D. in
economics from Cambridge University. He has published a number of
articles and several books on competitiveness, conditionality and
budget support. Moritz Piatti-Fünfkirchen is a Senior Economist at
the World Bank working at the nexus of public finance and health.
He is interested in how to balance fiscal control with service
delivery needs and has
published widely in the public financial management and health
finance space. His work is currently focused on the Africa region
where he leads various analytical and lending programs. During his
time at the World Bank's
Independent Evaluation Group, he led various evaluations of World
Bank support to public financial management and budget support
operations. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked as an
advisor in the Ministry of Health in Tanzania, where he supported
the government in budget management and the introduction of health
finance reforms. Mr. Piatti-Fünfkirchen holds a MSc in Economics
for Development from Oxford University and a MA in Economics from
the University of Aberdeen.
Lodewijk Smets is a Senior Economist at the World Bank working on
Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. In this role, he is responsible for
macroeconomic monitoring, policy dialogue on macro-fiscal matters
and the provision
of budget support. Over the years, Dr Smets developed a deep
interest in how donors can support policy reform processes and
published several papers on the topic in peer-reviewed journals.
Before joining the World Bank, Dr Smets was a Senior Economist at
the Inter-American Development Bank. Prior to this, he led
evaluations of budget support for low-income countries, at the
World Bank Group's Independent Evaluation Group, where he also
provided methodological support to a wide variety of
evaluation teams. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University
of Antwerp, Belgium, and was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Mark Sundberg is the
Millennium
Challenge Corporation's Chief Economist and Deputy Vice President
of the Department of Policy and Evaluation. He oversees the
economic analysis of growth, poverty impact, and project
cost-benefit analysis for the US Agency. Prior to this he was the
Manager for the Economic Management and Country Evaluation work of
the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group. He led numerous
evaluations of World Bank strategy and project work, including
learning products on conditionality, macroeconomic
frameworks, fiscal management and use of guarantees in budget
support operations. He worked as an economist for many country
programs and from 1996 to 1998 he was regional Chief Economist,
Emerging Markets,
for Salomon Brothers/Citibank in Hong Kong. Mr. Sundberg holds a
Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and a BA in Economics
and East Asian studies from Yale University.
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