Abstract/Summary

Concerns about the effectiveness of international aid have been a recurring theme in academia and policy circles for decades. Two key multi-stakeholder initiatives were established in the 2010s to promote system-wide effectiveness in development and humanitarian aid: the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) and the Grand Bargain (GB), respectively. However, progress has so far been slow, particularly in relation to the accountability of Western donors to aid recipients, and recent research on this issue has been scarce. This study compares and contrasts GPEDC and GB to garner lessons on what works in holding donors accountable to recipient governments and people in humanitarian crises. Through a critical overview of the author’s previous publications, key informant interviews and an autoethnographic reflection on the author’s professional experience with GPEDC and GB, the study identifies significant similarities and gaps in donor behaviour towards their recipients. Structural power asymmetries in both initiatives show how donor accountability remains elusive. Nevertheless, research findings also show it can be improved in two fundamental ways. The first one is by closing the feedback loop between taxpayers, as the ultimate providers of international aid in donor countries, and citizens in receiving countries as the ultimate recipients of aid. This solution implies establishing independent citizen committees in both donor and recipient countries, which would strengthen the monitoring of aid intermediaries’ practices. A second way to ensure donor accountability to recipients is to significantly scale up the use of cash transfers in the aid system. By shifting the power of choice from donors to recipients, international aid would better respond to recipient needs and thus become more efficient and effective.