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Publishing states allocation in national dailies was one of the achievemnt of Dr. Iweala during her first outing as minister. In her second coming, the trend is continuing with different noble policies she is implementing including the ports refors.

I am so much proud of Ibu Sri Mulyani. She surely is capable of any crucial position in worldbank. But we need Ibu Sri to come back to Indonesia, lead and educate some more Indonesian quality future-economists, then there will be more 'Ibu Sri' ready to build and develop not only Indonesia, G20, but the world.

I think the answer is quite simple, actually: paris and accra bye bye, seems to be the mantra many at post repeat in silence, holding their breath, while pretending to do the service delivery the government of recipient countries should, with the help of post, do.

Satish and Tess, Thanks for your comments on my blog. On Tess's point, ODE does a good job in terms of being transparent about which questions it is asking. For some of its evaluations (I noticed rural development and civil society) you can see their terms of reference up on the ODE website. On Satish's point, its not the case that ODE was modelled on the Bank's Evaluation Department (now called the Independent Evaluation Group or IEG). IEG reports to the Bank's Board, not to its President, and so is able to maintain its independence. There is no such protection for ODE, since it reports to the head of AusAID. I don't see the Independent Evaluation Committee as another layer of bureaucracy, but as a mechanism for ensuring independence and timeliness. Which take's me back to Tess's question. The IEG produces a lot more output then ODE, but then it's a much bigger outfit. In fact, it does a brief review of every completed Bank project, not to mention a number of country evaluations, thematic reports, and an annual aid effectiveness review. A more relevant comparison is on timeliness. I don't have the details, but, as far as I can tell, IEG manages to avoid long delays around the release of its reports. It certainly manages to get its annual review out every year, something ODE has struggled with.

I can't help feeling that evaluating the delivery of aid is a bit like the old story of tourists asking for directions in Ireland to be told "Well I wouldn't be starting from here if I were you". It is often hard to be sure that the fundamental questions have been framed properly before the "busy work" of evaluating has begun. It would be good to know how ODE compares with similar outfits such as the World Bank's Evaluation Department referenced by Satish in terms of output, timeliness, etc.

Thanks to Stephen for seeking explanations for the silence of ODE. I mused at the creation of ODE, as I do now, on whether this function should be housed within AusAID rather than in the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO). The merits of placing ODE within AusAID were to allow access to in-house data. ODE’s independence was to be protected through and organisational structure modelled on the World Bank's Evaluation Department. With Stephen's thoughts now, is it time to fold ODE into ANAO? ANAO, after all, is independent, reports directly to parliament, and is mandated to provide: "independent assessment of selected areas of public administration, and assurance about public sector financial reporting, administration, and accountability". This may be a superior strategy to the creation of yet another layer of bureaucracy, in the form of an Independent Evaluations Committee, to oversee the functions of ODE.

Development work is often focused on unanswered questions, something very well known by the religious. To be an effective aid worker, is in and of itself a leap of faith. See: http://www.how-matters.org/2011/09/28/a-matter-of-faith/

Thanks for this piece which I found very interesting and hopefully there will be more to come by way of research in this area. I wonder whether there are any significant differences between the established players (e.g. Catholic and Anglican derived entities) and those who are newer on the scene (e.g. LDS & SDA based groupings). My examples are based on the Pacific experience but I imagine that elsewhere in the world there are similar divides between FBOs and FBDOs that have been around for a long time and others that are new on the block.

Thanks for that Sharon. It was only 'officially' opened this month, I will change that in the text.

I think the USAID office in PNG has been open for 6 months.

Thank you for your comment Tess. I very much agree with your sentiment that it is important for key players to be honest with themselves and stakeholders — I think aid and development sector jargon is another barrier to broader understanding in the community of what humanitarian assistance and aid really does and what the process involves. Putting a simple message forward to the public to get support, but then using jargon/technical language in reports and other documents and basically making information impenetrable to laymen, is a problem. I think the NGO sector does a much better job at publishing clear, readable reports (or at least more accessible executive summaries) that cater to a wider range of readers than government agencies or multilaterals. I feel there needs to be more communication materials in this middle ground... not overly simplified but not overly technical.

I think your penultimate point is particularly valid - if agencies make this information available and include it in their communications then there is hopefully less risk of it being held up as some sort of smoking gun by someone else. And of course as media develops agencies are becoming more adept at tailoring messages according to the intended audience and the means by which it is to be transmitted. But in order to build transparency and, more importantly, sustainability, it is really important that the key players are honest with themselves and their stakeholders about the reality of what they are doing and the environment in which they are doing it.