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AbstractNew aid approaches devised under the Paris/Accra agenda for more effective aid are expected to make a particular difference in health and education as, arguably, in these sectors aid fragmentation is particularly prevalent. This article reviews evidence from recent in‐depth country work on the extent to which the harmonisation and alignment principles, implemented through new aid modalities, have contributed to health and education outcomes in Zambia. Evidence suggests that even in a 'model' case for adopting Paris‐style aid instruments such as Zambia, implementation of good aid principles has been insufficient to overcome the negative side effects of uncoordinated and fragmented aid. © 2015 UNU‐WIDER. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on the political economy of public finance in developing countries. Its main methodological interest is to demonstrate the usability of household-level data to study political economy features of public finances in developing countries that commonly escape empirical scrutiny due to poor data availability. The empirical interest is in testing whether there is evidence for or against either of two competing models of political targeting of public sector spending: the swing-voter versus the core-voter model, the proposition being that in "typical" neo-patrimonial regimes in sub-Saharan Africa, the corevoter model should prevail. I use data from Zambia's Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) to investigate whether there is evidence that the ruling party in Zambia followed political motives in targeting public infrastructure spending at the turn of the millennium, and whether there is evidence that such targeting falls in line with either of these two models. I find strong and robust evidence for the core-voter model applying to social infrastructure provision in Zambia. The findings suggest that it is primarily the construction of new health and education facilities that is affected by political targeting, whereas there is no strong evidence for such targeting for the improvement and rehabilitation of existing infrastructure. For roads construction or rehabilitation, I find no evidence of similar political targeting.

There is a growing interest in the debate on aid effectiveness for assessing the impact of aid not only on economic growth and poverty reduction, but also on intermediate outcomes such as health and education. This paper reviews evidence from recent in-depth country work on the impact of government policies and service provision in health and basic education in Zambia, and examines to what extent new aid approaches have contributed to the observed outcomes. It finds that limited coordination and lax adherence to good aid principles undermine the effectiveness of these approaches. The discussion of the findings sheds light on the underlying political economy and incentive structures on both sides of the aid relation that lead to casual adherence to the principles for more effective aid in these new aid approaches. It argues that most of the observed coordination failures can be explained by collective action problems on the part of both donors and recipients. If the international aid effectiveness agenda is to move forward, it will have to devise adequate mechanisms to address these coordination disincentives.

The 'right' choice of instruments and modalities to provide aid to developing countries in support of poverty reduction and economic development is arguably the most contested issue in the current international debate on aid effectiveness. A particular controversy exists around the provision of aid in the form of budget support to avoid high transaction costs and other shortcomings of traditional project-based aid. Critics argue that this kind of 'programme aid' involves unacceptably high fiduciary risks due to the fungibility of budgetary funds. A more recently proposed form of aid is in the form of results-based aid or aid on delivery. Proponents argue that this provides donors with better control over the use of aid resources. This paper demonstrates in a simple principal-agent framework with asymmetric information that in the absence of transaction costs, for a wide range of combinations of aid dependency and recipient government commitment to reduce poverty, all three forms of aid are equivalent with regard to fungibility and fiduciary risks. The paper proceeds to demonstrate that as long as donors can rely on the recipient government to be at least minimally committed to poverty reduction, a well co-ordinated modality mix of general budget support and aid on delivery does not bear higher fiduciary risks than project aid. It concludes that if project aid does indeed involve higher transaction costs than budget support, donors should provide aid in the form of such a modality mix, albeit only if they are able (and willing) to closely co-ordinate their support.

Programme-based approaches, including sector and general budget support, are core elements of the Paris Agenda for more effective aid. This agenda emerged from an intense international debate that has since the mid 1990s centred mainly on modalities and instruments best suited to improving the effectiveness of international development aid. Yet, budget support continues to be a highly contentious issue in Germany's and other donor countries' development policy debates. While in development cooperation practice, budget support has evolved into a fairly well established instrument to support poverty reduction strategies in developing countries, the broader political debate on the topic is generally ill-informed. In practice, there is a broad consensus that budget support is suited only for a limited group of countries, that it should always be used in conjunction with other instruments, and that the instrument's potential benefits need to be weighed against possible risks. As a consequence, in many donor countries budget support continues to account for only a minor share of bilateral aid (2.5 % of German bilateral commitments in 2008). Despite widespread scepticism, budget support has evolved into a reasonably well-established aid instrument in a number of developing countries, arguably with positive effects at least with respect to donor coordination and alignment to country strategies and systems. In addition, early experiences and evaluations confirm that budget support can be an effective instrument when it comes to strengthening the quality of policy dialogue, transparency and accountability in budget management, and enhancing donor coordination. At present, however, there are hardly any robust studies of the instrument's concrete effects on poverty. At the same time, there is a growing discussion on the use of budget support to finance goals other than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), such as adaptation to climate change. This would risk the instrument's potential effectiveness for development. A central challenge for development cooperation is therefore the need to develop adequate evaluation methods for budget support. Another is to ensure that the instrument is not overloaded with new demands and goals. This will pose a conceptual and political challenge for German development cooperation.

Budgethilfe wird in Deutschland nach wie vor kontrovers diskutiert. Dabei ist das Instrument in der EZ-Praxis mittlerweile gut etabliert. Allerdings besteht unter Praktikern auch Einigkeit darüber, dass sie nur für eine begrenzte Gruppe von Ländern in Frage kommt und stets im Verbund mit anderen Instrumenten einzusetzen ist. Denn den potenziellen Vorteilen des Instruments stehen auch ernstzunehmende Risiken gegenüber. In der deutschen bilateralen EZ macht Budgethilfe nach wie vor nur einen geringen Anteil aus (2008 2,5% der Zusagen). Bisherige Erfahrungen und Evaluierungen bestätigen, dass Budgethilfe ein sinnvolles Instrument sein kann, um die Qualität des Politikdialogs, Transparenz und Rechenschaftspflicht in der Haushaltsführung der Empfängerregierungen wie auch die Geberharmonisierung zu stärken. Bislang liegen allerdings kaum Erkenntnisse über die konkreten Armutswirkungen des Instruments vor. Gleichzeitig wird zunehmend diskutiert, Budgethilfen auch zur Finanzierung anderer Ziele als der MDGs (bspw. Anpassung an den Klimawandel) einzusetzen. Dies ist allerdings mit Risiken für die potenzielle entwicklungspolitische Wirksamkeit des Instruments verbunden. Eine zentrale Herausforderung für die EZ besteht deshalb zum einen darin, adäquate Evaluierungsmethoden für Budgethilfen zu entwickeln. Zum anderen muss sichergestellt werden, dass das Instrument nicht mit neuen Ansprüchen und Zielsetzungen überfrachtet wird. Hier ist die deutsche EZ konzeptionell und entwicklungspolitisch gefordert.