Barder reminds us that it is the nature of development that some aid ‘won’t work’, but what we must strive for is it reaching its potential. Comparing the aid game to business, organisms, and political parties, he points out that unlike the others, aid projects do not have to be effective to be continued. Where other processes, market, evolutionary or other will ‘kill off the unhelpful, ineffective and perhaps even downright harmful’, these forces, ‘barely work in aid’.

 

Increasing transparency with a standard and universal measure by which relative performance can be compared and assessed is needed to evaluate what works best and how money can be allocated more effectively. In other words, it would allow for a much-needed process of selection to occur, resulting in more aid better spent.

 

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