This blog series and a preceding workshop organized by CGAP aimed to explore what aid effectiveness means in the context of financial inclusion. Both Homi Kharas and Owen Barder pointed out that despite large amounts of aid over a significant period of time, we know very little about what aid actually achieves. Whether you find [...]

Interesting lessons came out of the recent CGAP Aid Effectiveness conference where the SmartAid Index for Microfinance was featured. There is a clear causal chain that starts with the funder’s own inputs and eventually leads to results on the ground, and SmartAid is designed to measure the internal systems which are the first part of [...]

It seems extraordinary that after 50 years of international aid, there is still no consensus on whether it works. Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo (Dead Aid) has argued that aid is not only ineffective, but is actually detrimental to development.  Bill Easterly (The Elusive Quest for Growth) says that ‘trillions of dollars’ of aid have had little [...]

With increasing amounts of private money being invested in microfinance institutions, CGAP CEO Tilman Ehrbeck talks about the role of public money in improving access to finance for poor people around the world. Speaking on the sidelines of a two-day meeting on aid effectiveness, Ehrbeck argues that with about half of the money in microfinance circulating through [...]

Last year, rich countries spent more than $128 billion to improve development in poor countries. That is a substantial amount of money. But it is hard to say whether aid has really helped to raise growth or reduce poverty or contribute to the Millennium Development Goals. The trouble is that aid is a drop in [...]

With the 4th High LevelForum on aid effectiveness approaching in Busan, Korea, it is a good time to stop and reflect on our collective achievements toward more effective development assistance.  For CGAP, which was essentially established to improve collective effectiveness among funders on access to finance for the world’s poor, this topic is of particular [...]