Mar 28, 2011
A little over a year ago, I invited Nancy
Birdsall, founding president of the Center for Global
Development, to join me on the Wonkcast to talk about her big new
idea, Cash on Delivery Aid (COD Aid), an innovative approach to the
delivery of foreign assistance. COD Aid has since gained a lot of
traction, so I invited Nancy back to update us on recent
developments, including a planned pilot program in Ethiopia.
[Listen to the Podcast]
For those new to the concept, I start by asking Nancy to explain the problems with traditional aid approaches, and how COD aid would solve these. Too often, she says, aid is given based on priorities set by funders who care more about how their money is spent than what outcomes it produces. COD Aid focuses on outcomes by making aid transfers contingent on yearly incremental improvements in an agreed indicator, such as the number of kids who complete primary school and take a test. (For much more on COD Aid, see here.)
Read a full show summary on the Wonkcast site: cgdev.org/wonkcast.