By Adam Clymer
New York TimesJanuary 13, 2002
President Bush will ask Congress to base future increases in aid to poor countries on evidence that the aid is actually bringing progress in such areas as education, trade and the environment, administration officials said.
The president's budget will recommend that $850 million for aid to the world's poorest nations be contributed to the World Bank in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The current year's appropriation is $797.4 million.
It would promise further increases, to $950 million and $1.05 billion, in the next two years, but only if the bank developed indexes that showed that its aid was productive. Otherwise those contributions would remain level at $850 million.
The issue has been a particular concern of Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, who said during a bank meeting in Ottawa last November that the bank should be more "rigorous in measuring the results" of its aid. "Over the last 50 years the world has spent an awful large amount of money in the name of development without a great degree of success," he said.
Treasury officials acknowledge that developing benchmarks to show what kind of aid works best is not a simple process. They also compliment the bank for its work in identifying nations where aid seems to be producing results and directing its loans increasingly toward them.
But they are already pushing the bank to do more. John B. Taylor, under secretary for international affairs, said today that in discussions with the 28 other donor nations about the anticipated contributions to the International Development Association, which provides some loans on easy terms for the bank, the United States had broached the subject of education performance standards as a condition of increases beyond $850 million.
"We would look at the number of additional students in school, look at the quality, if possible, of that educational project, possibly based on some testing," Mr. Taylor said. How successful the nation was at enrolling girls in school could be another measure, he added, and over the long term, literacy rates could be an additional index of success.
As for other categories not yet raised in the discussions, he said, "You want to get things you can measure." He said public health fit in that category, where the number of vaccinations or the incidence of particular diseases could be calculated.
A senior State Department official said the idea of performance benchmarks was "a major element in the development debate — the question of, shouldn't there be somewhat more development assistance available?"
"The answer," he said, "is yes, provided one can be assured that it will be effective in projecting sustained growth and development."
On the environment, the official added, one could measure the levels of persistent organic pollutants and whether loans made to reduce them were having an effect. Air quality, too, could be measured, he said.
But in many of these areas, he said, year-to-year measurements were unrealistic because long-term loans are involved. "There does have to be an appropriate time line," he said. "A number of these goals are goals for 2015."
Mr. Taylor said the idea of benchmarks was being well received by other nations. He said "people do recognize that measuring performance is really useful."
One incentive for other nations' support is the potential increase in the United States' contributions. Although the United States is the biggest contributor to the World Bank, which provides about 10 percent of all foreign aid, it gives a much smaller percentage of its resources than do many countries.
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