More knowledge-based aid. What's the next step?

With increasingly fierce fighting over scarce aid funds, it is crucial to spend the resources on what produces the best results. Then we need to acquire and use the knowledge necessary to make wise choices.

Many people take this more seriously than before. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norad have increased expectations use of knowledge in aid. Civil society organisations have taken up this issue, and research communities have shown that they are happy to contribute.

A lot of good is done

Two years ago, the State Department set up an expert group (Sending-utvalget) for advice on more effective funding of the SDGs, and several recommendations have been followed up.

For example, Norad has been asked to facilitate the increased use of option assessments in the allocation of funds. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also lifted the focus on knowledge in budget proposals and award letters, given Norad new instructions with a clearer expectation that the development cooperation should be “knowledge-based and cost-effective”, and opened up that program funds can be used for impact evaluations and follow-up research that contribute to better results.

Norad has taken several steps towards more knowledge-based aid, both internally and by raising expectations for knowledge use among its partners. Civil society organisations have strengthened their own knowledge work, invested in expertise on impact assessment and further developed the Network for Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERLIN), and more.

These are promising rates. The next step is to translate ambition into action. This will entail, among other things, a need for closer cooperation between civil society organisations and research institutions. The authors of this post recently participated in a working group mandated to identify opportunities and barriers to such cooperation, and propose measures that better facilitate.

The result is a report with recommendations to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norad, aid organizations and research institutions. We present five of the recommendations here:

1) Trigger investment in knowledge that benefits the community

Knowledge is a common good — it can have value for more people than the person making the investment. The individual organization does not have strong incentives to take this added value into account. Therefore, in aid, as otherwise, we see that actors often choose less ambitious knowledge investments than what is desirable for society as a whole.

To counter this, the report recommends that Norad set up a new financing arrangement for strategically important knowledge investments with broad utility. Such a scheme can be organised either as separate calls for calls or by allocating a proportion of funds from various budget items — for example two per cent — to this.

The purpose is to be able to provide additional funds to organizations that produce knowledge that is a common good, rather than having to take it from their own budgets - as at present - they have to take it from their own budgets.

2) A knowledge center for the aid

Another key proposal is to create a knowledge centre that can produce knowledge overviews, maintain a knowledge base and provide advice and assistance to organisations on the use of research-based knowledge. Collecting such services in a knowledge center will strengthen coordination and reduce the cost of knowledge work.

The State Department and Norad should be the driving forces to establish such a center. This will not only strengthen Norwegian aid work, but also position Norway as an international leader in knowledge-based development cooperation.

3) Strengthen the culture of collaboration between researchers and practitioners

There is no strong tradition in Norway of collaboration between research communities and aid organizations over time, for example regarding the assessment of the results of the aid. Different goals and working methods, funding arrangements and lack of insight into each other's strengths and limitations can stand in the way of developing a powerful collaboration.

The report therefore suggests that research institutions invest more in understanding the field of aid and develop guidelines for collaboration that build trust and increase the usefulness of joint projects. Close collaboration with research institutions in the Global South will be central here.

The aid organizations, in turn, should involve researchers already in the planning phase of their programs. This will provide better conditions for generating knowledge of high quality and practical relevance.

4) Knowledge — a key criterion in the distribution of funds

Norad and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must demonstrate that the expectation of knowledge-based aid is real by making the quality of knowledge work a key criterion in the allocation of funds. It involves requiring good knowledge plans in applications, rewarding organizations that invest in robust and widely useful knowledge, and clarifying in awards how organizations' knowledge work influences decisions.

More carrot to apply and generate relevant knowledge will contribute to better impact programs and reduce the risk of failed interventions.

5) Quality over quantity in evaluations

Aid organizations conduct a large number of evaluations, often with big questions to be answered with little time and money. This is a bad recipe for acquiring reliable knowledge that lays the foundation for learning and improvement.

Norad's updated grant management handbook expresses an expectation of increased quality of such evaluations. We advise organizations to follow this up by doing fewer evaluations, with higher quality. This will provide more reliable knowledge, more learning and will make it more interesting for researchers to contribute, because they can adopt a larger part of the scientific toolbox than in small, quick evaluations.

At the same time, there is a need for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norad to clarify which evaluations they expect the organization to continue to make based on control considerations.

These recommendations, as well as the other recommendations in our report, will facilitate better and more knowledge-based Norwegian aid. We hope these are ambitions and a roadmap that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norad, aid organizations and research institutions will follow up. We are happy to assist in the effort to make it happen.

By: Eirik Mofoss (Langsikt), Ole Morten Stavland (Digni/MERLiN), Ottar Mæstad (CMI/DLL), Arild Angelsen (NMBU), Laura Derksen (The Frisch centre), Øyvind Eggen (Artikulert), Haakon Gjerløw (PRIO), Eivind Moe Hammersmark (UiO), Waranoot Strand (SOS barnebyer/MERLiN) – members of the working group on more knowledge-based aid