THE CONSTRAINTS ON AID AND DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE AGENCIES GIVING A HIGH PRIORITY TO BASIC NEEDS David Edward Satterthwaite PhD thesis submitted to the London School of Economics and Political Science UMI Number: U615455 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615455 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 OF POLITICAL AND 'Th e s e s F Zois I02Z1SU ABSTRACT The objective o f the thesis is to identify what constrains development assistance agencies giving a higher priority to ensuring that basic needs are met. Support for basic needs is taken to include all spending to address unmet needs in terms o f water supply and sanitation, primary health care, primary or basic education and literacy. It also includes all development agency funding for housing, social employment 'community and development' projects targeted at low income groups. A statistical analysis o f all project commitments for a range o f development assistance agencies over a number o f years showed that most allocate less than 20 percent o f their funding to basic needs while some allocate less than 10 percent. This analysis also showed some evidence o f increased priority to basic needs in recent years, especially for the concessional loan programme o f the World Bank. Interviews with a range o f stafffrom the World Bank, UNICEF and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and a review o f these agencies ’ internal documents sought to establish the main constraints on an increased priority to basic needs. The constraints can be divided into four sets: the institutional constraints linked to an agency's internal workings; conscious policy choices made within the agency to limit funding for basic needs; external influences, including commercial pressures, consultants and influences from the governments that fund the agencies; and the political and institutional constraints within recipient countries - for instance recipient governments not prioritizing basic needs projects or their limited capacity to support basic needs provision. The thesis shows that development assistance agencies’ own internal structures often constrain funding for successful basic needs projects. For instance, many basic needs projects are relatively cheap and staff intensive to develop but within most agencies, staff are under pressure to spend relatively large sums and to minimize staff time when doing so. Many agencies also have the institutional legacy o f structures set up to fund large capital projects and difficulties in changing these structures to reflect new priorities, including a higher priority to basic needs. The incapacity o f recipient governments to implement basic needs projects and, in most nations, the lack o f alternative implementors is also a major constraint. The thesis emphasizes how research to date has given too little attention to these constraints. It also discusses the ways in which agencies are seeking to overcome these constraints and the need to do so if a renewed emphasis on poverty reduction is to be effective. CONTENTS Preface ................................................................................................................................... vi 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Research Topic ............................................................................................. 1 1.2 Research Issues ............................................................................................... 4 2. FOUR DECADES OF DEBATE OVER BASIC NEEDS 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 14 2.2 The debates about basic needs .......................................................................... 17 2.3 Basic Needs within the debates about development assistance ......................... 19 2.4 The debate about what are'basic needs' ......................................................... 22 2.5 The compatibility between basic needs and conventional growth models . 27 2.6 Can basic needs strategies be implemented by Third World governments . 30 2.6.1 The debate between radicals and conservatives ............................. 31 2.6.2 The question of access .................................................................... 32 2.6.3 Bypassing government .................................................................. 36 2.6.4 The opponents of basic needs ......................................................... 38 2.7 Basic needs versus structural change to the world system .............................. 39 2.8 The reformulation of ^asic needs'within the 1990s 41 2.9 Some conclusions ........................................................................................... 47 3. RESTATEMENT OF ISSUES, PROPOSED RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY 3.1 The main hypotheses ....................................................................................... 52 3.2 Testing these hypotheses ................................................................................... 52 3.3 Methodology for the quantitative analysis 3.3.1 The Definition of "Basic Needs" .................................................... 55 3.3.2 Information sources for project database and the quantitative analysis ......................................................................61 3.3.3 Other quantitative analyses of donor agencies' sectoral priorities 65 3.4 Methodology for the qualitative analysis 3.4.1 Choice of agencies .......................................................................... 66 3.4.2 Information Sources ........................................................................ 68 3.4.3 The Key Questions ...........................................................................71 4. THE WORLD BANK 4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 73 4.2 Types of Funding and Scale of Aid/Development Assistance Flows ................75 4.3 The extent to which Bank funding for non-Third World nations or for structural adjustment drew resources from basic needs (and other) projects ................................................................................... 78 4.4 The sectoral analysis ......................................................................................... 83 4.5 Aid/Development Assistance for Basic Needs ............................................... 93 11 4.6 The Mismatch between Bank statements and actual commitments 4.6.1 Basic needs in general ................................................................... 98 4.6.2 The Bank and poverty reduction, 1990-96 104 4.6.3 Education ..........................................................................................105 4.6.4 Health services .................................................................................106 4.6.5 Water, sanitation, garbage collection and drainage ........................106 4.6.6 Social Funds and Safety Nets .......................................................... 107 4.6.7 Improving housing and living conditions ......................................... 108 4.7 The shift from funding basic needs projects to basic needs institutions . 110 4.8 The constraints on a Greater Priority to Basic Needs 4.8.1 The range of constraints .......................................................... 114 4.8.2 The key questions .................................................................... 114 4.8.3 The constraints internal to the bank on funding for basic needs projects ........................................................................ 115 4.8.4 Strengthening recipient governments' institutional capacity - the constraints internal and external to the Bank ..................... 123 4.8.5 Other external influences .......................................................... 126 4.8.6 Conclusions ................................................................................... 132 5. UNICEF 5.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 134 5.2 UNICEF features ...............................................................................................137 5.3 The changes in UNICEF’s sectoral priorities, 1947-93 5.3.1 The sectoral categories used ............................................................. 140 5.3.2 1947-70 142 5.3.3 1970-79 146 5.3.4 1980-93 148 5.4 The influences on UNICEF's sectoral priorities during the 1980s 5.4.1 What influences the sectoral priorities .............................................. 154 5.4.2 The priorities of the office of the Executive Director ...................155 5.4.3 The priorities of the recipient government ............................... 158 5.4.4 The availability of funding ............................................................. 159 5.4.5 What fits the skills of available personnel and bureaucratic processes of UNICEF ......................................................................160