Aid Effectiveness: How is the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative Doing?

This paper uses case studies of Bangladesh, Ghana, Rwanda, and Senegal to assess the degree to which the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative (AFSI) has been implemented within the framework of managing for development results (MfDR) and to evaluate progress in various outcomes, including economic governance, agricultural growth, poverty, and food and nutrition security (FNS). The MfDR approach has gained widespread support in obtaining results, including reforming the ways in which development aid is delivered and managed. This reform has led to recent development cooperation that emphasizes alignment of aid to recipient countries’ own national development strategies and priorities. This paper combines narratives, based on information collected from expert opinion surveys, and trends analysis of quantitative data, based on publicly available data and information, to address four research questions:

• What does a country-owned agricultural and rural development and food and nutrition security (ARD&FNS) strategy entail?
• To what extent are governments and their development partners providing financial and nonfinancial efforts toward these country-owned ARD&FNS strategies?
• How are these efforts being managed to achieve development results?
• To what extent are development results being achieved—that is, are outcome indicators trending in the expected directions toward stated targets?

Results are presented first at the global level to set the context of development aid and then for the country case studies, comparing the situation prior to the 2009 AFSI and the situation afterward. Overall conclusions for the contribution of AFSI to observed changes are drawn, followed by suggestions for further studies.