Aid, lipstick, the political economy dumpster, and black market uranium

An omnibus edition of loose thinking about recent events.

If you can’t say anything nice…..

Strategic ignorance.

My substack has been quiet for a while - I have been travelling and preoccupied with focused work, but also when tempted to write something about the catastrophic demolition of aid (US and UK variants) my instant thoughts have been too critical, too miserable, and risked giving yet another kick to those already suffering and facing further uncertainty. I have also put a lot of effort into being all about ‘public policy’ in general, not only or mainly about ‘aid’, so it seemed foolish to dive back in with my hot takes. Others’ takes are hotter. And better.

My empathy resources are also slightly skewed - those affected that I know directly are part of the USAID and UK Aid machinery, just as I and my family were part of DFID’s machine and we all felt pain when DFID died - I don’t directly know the people who have benefited from or depended on USAID support for health, education, humanitarian support, peace, though of course I care about them.

The hottest hot takes period is now past, so here are some thoughts - I hope that it is not too soon, or emotions still too raw.

Anti anti-corruption

Early in the attack on USAID, when anti corruption and gender themes disappeared from the website, I scribbled then scrapped a note on my earlier misgivings about the Biden administration’s dramatic scale up of funding for anti-corruption globally.

I had worried that this created a dollar boom and a hegemony of thought in anti-corruption, including around ‘strategic corruption’ (Russia and China) at the expense of putting our own houses in order, and was so dominant that it risked squeezing out diversity and challenge in anti corruption. For me the zenith of this was the International Anti Corruption Conference (IACC) in Washington DC in late 2022 when so much of the business presented was US business. This did not seem healthy.

US funding became so ubiquitous that it was hard not to dream about being part of the new wave - when I was Director of U4 we were chased by various US intermediaries to be ‘partners’ in their bids, and actively considered this, but (perhaps luckily) did not land any new dollars, probably because our conditions were too rigid (fund more of what we already do, rather than bend our model out of shape).

During a boom it is hard to think about the likelihood or consequences of a future bust, when active solidarity backed with hard cash could turn to dust, and brave people who ‘we’ have encouraged to stand up against oppression and evil, and reassured that we have ‘got their back’, realise that this is not true. I’ve been here before with large civil society programmes and human rights support. Booms make me edgy, though the cash is hard to resist. But exit from boom commitments rarely happens slowly.

However, I would undoubtedly rather have the Biden boom than the Trump/Musk bust - and even worse than that, the risk of an anti corruption ‘upside down’ where everything we thought was wrong is now claimed to be right¹.

A few anti corruption folk who now find themselves on the job market have been in touch to seek my advice about finding their next role. I don’t think that I am the right person to ask, and I ask them to read the two blogs below (about diversity and pluralism in anti corruption, and the benefits of not devoting your whole career in big A/C) and then come back to me if they still want to talk. Generally they don’t².

My reflections above touch on the under-explored ‘political economy’ of the global anti-corruption machine, and the sub-systems, dominant organisations, and the powers within these. Perhaps now is the time for more critical reflection. A practical political economy of anti-corruption.

Political economy dumpster

With another (political economy) hat on, I note that the US has been a big supporter and funder of Political Economy Analysis (PEA) and some of the most interesting PEA outputs that I have seen in the last few years were USAID funded.

Unfortunately only some of these products were public, and I fear that a great deal of useful work has been lost as USAID systems were smashed. Even the USAID PEA guide was missing for some time when the website was taken down - I hope that there are bootleg PDFs in circulation. I like the USAID PEA framing - particularly the focus on ‘purpose’ and the ‘here and now’:

USAID’s PEA framework salvaged from a slidedeck. Gone but not forgotten.

As with any tools, the real test is how they are applied (if at all). I note that there is a huge variety of PEA products - public or shared in confidence - and the quality is variable (putting it politely). Prevailing secrecy is part of the problem here - no public product, no peer critique, little incentive to do better - or for commissioners to use experts with a demonstrated track record of good work. Paying customers can also be quite undiscerning, with their interest in quality only triggered very late in the process when they receive a draft report that they don’t think is good enough.

This all suggests that my push for core funded, open access, public good, plain language, quality assured political economy analysis and research (the ‘Practical Politics Platform’³) is ‘barking up the right tree’.

PEA: Black market uranium?

So what to do about lost PEAs, if anything? The ethics are a complex. Here’s my thin analysis:

• a foreign donor agency funds political economy analysis about another sovereign country and/or specific sector. The intention is to use this to inform more effective strategy in that country/sector (by the donor itself and its close partners), though the report might remain unpublished and confidential because it is deemed politically sensitive.

• The experts commissioned to do the analysis may feel able to be frank only because the report is to remain private.

• However, the funding agency is then destroyed, and the report - confidential or otherwise - is lost forever, yet the analysis is still valid and could help others - within and outside that country system - to understand and address binding political constraints, and so unlock greater benefits and opportunities for people in that country. Is there a moral imperative to try and do this?

• Of course, anyone else could commission similar analysis afresh, though this seems like a waste of time and money. Or they could pay or persuade the original experts to reproduce or share similar thinking in some other format. Ideally with an open access, public good version.

While I don’t encourage anyone to break the rules… if you have any ‘uranium’ (PEA report) that you want to share, or share in confidence… or stick through ChatGPT (paid version so your data is not gobbled up by the global LLM ) to neutralise and anonymise it then share a copy… What do you think?

Aid dependence and the illusive social contract

I was in Nairobi in March and one reflection from policy folk on the destruction of USAID was shock that Kenya was still so dependent on aid in areas such as health procurement. Also some reflection on how this has affected Kenyan politics and stymied development of a stronger ‘social contract’.

Aid Lipstick

Years ago in Bangladesh DFID funded some research on the consequences of an economic downturn on young women who had moved from rural districts to work in Dhaka's garment factories, but had now been laid off. The study revealed the great economic and social benefits of this employment and the move to the city, as well as the impact of sudden uncertainty. One quote has stuck in my mind for two decades:

"If I had known it wouldn't last, I would have saved a bit more money - and not spent so much on things like lipstick'.

There were similar comments about other relative luxuries bought in time of plenty. I’ve got an expensive (and broken) watch bought at an airport 25 years ago that gives me the same feeling of remorse.

I have thought about ‘lipstick’ a lot over the years, including in relation to the glorious reality of economic, social and personal freedom, and how we all take the opportunity to do our own thing, not conform to some pure, economically rational ideal. In fact, a lot of growth related to manufacturing and consumer spending is precisely in the lipstick space.

I also think about ‘lipstick’ as we cycle from plenty to scarcity, boom to bust, including in aid. In times of 'max aid' I regret that we spent too much on 'lipstick' - going too large and too loud on programmes, campaigns and slogans when ‘steady eddy’ would have been good enough. End of year pressures to get funds out of the door to meet spending targets gave me similar feelings.

Is this same as the daily mail test? Ethiopian spice girls territory? Not really, as in my mind aid lipstick tends towards the other end of the spectrum - pandering to notions of what the daily mail might think is a good use of aid.

The claims of turning ‘billions to trillions’ in private sector investment look a lot like aid lipstick. As does the overblown hype for transformative innovation and its show-biz lite culture of pitching, shark tanks and dragon's dens but too little attention to whether these ‘solutions’ actually ‘solve’. And most applications of the word ‘leverage’ in aid. I could go on, and include some of my own lipsticky creations, born in times of plenty.

The max aid era encouraged too much lipstick. I hope that we can be more cautious from hereon.

That’s it for now. If you liked this post, please share it.

1. I’m favouring Stranger Things over the more established George Orwell metaphors here.

2. More constructive is this blog by my newish Brainy Briny Thursday (BBT) buddy Gawain Kripke about how to be a freelance consultant.

3. The LinkedIn soft announcement of the PPP got a good response, and the list of people joining the PPP network is now 80+. Get in touch if you want to join us.

For PEA super fans also pasting here a note that I put on Linkedin last week which got some encouraging engagement:

Friday thought:
Those of us that work in 'practical political economy' may be invited to dig around in elite bargains, political equilibria, and informality, to try and understand why decades of 'first best' technical and economic policy advice, lined up with decent budgets, and built upon sound theory and rigorous evidence, are not having the expected effect on a particular policy problem (on repeat).
We are also asked to advise on what can be done to tackle this - sometimes quickly.
When we do share analysis, and advice, it is sometimes odd to be asked to provide evidence for this in exactly the same forms of data and evidence that underpin all of that first best technocratic and economic policy advice, which is not having the expected effect. On repeat.
I'm not quite sure what to do about this - though being as rigorous as we can is always a good idea. It also reminds me of the struggles between natural and upstart social sciences, between quantitative and qualitative methods. You can of course find the shadows or vapour trails of elite bargains in such data and evidence, but the 'dark matter', the spectre, the yeti, the bhoot, might be a bit messier and harder to measure or photograph*.

*though elite instagram bling can be a great data source!