1. From aid to access

Why do so many development projects disappear?

Across Africa, Asia and much of the developing world, there is a familiar monument to good intentions.

It is not a school. It is not a hospital. It is not a bridge. It is a rusty sign beside a road.

The sign still carries the logo of a donor agency, an NGO or an international development program. It promises clean water, education, healthcare, women’s empowerment or poverty reduction.

Behind it there is often very little.

Maybe broken pump, an abandoned building, a locked training centre. A clinic without medicine or a cooperative without capital. The project arrived with vehicles, consultants, workshops, banners and speeches. Then it disappeared.

During more than three decades working as an investigative journalist, much of it in developing countries and conflict zones, I have visited hundreds of development projects. Some transformed communities, but most left little behind than that rusty sign beside the road.

Those experiences led me to ask a simple question:

Why do some development efforts create lasting change while others disappear almost as soon as the funding ends? This series is an attempt to explore that question.

Before continuing, one distinction is essential. This is not an argument against humanitarian aid.

On the contrary. When war, famine, natural disasters or epidemics strike, emergency assistance saves lives. Millions of people are alive today because humanitarian organisations, governments and volunteers acted when they were needed most. Throughout my own work in conflict zones, I have witnessed that reality many times. Saving lives and building economies, however, are not the same task.

For more than half a century, wealthy nations have invested enormous resources in international development. Today, official development assistance exceeds US$200 billion each year, while the cumulative investment since the 1960s amounts to several trillion dollars. Although these figures are overshadowed by the vast sums currently being devoted to military expenditure and armed conflicts by the same nations, they still represent one of the largest sustained international investments ever made in the pursuit of human development, poverty reduction, and economic progress.

Much good has undoubtedly been achieved. Yet hundreds of millions of people continue to live in poverty.

The question is therefore no longer whether aid has done good. It clearly has.

The more difficult question is whether the dominant model of development consistently creates lasting economic independence. Too often, success appears to be measured by what is delivered rather than by what remains.

A well is drilled. But who maintains it five years later? A school is built. But who finances it when external funding ends? Women receive training. But who provides access to capital, customers and markets?

Farmers receive equipment. But who helps them insure their harvest, finance expansion or survive a failed season? Young entrepreneurs receive certificates. But do they become economically independent? Or do they remain invisible to the financial system?

The projects were real. The intentions were genuine. But good intentions alone cannot create sustainable development. Development requires systems that continue working after the project itself has ended.

Another uncomfortable reality is that development assistance rarely moves directly from donor to beneficiary. Funds often pass through a long chain of governments, development agencies, multilateral organisations, consultants, contractors, and implementing partners. Each layer incurs administrative and operational costs, that retains a portion of the available resources. As a result, only the remaining funds ultimately reach the local communities for whom the assistance was originally intended.

Each layer performs functions. Each layer also adds cost, complexity and distance.

Administrative expenses are unavoidable. But every additional step creates opportunities for inefficiency, patronage and, in some cases, corruption.

This is not unique to developing countries. It is as common on the donor side.

Procurement scandals, financial mismanagement and political influence have occurred on both the donor and recipient sides.

The problem is therefore less about individual morality than about the complexity of the system itself.

Perhaps this explains why so many projects struggle once external funding disappears.

Perhaps we have focused too much on delivering projects and too little on building systems that people can own, maintain and finance themselves.

That possibility deserves investigation.

It also raises another question.

If development is meant to create independence, why do so many hardworking people remain excluded from the very financial systems that allow modern economies to function?

Around the world, approximately 1.4 billion adults still lack access to a regulated financial account. Well over 1 billion more are underbanked—people who have an account but cannot access the financial services they need, such as affordable credit, secure savings, insurance, or payment solutions. Together, they represent an estimated 2.5 to 3.0 billion people, equivalent to roughly one-third of the world’s adult population.

Many work every day. They farm. They trade. They sew. They cook. They transport goods. They run small businesses. Yet economically, many remain invisible.

This is especially true for women.

Across the developing world, millions of women manage households, operate market stalls, cultivate farms and support extended families. They generate income every day. Yet many remain excluded from the financial systems that determine who can save securely, borrow responsibly, insure against risk and build a recognised financial history.

Perhaps poverty is not only a shortage of income.

Perhaps it is also a shortage of access.

Access to markets.

Access to payments.

Access to savings.

Access to opportunity.

This series does not claim to have all the answers.

But it will explore a question that deserves far more attention than it has received.

Perhaps the future of development depends not only on how much aid we deliver, but on how many people we enable to build their own future.
That question will guide the articles that follow.

Peter Rinaldo

Facts Behind This Article

• OECD – Official Development Assistance
• World Bank – Global Findex Database
• International Labour Organization – Informal Economy Reports
• United Nations Development Programme
• Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005)