Malaria in the Making
Posted by internationalh on July 2, 2006
Owen has some thoughts on the global fight against malaria. “Here, here!”
There is an interesting question here about incentives within the aid agencies. Our incentives are to make our reputation by developing new ideas, introducing new programs or leading change. There is a much smaller incentive to adopt a good idea that has been proven to work and to take it to scale. Because we have few effective measures of output of individual activities, we have no incentive to be completer-finishers. As a result, we are constantly analyzing and criticizing, having conferences and evaluating. We spend huge sums on very expensive ex-patriate technical assistance – part of that Amir Attaran calls “the foreign aid industrial complex”. Of course it is always important to evaluate progress, and to try to do better with the resources we have got, but sometimes we should just get on and do what we know is effective.
