Friday, June 17, 2011

Listening to LFO at trivia night at a Gulu bar... sponsored by Guiness

Gulu Town is often called NGO Town, and with good reason. Following the 2006 cease fire that ended the war against the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda, hundreds of NGOs swarmed into Gulu District, many of them making their residence in Gulu Town, by far the biggest city in Gulu District.

This is not to say that Gulu Town is big. In fact, compared to the swirling chaos that is Kampala, Gulu feels like a serene hamlet. I really love this about Gulu. I can walk almost anywhere and while walking my chance of being mowed down in the street by a taxi or boda boda is far lower than in Kampala.

Another side effect of Gulu Town being small is that the NGO presence is wildly apparent. Holy cats there are a lot of white people here. As I write this blog post, I am sitting in the Coffee Hut, a café that has the magical combination of free internet, a generator for when the power is out (which, as it turns out, is a rather common occurrence. For example, the power has been out all day today), and coffee, a combination which seems to attract muzungus like moths to a flame.

This new reality of living in a Uganda where my 16 SIT cohorts and I aren’t the only white people I see all day has been an interesting one. Sometimes, I find myself annoyed by it. I ask “what are they doing here?” Which, of course, is silly, since one could certainly ask the same question about me.

Other times, I feel like I want to avoid the places where muzungus hang out in town, but let’s face it, the power has been out all day, and I need to use the internet. So here I am.

I supposed I liked to fancy myself the cool American who isn't obnoxious like the other white people who just drop in on Africa from time to time. In many senses I hope I am less obnoxious, but really I am just a white person doing research here like anyone else, so I guess I just need to get over myself.

However, it is certainly a different spectacle to watch, especially as someone who is interested in studying the effectiveness of aid. Every day, I watch all of these muzungus buzz around Gulu town, wondering what their reason is for being here. A lot of them are students (In fact, there is an SIT group in Gulu this summer for a couple of weeks, which has resulted in getting to see Muna and Miriam, two of the SIT staff, around town, which has been fun!), a lot are missionary types, and the bulk are well meaning aid workers, trying to make Gulu a better place, whatever that means.

Sometimes I wonder how many well meaning white people a Gulu resident sees come and go in their life time, and what they would say has been the impact of this constant turnover on their lives.

Which is certainly not to say that these people aren’t doing good things. After all, I certainly like to think that my presence here has some purpose. But the constant flurry of good intention around town often makes me wonder what sense the NGOs and aid workers in town have of what the other NGOs and aid workers are doing, and how many of them stay around long enough to see the result of their actions.

Basically, it really makes me believe in the importance of transparency, coordination, and a commitment to accountability in foreign aid, more than I already did before my arrival.

Also, living in NGO town leads to some funny situations, such as the one that inspired the title of this post. Last night, Greg and I went out to a bar in Gulu that hosts a weekly trivia night on Thursday. We met up with three friends of his from Notre Dame (plus one of their fellow interns who is from Germany), who are just outside Gulu Town on this Notre Dame program as well as two of Greg’s coworkers from the clinic.

The bar was a funny scene. Roughly equal parts Muzungus and Ugandans hanging out and playing trivia, but decidedly Muzungu music in the background. This included the likes of Jason Mraz, Linkin Park, Third Eye Blind, and LFO. We did respectably at the trivia, but didn’t win. I suspect we’ll try next week.

Love and miss you all!!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

And We're Back!!

Hello again! Tomorrow I head back to Uganda for two months to work as a research assistant on some awesome projects! I figured that before I go, I should fill you all in on the projects I'm working on! Because I am using the research funds from my scholarship to fund this adventure, I am also obliged to blog at the Charles Center Summer Research Blog. In the interest of time (and finishing packing in time to watch the finale of America's Best Dance Crew with my parents tonight), I have shamelessly copied and pasted the post I wrote for the Charles Center blog:

Many scholars and practitioners have called attention to the shortcomings of foreign aid in promoting growth in developing countries. One problem that is often mentioned is that, of the roughly $150 billion in foreign aid received by developing countries annually, research has suggested that only a small portion of this money actually reaches the intended beneficiaries. A large portion of the diverted money is lost to corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency (Svensson 2000, Knack 2001). Of the money that does reach the right hands, it often ends in unsustainable projects that do not produce the intended results due to inefficiencies or project abandonment.

Two breakdowns in the service provider-recipient relationship contribute to the capture of foreign aid funds by corrupt officials and bureaucratic inefficiencies. The first is a breakdown in useful information provision. It is not a lack of information driving this breakdown, but a failure to centralize these sources in a useful way. Studies have suggested that individuals and organizations with access to useful information are far more likely to play an effective oversight role (Miller 2005, Gordon and Huber 2002). Often times, the most useful information regarding where aid is needed and whether aid dollars are being spent effectively is held by citizens in developing countries. However, these citizens generally lack the tools and access needed to provide direct feedback on project status or impact.

The first project I will be working on this summer will investigate the use of crowdsourcing to solve this information breakdown. Crowdsourcing is an idea that leverages the wisdom of the crowd to answer a question or solve a problem that would traditionally be posed to a specific actor. For example, in the business world, companies may use crowdsourcing to get ideas for a new product. This summer, AidData will be partnering with UNICEF andUshahidi to run a randomized control trial in Uganda to test which incentive mechanisms (ie. reimbursement, additional payment, social connection, public praise, instant feedback, engagement of local village councils, and relayed information about local outcomes, etc.) are most effective in compelling Ugandan citizens to participate in crowdsourcing to provide useful information on development needs and outcomes. The application of incentive mechanisms will be randomized across districts in Uganda, so that results can be compared against control districts to isolate the effect of the treatment. I will be working as a research assistant on this project, coordinating the AidData effort with the UNICEF Zonal Office in Gulu District, Northern Uganda.

The second breakdown in the foreign aid sector is a breakdown in accountability. Unlike governments. the typical service providers in developed countries, aid providers are not directly accountable to the citizens they serve through elections. Because of this, aid providers are often not held accountable for the development outcomes of their projects, an important incentive for effective service provision.

The second project will investigate the use of scorecarding NGOs to help ameliorate the problems caused by the accountability breakdown. Scorecarding refers to the quantitative assessment of NGO performance along seven metrics: policy structure, organization stability, accountability to stakeholders, transparency of information, financial viability, resource efficiency, and monitoring and evaluation. We will then collaborate with NGO partners in Uganda to randomize the publication of the scorecards of different NGOs to different stakeholders within Uganda’s NGO market (i.e. donor organizations, local and national politicians, project beneficiaries, etc.). This randomization will allow us to assess which stakeholders are the most influential in inspiring effectiveness in the NGO sector. I will work as the research assistant coordinating the evaluation of NGOs in Northern Uganda.