To ensure the effectiveness of its foreign aid program, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade must conduct more long-term evaluations of projects.
Some look good right after completion but not several years later. Early evaluations are also needed, but they often can’t provide a final appraisal.
A survey of the DFAT website suggests that it completes virtually all foreign aid program evaluations during a project’s duration or immediately after its end. When it fails to assess projects’ outcomes in the years after they finish, the department leaves itself with no way of knowing whether they have sustained benefits to the recipient country or to Australia and no way of addressing shortcomings if projects are ineffective in the long run.
Among the 43 readily accessible program evaluations labelled ‘final’, ‘completion’ or ‘end of project’ on the department’s website, all but three were conducted within one year of the project’s end date. DFAT completed at least 23 of these evaluations within six months of the end date, including seven that were published before some aspects of the project had finished. For instance, it published its final report on a water and sanitation project in East Timor on 8 June 2016, despite the project’s listed end date of 30 June.
Mid- and short-term evaluations of foreign aid projects are important: they can provide recommendations for the remainder of the project and reveal its immediate effects. But even projects that are successful during their implementation and immediately after completion can have unintended negative consequences that only become evident in a long-term evaluation.
For example, a growing body of academic literature warns that economic and political elites in aid-dependent countries sometimes divert foreign aid towards their own interests. A 2020 World Bank found a correlation between the timings of World Bank aid disbursements to 22 aid-dependent countries and deposits made into offshore bank accounts in tax havens from those countries. Some elites divert foreign aid directly into their pockets, while others use foreign aid for its intended purpose but divert other government resources to their personal interests.
The Cambodia Criminal/Community Justice Assistance Partnership, funded by the Australian Government, is an example of why long-term evaluations are necessary. The program ended in 2016, with an evaluation published in the same year. Among the listed outcomes was the establishment of a healthcare system in Cambodian prisons. But just four years later, Amnesty International reported a health crisis in Cambodian prisons, saying that Cambodian officials had blatantly disregarded basic hygiene practices and put inmates at high risk of a Covid-19 outbreak.
While this finding is not proof that the program failed, there is no way of knowing whether taxpayer money was used effectively to improve conditions in Cambodian prisons or to support Australia’s strategic interests without a long-term evaluation. We cannot know whether the healthcare system established by the program lasted beyond 2016. If the effort had poor results, we cannot know what caused this failure, nor how to avoid negative outcomes in the future. A long-term evaluation could provide insightful answers which would allow DFAT to improve its foreign aid practices.
The benefits of long-term evaluations can be seen in DFAT’s assessment of the Eastern Indonesia National Roads Improvement Project. The project ended in 2015 and an evaluation was completed in 2017. The report found that the condition of the roads remained good after two years, suggesting high materials quality. However, it also found an unexpected negative impact: with better roads, people began driving faster and road fatalities increased. So, the report suggested coupling future road building projects with road safety programs. Without this long-term evaluation, DFAT’s future programs would not have been able to benefit from this finding.
Aid projects with sustainable, long-lasting benefits are good for the recipient country and for Australia. They deliver improved living conditions for the recipient population, reduce the need for Australia to provide aid in the future and strengthen the relationship between the two countries. By completing only mid- and short-term evaluations, DFAT leaves itself in the dark about the long-term effects of its aid. Evaluations completed years after programs end should become standard practice so DFAT can know what’s working and what’s not.