Aid agencies under pressure to prove how money is spent

Such comments, while well intended, risk turning the public off aid completely, by making it sound like some degree of misspending might be acceptable.

With donors’ reputations hanging in the balance, there is no doubt that closer scrutiny of aid’s value for money should be encouraged and donors should use these lean times to prove their worth to taxpayers.

Doing so could help boost their popularity.

But it would also give supporters of science for development the opportunity to add hard facts to the rhetoric that made organisations like SIDA invest in African science to begin with. If investing in science and technology works to boost development, there should be plenty of evidence to support it by now.

Article courtesy of Scidev.net