Aid strategies in ‘politically estranged’ settings

Staying engaged in politically estranged situations presents distinct policy and practical dilemmas for donors and multilateral organizations. This chapter explores four challenges that shape decisions on what aid is provided, to whom and how.

Accountability

Accountability lies at the heart of effective governance and relationships. In ‘normal’ development circumstances, the primary accountability relationship is between national authorities and their populations (Figure 2). National authorities are responsible for developing participatory national development plans that reflect citizens’ priorities, and for delivering results in accordance with them. They are required to account for revenue and expenditure, observe the rule of law and treat all parts of the population fairly and impartially.21

Figure 2. Normal accountability relations in the delivery of aid

— Source: World Bank (2011), World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/4389.

This relationship is supported by donors in a mutually accountable way – national authorities commit to delivering the actions they have announced and donors to delivering the assistance they have pledged. Donors are also accountable to their own citizens. Donors must ensure that funds are disbursed effectively, according to agreed priorities, and demonstrate results, as well as value for money. In the case of multilateral organizations, accountability is translated through member state governments and governing bodies.

Figure 3. Shifting accountability relations in politically estranged situations

In politically estranged situations, however, these relationships change (Figure 3). First, accountability arrangements between national authorities and people are weaker. By their nature, these are contested situations where political settlements have broken down, the social contract is frayed, opportunities to engage are limited and the legitimacy of government is challenged internationally and often domestically.22

Second, accountability between donors and national authorities is weak or non-existent. Because the authorities are unrecognized or under some form of sanction, there will be limits as to how donors can engage with them. Mutually agreed frameworks centred on national development plans are not feasible. Nor is the provision, in most cases, of direct financial assistance.

Third, the accountability relationship between donors and their own population and taxpayers becomes more visible and politically salient. Often, more branches of government become involved in policymaking, as political, security, human rights and trade concerns increase. There may also be more attention to, and discussion of, the situation in parliaments, political parties, media and among civil society, including diaspora groups.23 Citizens’ perceptions about the provision of aid to countries may be affected by media reports of abuse of human rights, exclusion of women or other groups, forced migration or large-scale corruption. Multilateral organizations will typically be subject to heightened monitoring and reporting requirements.

The fracturing of relationships with national authorities does not mean that principles of local ownership and accountability should be jettisoned. This paper argues that supporting people in need and preventing the further deterioration of social structures, capacities and governance means establishing new accountability arrangements with populations and institutions. This may include local communities, subnational authorities and local civil society organizations (CSOs) and their evolving attitudes towards the governance and delivery of services provided by their national authorities.

Inclusion

Identifying which communities and groups to engage is a particular challenge in estranged settings. Outsiders always face gaps in knowledge and understanding of local power dynamics, which widen further when contacts with national actors are limited and in-country presence is reduced or withdrawn altogether. Civil society actors who engage with donor initiatives may face threats of reprisal or predation from repressive authorities and/or armed groups. The DAC Recommendation’s call for joint risk-informed and gender-sensitive analysis to understand how power is distributed and used is much more difficult to apply when national and international cooperation frameworks are suspended.24 Where multiple strategic, political and military interests are at play – as in Libya or Syria, for example – barriers to information-sharing and joint analysis increase.

In such situations, civil society, humanitarian and UN actors on the ground are critical sources of information and analysis. However, they may not be equipped to provide comprehensive analysis of political economy issues, and may struggle to undertake detailed assessments of specific locations or groups. Because these same organizations are also implementing programmes which require them to interact with national and subnational authorities, this can lead to caution in donor capitals towards detailed information-exchange with such partners. In estranged settings, therefore, both the need for and the obstacles to shared analysis increase.

Joint analysis, where feasible, can bring together the UN, international financial institutions (IFIs), regional organizations and bilateral donors.25 Well-designed analysis, especially of local conditions, can inform donor and multilateral debates, offering empirical assessment of the costs of estrangement; the ways in which the national and local economy is evolving, and key actors in it; the communities most in need; priorities for assistance; and local actors able to implement it. But joint analysis can be difficult to carry out uniformly and at speed in contested environments, and there is a trade-off between the number of organizations involved and the frankness and level of detail of the analysis.

Even where sufficient knowledge of the structures and needs of recipient countries and communities can be obtained, the design and delivery of assistance to and with them will be predicated on their independence, as well as their capacity to manage and implement programmes. These criteria are typically reflected in the aid conditions set by donors, especially where international sanctions are in place, something the UN has sought to navigate through dedicated risk management units.

The most fraught dilemmas centre around the provision of aid through and/or to civil servants and state institutions. In many estranged situations, donors and their implementing partners recognize that the institutions and functions of the state do not represent or reflect the values of ruling authorities. Donors must decide the extent to which they continue to work with state institutions, and what conditions should be applied to any such aid. This is currently the case for some donors in post-coup Burkina Faso and Mali, for example. In these instances, the extent to which authorities provide equal and impartial services to people is often a critical determinant in continuing or suspending aid.

In the most fraught situations – particularly where the ruling authorities exert a monopoly on coercive force and systemic repression – the perceived importance of signalling disapproval and concerns over the risk of assisting authorities to maintain or expand control needs to be weighed against potential benefits in maintaining some degree of engagement. The possibility of alternative sources of external support that may be less sensitive to issues of inclusion must also be considered. In some cases, these risks can lead to the suspension of engagement by donor countries with any institution of the state.

This paper argues that navigating which institutions, communities or groups to assist requires context-specific, often highly localized analysis; clearly articulated expectations as to how recipients are expected to act, especially around the provision of services to people; and careful monitoring of the extent to which conditions are being met.

Delivery

When donor–recipient relations break down, the default approach of most DAC donors is to focus on basic services – primarily healthcare, education and social protection. This is the case regardless of whether those services are provided through humanitarian assistance or a combination of humanitarian and development aid.

Yet this limited definition of basic services does not work in practical delivery terms. Basic social services to prevent famine or enable children to access education cannot be provided through humanitarian programming alone, given the scale and duration of current crises.26

Figure 4. Redefining basic services in estranged situations

Even where humanitarian programming provides excellent healthcare and education services, food aid or cash-based social protection, it does not prevent the collapse of economic activity and livelihoods. As the IMF notes, such collapse compounds a country’s crisis, extends the long-term economic consequences and drives regional and economic spillover, including large-scale movement of refugees and migrants.27

Even where humanitarian programming provides excellent healthcare and education services, food aid or cash-based social protection, it does not prevent the collapse of economic activity and livelihoods.

Afghanistan provides a vivid example. After the Taliban seized control in August 2021, the country’s economy all but collapsed, as donors suspended development aid equivalent to 40 per cent of Afghanistan’s GDP and imposed sanctions that effectively delinked Afghanistan from the global banking system. An unprecedented liquidity crisis ensued, with calamitous consequences for economic activity, livelihoods and basic services. The acting special representative of the UN secretary-general in the country testified to the UNSC in June 2022 that the economic crisis is ‘perhaps the single most important issue in Afghanistan’ – and one that cannot be resolved through recourse to humanitarian aid or basic services alone.28

Certain technical functions associated with stable development cooperation relationships are crucial for the effective functioning of healthcare, education and social protection services. These include utilities such as electricity and telecoms. Although not typically considered within humanitarian assistance, it is impossible to run hospitals without electricity and separate generation over long periods. It is also extremely inefficient in terms of costs. Likewise, it is almost impossible to deliver and monitor the distribution of humanitarian aid without internet and telecoms connectivity.

In addition, there is a set of macroeconomic functions without which basic services cannot be provided. These functions include payment systems, currency arrangements and exchange of basic data. A basic payment system includes banks which accept deposits, manage transfers and maintain accounts for their customers; and a central bank, which regulates banks, issues local currency and ensures its convertibility to foreign currency.

A functioning payment system, however limited, allows donors and authorities to move from providing in-kind food support to more effective and sustainable monetary forms of social protection. This transition necessarily looks different depending on the specific context.29 In settings where some form of national social protection still exists, cash transfers can provide an important means of building the population’s resilience while strengthening social safety nets, either directly or through techniques such as shadow alignment.30 In contexts where alignment with national systems is unfeasible or inappropriate, a shift to cash can be an important part of humanitarian effectiveness. In all cases, the transition away from in-kind support requires the maintenance of some minimum central bank capacity to enable banks and other payment providers to operate. Cash programming and payment systems are potentially productive areas for UN–IFI collaboration, given shared comparative advantages in the UN’s role in cash programming in humanitarian assistance, the World Bank’s focus on social protection and the IMF’s expertise in payment systems.

Foreign exchange remains challenging in estranged contexts. With limited trade options, especially when a sanctions regime is in place, the main sources for building foreign exchange reserves are donor funding and diaspora remittances. In a weak regulatory framework, there may be multiple exchange rates, such as in Lebanon or Yemen, and a majority of transactions taking place in the unregulated private sector. Those factors disadvantage donor funds and remittances, which adhere to the official rate set by the central bank. Some form of regulated foreign exchange system driven by market parameters helps create predictability for donors in terms of the conversion rate for their aid.

The $246 million World Bank Emergency Social Safety Net Project in Lebanon, launched in 2020, is an example of this challenge. This project provides some 780,000 individuals with a monthly transfer of $20 per person. The World Bank was initially offered the official rate of LL1,500 per dollar by the Central Bank of Lebanon, while the market rate was around LL15,000. The Bank ultimately bargained for a rate of LL6,240 per dollar. The project was criticized by civil society groups as a bailout of a bankrupt financial system. Those groups recommended instead that transfers be made in dollars.31

Where there is a recognized government, the IMF can play a role in helping strengthen financial systems and address issues that affect aid transactions. The IMF Staff-Monitored Programme for South Sudan was key in the creation of a unified market-determined foreign exchange rate in 2021, eliminating what had been a chaotic multiple exchange rate system.32

Finally, access to quality economic data is a challenge in environments where authorities are not recognized or are heavily sanctioned. Basic service programming is almost impossible without it. In these situations, maintaining some technical level of exchange with relevant state institutions’ officials does not replace enhanced information-sharing among humanitarian and development partners, but it can help ground macroeconomic analysis and, thereby, more effective programming. Interviews for this paper identified the consistency of IMF engagement as playing an important stabilizing role, gathering data and preventing spillovers, in situations of estrangement between national authorities and donors.

This paper argues that basic services in politically estranged situations should be redefined to include economic livelihoods, utilities and key macroeconomic and financial systems. In most cases, this implies the continued functioning of existing systems, rather than expanded funding.

Adaptability

Staying engaged assumes that ruptured relations are not permanent. Limiting or bypassing government is a partial and temporary solution to meet urgent needs and prevent bad situations from worsening. However, uncertainty as to when opportunities for re-engagement will occur – and how – is a huge challenge for aid programming. Some politically estranged situations (e.g. Eritrea, Zimbabwe) can persist for a decade or more, while others (e.g. suspension of development assistance in Tanzania in 2018) saw the resumption of political and development relations with donors in a relatively short space of time.

This paper argues that regular review and the capacity to adapt programming are critical to staying engaged in politically estranged settings. Adaptive programming should focus on the potential for the political and governance context to improve or further deteriorate, and the scope for accountability between national authorities and people. The end state for political estrangement is the resumption of full political and development relations. Commitment to this goal means being receptive to potential openings towards estranged authorities, through political dialogue and the careful design of humanitarian and development engagement. It may also mean monitoring and adapting approaches based on assessment of likelihood of alternative sources of external assistance for those estranged authorities. International partners should remain willing to explore new approaches over time that support transformative opportunities for an improved and more sustainable end-state. Some approaches will fail, but willingness to try is essential to exit from estrangement.

Addressing these challenges successfully requires collaboration across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus to:

Build and maintain domestic support for engagement;
Establish and communicate clear conditions with national actors – i.e. sanctioned authorities and civil society and community groups, including opposition actors that uphold human rights;
Design delivery modalities and oversight mechanisms that channel aid effectively; and
Adapt programming rapidly to circumstances.

These four areas are intertwined – how donors secure domestic political support for aid in estranged settings shapes the substance and delivery of aid. How aid delivery and oversight are designed affects the ways in which donors engage with recipients. This, in turn, shapes communication to donor constituencies, as well as the capacity to adapt to often rapidly changing environments.

Figure 5. Addressing accountability, inclusion, delivery and adaptability challenges

In many countries, including donor countries, this relationship is far from perfect – but it ebbs and flows within the parameters of constitutional norms.

On the relevance of elite bargains, see Kelsall, T. et al. (2022), Political Settlements and Development: Theory, Evidence and Implications, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hackenesch, C., Bergmann, J. and Orbie, J. (2021), ‘Development Policy under Fire? The Politicization of European External Relations’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 51(1), pp. 3–19, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13145.

Laws, E. (2022), ‘Financing Peacebuilding and the Triple Nexus: Organizational Structures and Incentives to Improve Coherence’, Center on International Cooperation Blogs, 4 April 2022, https://cic.nyu.edu/blog/financing-peacebuilding-and-triple-nexus-organizational-structures-and-incentives-improve; OECD (2019), ‘DAC Recommendation on the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus’.

See, for example, World Bank (2002), World Bank Group Work In Low-Income Countries Under Stress: A Task Force Report; UN (2015), The Challenge Of Sustaining Peace: Report Of The Advisory Group Of Experts For The 2015 Review Of The United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture, https://www.un.org/pga/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/07/300615_The-Challenge-of-Sustaining-Peace.pdf;

African Development Bank (2014), Ending conflict and building peace in Africa: A call to action (High Level Panel on Fragile States), https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Project-and-Operations/Ending_Conflict_and_Building_Peace_in_Africa-_A_Call_to_Action.pdf.

The Education in Emergencies programme received 22 per cent of funding for UN-led humanitarian appeals in 2021. See Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies (2022), Education in Emergencies Financing in the Wake of COVID-19: Time to Reinvest to Meet Growing Needs; UNHCR (2022), ‘Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2021’, https://www.unhcr.org/62a9d1494/global-trends-report-2021.

IMF (2022), ‘The IMF Strategy for Fragile and Conflict-Affected States’.

UNAMA (2022), ‘Briefing by Acting Special Representative Ramiz Alakbarov to the Security Council’, briefing, 23 June 2022, https://unama.unmissions.org/briefing-deputy-special-representative-ramiz-alakbarov-security-council-0.

See Zamore, L. (2019), The Triple Nexus in Practice: Toward a New Way of Working in Protracted and Repeated Crises, policy brief, Center on International Cooperation, 9 December 2019, https://cic.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/triple-nexus-in-practice-nwow-full-december-2019-web.pdf.

Shadow alignment is a mode of aid delivery that purposefully mirrors national systems – using the same state administrative boundaries, targeting mechanisms, procedures and even staff – but works via UN agencies, international or local NGOs to provide a level of independence and oversight for a temporary period until such time as ‘true’ alignment becomes feasible.

World Bank Group (2020), Lebanon Emergency Crisis and COVID-19 Response Social Safety Net Project, fact sheet, https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/517791610478201970-0280022021/original/MENALebanonESSNFactSheetEnglish.pdf; Interviews with experts, July 2022.

IMF (2022), Republic of South Sudan: 2022 Article IV Consultation and Second Review Under the Staff-Monitored Program, 3 August 2022, https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2022/08/03/Republic-of-South-Sudan-2022-Article-IV-Consultation-And-Second-Review-Under-The-Staff-521692.

Topic themes

Defence and security

Economics and trade

Environment

Health

Institutions

Major powers

Politics and law

Society

Technology

Regions

Africa

Americas

Asia-Pacific

Europe

Middle East and North Africa

Russia and Eurasia

Events

Publications

Become a member

The Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership and the Next Generation

About us

Sarah Cliffe

Dr Renata Dwan

Betty Wainaina

Leah Zamore

02 Understanding the challenges of staying engaged

Accountability

Figure 2. Normal accountability relations in the delivery of aid

Figure 3. Shifting accountability relations in politically estranged situations

Box 3. Public opinion on aid in donor countries

Inclusion

Box 4. UN Risk Management Units

Delivery

Figure 4. Redefining basic services in estranged situations

Box 5. Fuel deliveries in humanitarian assistance programming to Palestinian Territories

Box 6. Yemen’s payment system

Adaptability

Figure 5. Addressing accountability, inclusion, delivery and adaptability challenges

Aid strategies in ‘politically estranged’ settings

Show authors

02 Understanding the challenges of staying engaged

Accountability

Figure 2. Normal accountability relations in the delivery of aid

Figure 2. Normal accountability relations in the delivery of aid

Figure 3. Shifting accountability relations in politically estranged situations

Figure 3. Shifting accountability relations in politically estranged situations

Box 3. Public opinion on aid in donor countries

Inclusion

Box 4. UN Risk Management Units

Delivery

Figure 4. Redefining basic services in estranged situations

Figure 4. Redefining basic services in estranged situations

Box 5. Fuel deliveries in humanitarian assistance programming to Palestinian Territories

Box 6. Yemen’s payment system

Adaptability

Figure 5. Addressing accountability, inclusion, delivery and adaptability challenges

Figure 5. Addressing accountability, inclusion, delivery and adaptability challenges