Reducing the Transaction Costs of Development Assistance : Ghana’s Multi-Donor Budget Support (MDBS) Experience from 2003 to 2007

Cavalcanti, Carlos

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTABILITY;    ACCOUNTANT;    ACCOUNTING;    ACCOUNTING SYSTEM;    AGRICULTURE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4409
RP-ID  :  WPS4409

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper examines whether thestructure of the Multi-Donor Budget Support (MDBS) in Ghanaevolved over time to minimize transaction costs commonlyfound in accessing and delivering development assistance inmulti-donor settings.While the MDBS was expected to reducethe transaction costs involved in dealing with multipledevelopment agencies, it created three additional sources oftransaction costs: coordination failures, the costs ofcollective action, and measurement costs. The answer thatemerges from this paper is that the structure of the MDBSevolved to mitigate these transaction costs. The problemsassociated with coordination was addressed by delegating thepolicy dialogue to sector-specific groups aimed at reachingagreements over a narrower set of issues and amongst asmaller group of participants.Also, the MDBS reduced thecost of collective action by devising rules that allowed allthe participating agencies to have a role in thedecision-making process, and, in doing so, encouraged theseagencies to increase the share of their contribution comingthrough the MDBS, rather than through large projects andoff-budget disbursements. There was less success in reachinga settled view on how to reduce so-called measurement costs,however.While the group of development agencies madeseveral attempts to overcome the difficulties in measuringprogress in the program supported by the MDBS, it was notable to reach consensus on the extent to which themonitoring of the program should rely on outcome indicators.The Government did not favor the use of outcome indicators,and some development agencies placed greater emphasis onmaintaining a dialogue around policy actions aimed atreaching the desired outcomes.