Dutch development aid in the 21st century is unprofessional and ineffective.

That's according to a report by independent advisory body the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), which says the use of embassies and NGOs to handle this issue is largely to blame. The council also says that tough choices have to be made, and sacred cows dropped, in order to make aid effective; and this is still not happening.
 
Development aid is a dirty business, the WRR writes in a report entitled Less pretension, more ambition. Development aid that makes a difference. Even in the most favourable circumstances the result is dependence and  corruption. Sometimes, in fact, no aid is better than bad aid.
 
Until recently, Western countries blindly assumed that every little helped. Only over the past few years has this view been questioned. There have been calls for cutbacks in development aid, or even for it to end totally – particularly, here in the Netherlands, from the opposition conservative VVD party. The WRR doesn't entirely share such views, but it is prepared to question the status quo.
 
Confetti
"You mustn't close your eyes to the harmful side," says the WRR's Peter van Lieshout. "In fact you have to try and get as clear a picture of it as possible. And you need sound argumentation, as to why you think the positive aspects of your aid ultimately outweigh the negative ones."
 
This means you have to make choices. Helping 36 countries - as the Netherlands currently does - is described as like "throwing confetti". You also need to know what kind of aid really makes a difference. Infrastructure or education? Food or agriculture? Ultimately this is an even more important question than which country needs aid most.
 
The problem is that the Netherlands gives generously - worldwide just five countries give more - but doesn't have the right expertise any more, says Mr Van Lieshout. "It's particularly been the case over the last ten years. This leads us to believe that we don't need to think ourselves any more, because the World Bank will do it for us."
 
Deprofessionalisation
As politicians have paid ever less attention to developing their own knowledge of the field, Dutch aid has been increasingly farmed out to NGOs. Aid has become fragmented - the responsibility for managing it devolved to Dutch embassies in the countries involved.
 
A bad development, according to Mr Van Lieshout: "Firstly the recruitment of embassy officials isn't based on whether they have a wide knowledge of or affinity with development issues. And secondly, people stay for three years in their posts then move on to a completely different country."
 
The WRR is calling for the creation of a single, professional organisation to coordinate development matters, with permanent offices in and specialist knowledge of the countries on the receiving end of aid, along the lines of USAID in the United States. This new 'NLAID' would then take over a major slice of the existing development aid tasks.
 
Fixation
"If you do less via NGOs, my party would be very much in favour," says the conservative VVD party's foreign affairs spokesman Han Ten Broeke in an initial response. "But if instead you rig up an organisation that can spend a load of taxpayers' money without our having any say in it, we'd be against it."
 
Ten Broeke is pleased that the WRR is tackling another sacred cow: the agreement that all Western countries should spend a minimum of 0.7 percent of their national product on development aid. The Netherlands is one of the few countries that stick to this agreement - a "fixation" the country needs to let go of, the report concludes.
 
Here too the VVD and other critics are calling for cuts. But the WRR wants to put the emphasis on effectiveness and flexibility - and it doesn't want to exclude the possibility in future of the Netherlands actually spending more than 0.7 percent.

Leade photo by Ahron de Leeuw on Flickr.com