USAID Needs to Develop Guidelines for Trilateral Cooperation

The concept of trilateral cooperation – understood in its basic form as a partnership among a traditional donor, an emerging donor, and a low income country – has been popping up with greater frequency of late signaling an increased interest in this new style of engagement.  Although the idea has been around since at least 2005 and already represents a growing share of south-to-south cooperation, it has not gained much currency in U.S. aid programs until recently when some types of trilateralism were tried in South Africa and Latin America.  In the case of South Africa, where efforts have advanced the furthest, joint programs are targeting agriculture in Malawi and training civil servants in Southern Sudan.While the jury is out on its ultimate effectiveness, the lack of a strategy and guidelines for U.S. trilateral activities threaten to derail the approach before it can be evaluated.  USAID’s regional bureaus are leading much of the current work but the agency has been late in offering agency-wide guidance.  My understanding is that PPL has started a process to learn from some of the existing trilateral efforts, but I would urge them to give greater consideration to figuring out just where it would be most effective and why it would trump traditional bilateral assistance in some instances.The lack of clarity has produced opposition to the concept, most recently in the form of an amendment to the House Foreign Relations Authorization that prohibits trilateral assistance with South Africa.  Even though the bill has not become law, the debate signals a deep wariness.Judging from debate on the issue during the bill’s markup, there are legitimate concerns and a fair amount of misinformation that could be allayed with the development of a Trilateral Strategy.  The following congressional concerns demonstrate how critical it is for USAID to assume leadership in this area.

• It is simply a pass-through of money for what should be done bilaterally.
• The United States loses its branding and therefore gets no credit.
• The United States loses control over where the money goes.
• The United States loses oversight of the use of funds.

If trilateralism is designed well, none of the points above should even arise.  On the first point, trilateral aid should never be used or seen as a pass-through.  The politics of aid will not allow a funding channel to be used to bypass U.S. laws or regulations.  Transparency is always the preferred route.Second, there is no reason why the United States needs to lose its branding.  If designed as joint programs, U.S. branding would still be clear.Third, there is also no reason for the United States to lose control or oversight of funds.  Programs would presumably be jointly developed with common objectives and strategies.  The oversight and evaluation of programs should not have to differ from traditional bilateral programs.Putting aside these concerns, there are potential benefits that have not been well articulated.Trilateral aid could be an effective way (and should be designed) to --

• Leverage the funding of emerging donors.  Using a joint fund to which both donors contribute could be a source of savings when foreign aid funding is under pressure at home.  There may also be efficiencies in the administration of programs as well.
• Standardize emerging donor aid in ways that conform to Paris/Accra/Busan principles. Countries like Brazil, India, and South Africa, as well as China and Russia, have been in the aid business for a number of years.  There has been a fair level of concern that their activities will further burden low income countries administratively and that how they do development may stray from internationally accepted principles.  Trilateral activities pose the opportunity to marry new actors with the current thinking on aid effectiveness.
• Capitalize on an existing partnership or architecture. In some instances, it may be cheaper to join an already existing partnership and help scale it up rather than create one anew. One could easily argue that there is little reason for U.S. institutions to re-invent the wheel.
• Take advantage of regional expertise or cultural affinities. There are top-notch science organizations and universities in Brazil, South Africa, and India that focus on, for example, local ecosystems.  That expertise may exceed what exists in the United States where the demand for a solution for that very localized problem may not merit a sufficient investment. 
• Facilitate engagement in difficult environments. There are places that are unreceptive to an American voice.  For example, some countries suspect that U.S. agricultural aid is a ploy to promote U.S. agro-business and genetically modified technologies; they may be less suspicious if the same or similar message comes from a neighbor.

Trilateral aid could offer plenty of advantages from cost-savings to greater effectiveness – if well-designed and better articulated.  If not, misinformed opponents will stop the approach even before it gets under way.  And that’s why USAID needs to develop a plan.We at Rethink continue to search for ways to improve aid effectiveness, even with reduced resources.  This blog is a sampling of an upcoming CGD-CAP working group report that will provide recommendations on crafting a budget to maximize our foreign assistance spending while identifying areas for lesser priority and funding. Look forward to a series of sneak previews to come highlighting some of the big ideas from the project. If you would like to contribute ideas for the CGD-CAP working group, please email us at aidpriorities@cgdev.org.