Only governments can effectively deliver services like health and education to the poorest, development group Oxfam said in a report on Friday critical of groups like the World Bank for hindering poverty programmes by pushing private-sector solutions.
The report comes a year after industrial nations pledged to double aid to poor countries by 2010, and donors and development groups look closer at how aid can be made more effective in fighting poverty.
”Only governments can reach the scale necessary to provide universal access to services that are free or heavily subsidised for poor people and geared to the needs of all citizens,” Oxfam said in a 124-page report.
Oxfam said its conclusions are based on an essential services index that ranks countries according to child survival rates, schooling, access to safe water, and access to sanitation. It compared their performance with per capital national income.
Oxfam said civil society and private companies can be important contributors to fighting poverty, but they should be properly regulated and integrated into strong public systems and should not be substitutes.
Oxfam said international agencies like the World Bank should be crucial partners in supporting public systems, but too often they block progress by failing to deliver debt relief and predictable aid that supports public systems.
It said when government systems fail, most poor people have no access to basic services because private services are too expensive. Church and charity groups often provide only community-based services in remote and marginalised communities.
It said civil society groups should develop innovative ways to provide services and should support citizens in their push for more access to health-care, education and water.
”Their coverage is partial, their services are hard to scale up, and the quality can vary greatly,” Oxfam said.
When government services fail, Oxfam said many look to the private sector for answers. It acknowledged however that in the case of South Korea and Chile, private-sector involvement had mattered.
Still, Oxfam said private providers are hard to regulate and such services are prone to inequality and high costs that often exclude the poorest people.
It said governments should be pressured to spend more on services but to do this they needed aid that was well coordinated, predictable and channeled through public systems and national budgets.
”What poor countries typically get is insufficient, unpredictable aid, disbursed through a jumble of different projects that directly compete with public services for scarce resources and staff,” Oxfam said. – Reuters