I like @ianbirrell and I admire his campaigning journalism. I disagree with him about foreign aid, which he does not support.

But his article today contains a claim about @DFID_UK which I think is particularly disingenuous.

[THREAD] 1/16

Far from reflecting badly on DFID, as @ianbirrell intends, I think this saga is a good example of the excellence of @DFID_UK and the UK development programme.

Pull up a chair. 2/16

Jeff Sachs had the idea that an integrated approach to aid would simultaneously address poverty, health, education, infrastructure, business development, gender more effectively than if these goals were pursued independently. He launched his Millennium Villages Project in 2005.

Early on (I think 2006) Sachs visited the UK to raise money for this "big push" approach, met Hilary Benn, then Secretary of State for DFID.

On the advice of DFID officials, Benn told Sachs that the UK would not support the project without evidence. 4/16

Benn told Sachs that DFID would be willing to finance a rigorous impact evaluation of the Millennium Villages Project approach. If the evaluation showed the approach was successful, then DFID would consider a bigger commitment. 5/16

Sachs was politically well connected, and other donors were less choosy. George Soros gave $50m up front. Governments took loans from the World Bank to implement the idea.

My then colleague @m_clem kept making the case that this approach should be evaluated.

6/16

In the absence of any impact evaluation, or willingness to conduct one, DFID steadfastly refused to contribute. In 2012, Sachs relented, and DFID provided $18.1m for a Millennium Village Project in Northern Ghana.

The evaluation was carried out by @ItadLtd. 7/16

In 2018, the evaluation was published. It found positive impacts in education, health and hygiene; but found that significant progress was not made overall on reducing levels of poverty and hunger. 8/16 https://www.itad.com/article/itad-evaluation-offers-verdict-on-millennium-village-project-in-northern-ghana/

There +were+ some positive improvements. For example, primary school attendance increased by 7.7%. More births were attended by skilled professionals. More children slept under bednets.

But these benefits could have been achieved in other ways at much lower cost. 9/16

So this was not, as @ianbirrell suggests, a "test to see whether aid makes a difference". (We already know that it does). It was a carefully considered investment in testing a particular approach to aid to see if this approach worked and if it was cost effective. 10/16

It is to DFID's enormous credit that it resisted the temptation to jump on the bandwagon to fund these Millennium Villages at scale until there was evidence about the approach. It is to DFID's credit that it financed the rigorous impact evaluation to find out. 11/16

British aid has a high reputation internationally partly because it resists political pressure to finance pet projects, and insists on evidence of impact.

(I think UK Aid could be even more evidence-led, but that's a different discussion.) 12/16

So it is disheartening to see @ianbirrell attack this spending as a waste of money. Instead he should be praising this project as an example of DFID's careful approach using taxpayer money to obtain the best possible impact for the world's poorest people. 13/16

If we are serious about evaluating the way aid is spent we will, from time to time, finance a project that turns out to be less cost effective than others. Sometimes (though not in this case) it may even have no effect at all.

14/16

Right now, the NHS is spending money testing drugs (and vaccines) against COVID. The best evaluations of development policy use a similar approach. If some drugs turn out not to work, should we criticise the government for running the trial to test them? Of course not. 15/16

Gathering evidence, learning, and improving is how we make progress. DFID is committed to evidence and learning. That is one reason the vast majority of development spending makes such a positive difference to the lives of the world's poorest people. 16/16