General Budget Support in Tanzania: Conditionality models and the implementation of the Paris Agenda

Sammanfattning: Tanzania, one of the poorest and most aid-dependent countries in the world, is presently a “donor darling” in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is also a country where both donors and government work progressively with General Budget Support (GBS) and donor coordination. By doing so the country is a forerunner in implementing the new development paradigm, in this thesis, represented by the Paris Declaration of Aid Effectiveness (PDEA). This declaration is “the new gospel of development”, and contains five commitments: ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for result and mutual accountability. In this thesis we present three different conditionality models for GBS, the models used by the World Bank (WB), the European Commission (EC) and British Department for International Development (DFID), and compare them in terms of PDEA implementation. We further touch upon the implications of the models interacting in a coordinated performance assessment framework. We conclude that the DFID and EC models seem most capable in implementing the PDAE, however, for different reasons. The DFID model performs better in the ownership and alignment commitments, while the EC model more successfully carries out the commitments of managing for results and mutual accountability. The WB model shows a somewhat less distinct profile, scoring only average on ownership, alignment and focus on results. A harmonized conditionality framework has the potential of cancelling out certain weaknesses of the different models. Yet, successful harmonization also implies that donors get increased leverage, which potentially can have dire consequences if they collectively decide not to disburse GBS. In order to manage this politically sensitive modality, there is need to complement a harmonised framework of conditionality with a contingency plan as well as a communication strategy.