第一季第46集：捐赠资金的政治经济学：来自美国国际开发署的洞见

我们必须停止对青年培训项目进行影响评估，并仅仅因为参与者比对照组更快找到工作就感到满意。如果这些项目所做的只是重新分配现有的工作呢？我们是否了解那些原本可以得到这些工作但最终未能获得的人是谁？

We have to stop doing impact evaluations of youth training programs and being happy that participants get jobs faster than the control group. What if all the program did was redistribute existing jobs? Do we have any idea of who did not get the jobs the participants got, but would have?

欢迎来到VoxDevTalks，这是一系列与全球领先实践者的访谈节目。我是蒂姆·菲利普斯。其座右铭是‘来自美国人民’，年度预算高达270亿美元。那么，美国国际开发署（USAID）是如何决定其工作方向和重点领域的呢？今天，我们有幸与USAID的首席经济学家路易丝·福克斯对话。

Welcome to VoxDevTalks, a series of interviews with leading practitioners around the world. My name is Tim Phillips. Its motto is From the American people and it has an annual budget of $27,000,000,000. So how does USAID decide how and where to channel its efforts? Today we are speaking to Louise Fox, who is USAID's chief economist.

路易丝，欢迎你。USAID的职责是支持美国的外交政策。这是否有时会束缚你们的手脚，意味着某些干预措施在经济上可行但在政治上不可行？

Louise, welcome. USAID's remit is to support US foreign policy. Does this ever tie your hands and mean that some interventions are economically feasible but not politically possible?

首先，我要说的是，双边援助机构本质上反映了一个国家人民通过政府表达的优先事项。在美国，这意味着既要遵循行政部门的指导，也要考虑国会的意见，因为国会的职责是拨款。在美国，国会非常认真地对待自己的工作。与议会制不同，国会本身会为政府制定详细的预算，包括USAID的预算。USAID的预算通常包括按项目和特定国家或地区的分配，这些拨款确实反映了美国的价值观和慷慨精神，以及我们在国内外安全方面的目标。因此，这意味着国会会优先考虑某些领域和项目类型。

First of all, I should say that bilateral aid agencies by definition reflect the priorities of a nation's people as expressed through their government. And in The US, this means both the executive branch directions, and Congress, whose job is to appropriate the funds. And in The US, Congress takes its job very seriously. Unlike in a parliamentary system, Congress itself develops a detailed budget for the government, including USAID, and the USAID budget normally includes allocations by program and by some specific countries or regions, and these appropriations do reflect American values and generosity, as well as our objectives of security at home and abroad. So what that means is that some sectors and types of projects are prioritized over others by Congress.

例如，我们在撒哈拉以南非洲的发展援助中，超过50%用于卫生部门。这包括针对特定问题的具体项目，如PEPFAR——美国长期以来的项目，旨在治疗艾滋病患者并帮助国家预防进一步传播。卫生部门并不是低收入和中低收入非洲国家的唯一优先事项，但这是美国长期投入并拥有丰富专业知识的领域，我们在全球范围内发挥了领导作用。国会优先考虑的另一个领域是撒哈拉以南非洲及其他低收入和中低收入国家的农业部门，这也是美国拥有强大知识基础和经验的领域，因此我们有很多可以分享的内容。因此，国会优先考虑这些需求是合理的。

For example, over 50% of our development assistance in Sub Saharan Africa is spent in the health sector. That includes specific programs for specific issues such as PEPFAR, the long standing US program to treat victims of HIV AIDS and help countries prevent further transmission. Now, the health sector is not the only priority for low and lower middle income African countries, but it is a sector where The US has worked a long time and we have a lot of expertise, and we've provided global leadership. Another sector that Congress prioritizes is the agriculture sector for Sub Saharan Africa and other low and lower middle income countries, and this is another area where The US has a strong knowledge base and experience, so we have a lot to share. So it's reasonable that Congress prioritizes these needs.

这可能意味着其他捐助方需要在经济上有价值但当前并非美国对外援助重点的其他领域和项目中发挥领导作用。例如，英国国际发展部（DFID）在贫困人口的社会保护项目中一直是领导者。美国在这一领域并非领导者，因为这在政治上可能存在问题。我们确实提供人道主义援助和现金支持，但我们不像DFID那样帮助国家建立可持续的现金转移系统。这在美国并不是优先事项。

That may mean that other donors have to lead in other sectors and programs that are valuable economically, but not a focus of US foreign assistance right now. For example, DFID has been a leader in social protection programs for the poor. US is not a leader in this area as it can be problematic politically. We do provide humanitarian assistance and cash, but we're not a leader in helping countries develop sustainable cash transfer systems the way DFID does. That's not a priority here.

你知道捐助疲劳一直是个问题。当你听到呼吁减少海外支出、增加国内支出的声音时，你会感到担忧吗？

You know that donor fatigue is always a problem. Does it worry you when you hear the calls to spend less overseas and more close to home?

从美国的角度来看，并非如此。应该说，国会两党长期以来一直支持美国的发展援助。但这确实意味着，美国国际开发署和其他援助机构必须继续努力，有效使用纳税人的钱。在美国，这意味着要遵守美国的法律法规，并且我们必须对结果负责。这是一个持续存在的挑战。

From a US perspective, not really. I should say that Congress, both political parties have long been supporter of US development assistance. But what it does mean is that USAID and other aid agencies as well have to continue our efforts to spend our taxpayers money effectively. In The US, that means in accordance with US laws and regulations, and we have to be accountable for our results. This is an ongoing constant challenge.

这一挑战的部分内容包括开发和使用关于哪些项目和投资能够促进经济增长和提高生活水平的证据。作为该机构的经济顾问，我个人在工作中非常重视这一挑战。

Part of that challenge includes developing and using evidence on what types of programs and investments work to increase economic growth and improve living standards. I personally take that challenge seriously in my job as economic advisor to the agency.

你认为目前援助在哪些方面对发展最具影响力？

In what ways do you think that aid can have the most impact on development at the moment?

我们必须认识到，包容性经济发展是通过私营部门创造就业机会实现的。这意味着经济发展必须成为发展中国家和捐助国的优先事项。自1990年以来，数百万个新的、更具生产力的工作岗位的创造，是发展中国家极端贫困人口比例下降的主要驱动力。另一个我不太担心捐助疲劳的原因是，私人来源占发展中国家所有资金流动的80%以上。因此，经济发展资金主要来源于此。

Well, we have to recognize that inclusive economic development comes through private sector job creation. This means economic development has to be a priority for developing countries and for donors. It was the creation of millions of new, more productive jobs since 1990 that was the main driving force behind having the share of the population in the developing world living in extreme poverty. Now, another reason why I'm not so concerned about donor fatigue is that private sources accounted for over 80% of all financial flows to developing countries. So that's really where the money is coming for economic development.

长期以来，支持企业主导的增长一直是美国国际开发署的优先事项，而在2008年全球经济衰退之后，不仅是美国国际开发署，其他捐助国也开始将生产性就业和创造就业机会放在发展议程的更优先位置。直到最近，大多数国家和大多数援助机构将青年就业问题视为人力资本利用问题，呼吁更多培训。事实上，我自己的研究和其他人的研究表明，发展中国家的青年就业问题是结构性的。真正的问题在于生产性企业对劳动力的需求不足，以及农场生产力低下。

Supporting enterprise led growth has been a priority for USAID for a long time, and in the aftermath of the two thousand and eight global recession, not only USAID, but other donors started to put productive employment and job creation a lot higher on the development agenda. Now, I would say until recently, most countries and most aid agencies saw the youth employment problem as an issue of use human capital. They called for more training. In fact, my own research and that of others has shown that the youth employment problem in developing countries is structural. The lack of demand for labor in productive enterprises is really the problem, as well as the lack of productivity on farms.

因此，我认为这些是发展援助能够真正对经济发展产生影响的领域。更高的收入机会是通过公共和私人投资来创造经济转型、连接市场、降低交易成本和使用新技术，所有这些都服务于在经济中创造更多价值和经济增长。当然，教育系统以及家庭和社区在培养青年所需的人力资本方面发挥着重要作用。美国国际开发署在教育领域一直很活跃，最近许多其他捐助国也是如此，这是传统上捐助援助有益的领域。但我们不能仅仅通过培训来解决就业问题。

And so I think these are areas where development aid can really have an impact on economic development. Now, I would say that opportunities for higher earnings are created through public and private investment to transform economies, link markets, lower transaction costs, and use new technology all in the service of producing more value in the economy, economic growth. And certainly education systems, as well as families and communities, play an important role in building up the human capital youth need to be productive. And USAID has been active in the education sector, as have a lot of other donors recently, and that has been an area where traditionally donor aid has been helpful. But we can't train our way out of this employment problem.

我们必须更多地关注需求侧。我认为这意味着我们必须停止对青年培训项目进行影响评估，并满足于参与者比对照组更快找到工作。那么一般均衡效应呢？如果项目所做的只是重新分配现有的工作呢？我们是否知道哪些人没有得到参与者得到的工作，但本来可以得到？

We just have to focus on the demand side more. And I think this means we have to stop doing impact evaluations of youth training programs and being happy that participants get jobs faster than the control group. What about the general equilibrium effects? What if all the program did was redistribute existing jobs? Do we have any idea of who did not get the jobs the participants got, but would have?

这真的是资金的合理运用吗？我认为，是的，年轻人可以培养技能，尤其是非认知能力，这种能力可以持续发展到25岁左右。脑科学研究证实了这一点。实际上，有证据表明这些技能对收入能力贡献巨大。在21世纪经济中，具备问题解决能力的人将供不应求，而非从事常规工作的技术技能。但这些岗位需要通过私营部门的私人投资来创造。在私营企业主导发展的这一领域，我对新的影响评估研究感到非常兴奋，这些研究聚焦于管理在企业成功和创造就业中的作用。

Is that really a good use of money? So I would say, yes, youth can develop skills, especially non cognitive ones until the age of 25 or so. We know that from brain research, And actually, evidence shows that these skills contribute a lot to earning power. People in problem solving skills will be in high demand in the twenty first century economy, not technical skills for routine jobs, but the jobs have to be created in the private sector through private investment. And in this area of private sector enterprise led development, I'm really excited about new impact evaluation research that focuses on the role of management in enterprise success and job creation.

直到最近，关于私营部门发展有效性的研究还主要集中在企业利润和存续时间上。这些固然重要，但终于在这类研究中，就业成果也开始被纳入衡量，这很棒。我要特别提到许多从事这方面工作的同事，包括David MacKenzie、Miriam Brun等人，以及Chris Woodruff等研究者，以及他在PEDAL项目下利用捐助资金支持的研究。同时，我认为国际增长中心关于撒哈拉以南非洲企业发展的研究，对于理解什么是有效的以及帮助我们和援助机构更好地规划项目，具有极其重要的意义。

Until recently, research on what works in private sector development focused on firm profits and longevity. These are important for sure, but finally in this research, employment outcomes are being measured as well, and that's great. I can give a shout out to a number of colleagues working on that, including people at the David MacKenzie, Miriam Brun, and researchers such as Chris Woodruff, and the studies he has supported with donor funds under the pedal program, and I also see the work of the International Growth Centre on enterprise development in Sub Saharan Africa as hugely important in understanding what works and for helping us and aid agencies program better.

像管理质量这样的因素不是极其难以衡量吗？

Aren't things like the quality of management extremely hard to measure?

我们在这一领域也进行了大量新的研究和实验，因此现在能更有效地进行衡量。例如，Blum、Von Reenen及其合著者的研究就值得一提。在USAID，我们正尝试将这些研究成果应用到我们的项目中。这些研究强调了解决特定管理挑战的作用，而非泛泛的企业家精神指导。我们最近完成了突尼斯一个项目的第一阶段，尽管当前由于安全挑战，突尼斯并非企业主导发展的理想之地，但通过帮助中型企业在特定管理领域提升以扩大销售，似乎创造了新的就业机会。

We've also had quite a bit of new research and experimentation in this area, and so we can do a much better job of measuring it. Blum and Von Reenen and their co authors comes to mind for example. And I would say at USAID, we're really trying to apply some of that research in our own programs. What that research highlighted was the role of addressing specific management challenges, not general kind of enterprise, how to be an entrepreneur, but specific management challenges in firms. And we recently concluded the first stage of a project in Tunisia, which is not an easy place for enterprise led development right now, owing to the security challenges, but by helping medium sized firms improve their management in specific areas that allow them to expand sales, it seems that new jobs were created.

目前，我们USAID无法对这一项目进行真正的归因分析，因为没有对照组，但结果看起来非常不错。

Now we at USAID can't do real attribution for this project because there was no control group, but the results look really good.

是否存在某些地区根本无法有效刺激需求侧？

Are there some regions where it's just not possible to do much to stimulate the demand side?

显然，在整体经济增长低迷的情况下，尤其是在冲突环境中，这确实非常困难。因此，我认为当前青年就业面临的最大挑战之一在于冲突后地区。但我们必须再次回到对经济的恰当分析上：经济的潜力是什么？我们如何支持该经济发展？如何确保私人投资流向劳动密集型领域？这包括农业，包括提高农民的生产力。

Obviously, in an overall situation of low economic growth, and obviously in a conflict situation especially, difficult, and so I think one of the biggest challenges in youth employment today is in post conflict situations, but again, we have to go back to a proper analysis of the economy. What is the potential of the economy? How can we support that economy develop? And how can we ensure that private investment is happening in labor intensive areas? And that includes agriculture, that includes making farmers more productive.

在低收入和中低收入国家，减少就业不足问题对青年就业的挑战至少与城市地区新增就业岗位同等重要。

Reducing underemployment is at least as important a challenge in terms of youth employment in low and lower middle income countries as new jobs in urban areas.

我们是否应该更关注创造的工作类型及其受益人群？比如女性获得的新工作质量。

Should we be paying more attention to the types of jobs we create and who gets these jobs? For example, the quality of new jobs for women.

首先，在低收入国家几乎每个人都工作。因此单纯以就业数量为目标没有意义。工作质量至关重要，这点毋庸置疑，我们需要以收入水平作为衡量标准——这是评估工作质量的良好指标。当然，健康安全等指标也很重要，发展领域没有人会支持童工或奴役劳动，我们必须确保这些基本人权得到保障。

First of all, in low income countries most everybody works. So targeting the number of the jobs kind of doesn't make sense. The quality of jobs matters a whole lot, no question about it, and there we need to target earnings, that's a good measure of the quality of jobs. Of course, measures such as health and safety are important as well, and certainly nobody, nobody in the development space supports things like child labour and slave labour, so we have to make sure that those fundamental human rights are protected.

您认为未来会更多出现哪些类型的干预措施？

What types of interventions do you think we'll see more of in the future?

首先我要指出，美国技术团队面临的工作挑战之一是要跟上最新研究进展。我认为我的职责部分在于引导大家关注新经济学研究及其对项目设计的启示。您提到女性和性别议题——目前有大量关于如何有效支持女性创业者的新经济学研究，我相信未来该领域会出现更多高效项目。如果女性创业者能提高生产力，她们就能创造更多就业机会。

Well, I should say first of all that one challenge that USA technical staff have in doing their jobs is keeping up with new research. I see that as part of my job to draw attention to new economic research and what it means for programming. You mentioned women and the gender issue. There's a lot of new economic research going on, on what works for women, entrepreneurs, for example, and I think we're gonna see a lot more and a lot more effective programs in that area. If women entrepreneurs were more productive, they would create more jobs.

我们不能浪费这种人力资本和潜力。至于是否应该优先支持女性创业者而非男性，或优先帮扶某个弱势群体——我的观点是：如果某个国家明确作出再分配决策，这是该国的主权选择，可以优先发展不同领域。若国家明确选择援助弱势地区，这就是明确的政策取向，我们应配合实施失业计划。但总体而言，未来我们将看到更多全方位高效计划，帮助不同规模的企业——无论由女性、男性或青年经营——提升生产力、创造就业并提高劳动者收入。

So we can't let that human capital and that potential go away. Now, should we prioritize women entrepreneurs over male entrepreneurs, women participants in programs over male participants in programs, some disadvantaged group or another disadvantaged group. Well, my answer is, if a country makes an explicit decision toward redistribution, that's the country's choice, and you can prioritize a different area. If a country makes an explicit choice to try to help a disadvantaged area, that's an explicit policy choice and we should work their unemployment programs. I think however, overall what we're going to see is a lot more effective across the board programs helping medium sized firms run by women, run by men, run by youth, not run by youth, improve and create more jobs and raise their productivity and therefore raise the earnings of the workers.

因此我认为该领域会有更多进展。学界已达成广泛共识：要实现可持续发展目标和经济发展，必须推动私营部门发展。所以企业驱动型发展模式将获得更多关注。

So I think we're going to see a lot more in that space. I think there's a wide agreement that private sector development is needed to achieve the SDGs, to achieve economic development. So I think enterprise driven development is going to get a lot more attention.

露易丝，你是否发现你的计划有时会与你试图援助地区的政府目标相冲突？当这种情况发生时，你会如何处理？

Louise, do you ever find that your plans are in conflict with the governments in the regions you're trying to help, what do you do about it when you do?

我想说这是所有发展领域工作者面临的共同挑战。不仅是美国国际开发署的难题，也是非政府组织和多边开发银行的挑战——在我加入美援署前曾就职于此。关键在于找到国家发展目标与其实现路径之间的交集，识别实现过程中的制约因素，并确定发展机构在助力实现这些目标上的相对优势。当双方利益诉求存在交集时，发展援助才能真正见效。而在缺乏共识的领域，我认为发展合作伙伴其实难有作为。

Let me say that that's the challenge of everybody operating in development space. It's not just a challenge of USA. It's a challenge of NGOs, it's a challenge of multilateral development banks where I worked before I came to USAID, and the trick is to find an overlap between what the country wants to achieve and how it thinks it can achieve it, and what are the constraints to achieving it, and where the development actor has a comparative advantage in helping them achieve it. And I think then when you can find that overlap of interests, then development aid can really be effective. And where you don't have that overlap of interests, I think a development partner doesn't really have too much to do in that space, in that area.

露易丝·福克斯，非常感谢你。

Louise Fox, thank you very much.

也很高兴与你交谈。请允许我补充，我对Voxdev及其在提升援助项目质量方面所做的贡献深表感激。

Nice to talk to you too. Can I also say I'm super grateful for Voxdev and its contributions to the objective of improving the quality of aid programming?

感谢收听我们的播客节目。欲获取更多VoxDev的播客内容，请访问我们的网站voxdev.org。

Thank you for listening to our podcast. For more podcasts from VoxDev, check out our website at voxdev.org.