Our approach

 

The Foundation for Development is a non-profit organisation with a distinctive methodology, of which it is proud. While acknowledging the sustainable approach to development embodied in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we believe in free markets, free movement of capital and a property-owning democracy in which transactions are ruled by law. The Sustainable Development Goals themselves are only goals; they are not methods. Those goals must be pursued through the lens of a rigorous, evidence-based development economics in order to be effective in changing societies and quality of life so that countries with critical political instability or otherwise unable to look after the interests of their populations evolve to meet modern standards.

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This is constant hard work. Effective development is an up-hill battle against vested interests. Done badly, development work merely perpetuates anti-competitive political and commercial norms in a developing society, creating a short-term illusion of growth but in fact causing further stagnation. Conventional development, where it shores up an otherwise unsustainable political status quo, may be positively harmful, driving conflict when the development funds are subsequently reduced.

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All development work must begin with a comprehensive and cold analysis of the contemporary political and economic conditions in the country, and decisions must be made about the extent to which existing structures will be supported and transformed, or whether they need reworking. Then a plan must be made for how to disburse funds, how much to micromanage their expenditure, and what benchmarks to use to incentivise the right sort of political and commercial transformations. 

 

We aim to assess development tools in terms of value for money spent by distributor countries, whether funded bilaterally or multilaterally. We persist in measuring relative efficiency of investment techniques, including constantly questioning the efficiency of working through foundations such as our own. If we cannot prove that we add something to a development project justifying a donor's contribution to us, then we ought not to be in the project. In this context we have pioneered some of the highest reporting standards for assessing the work of the NGO and development sectors when funded by state and, in particular, multi-state parties.

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One of our central roles is the independent assessment of current development programmes.

 We will bring professional standards of accountancy, legal review, forensic accounting services where that may be necessary, and cost-benefit evaluation to existing projects. We can recommend restructuring, continuation, termination or Human Resources reconfiguration. We are pleased to serve as the management consultants of development projects.

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We understand donors' needs, requirements, domestic constraints and red lines. We are implacably hostile to corruption in the context of development. We understand the complexity of using donor funds through the bewildering array of multilateral mechanisms available. We have experience of the international development banks, multi-donor trust funds, the UN development system and regional international aid institutions. There is little we have not seen in the way of unsatisfactory development cooperation. We are content to provide recommendations upon the continuation of multilateral contributions; the politics of restructuring them; or the conversion to bilateral or other donor mechanisms.

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We are here to serve.

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