Coming to Terms with Reality. Evaluation of the Belgian Debt Relief ...

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Methodological approach of
evaluating debt reduction
Coming to Terms with Reality
In this first chapter, we provide an overview of the methodological approach that is used
for this evaluation. More specifically, we present an evaluation methodology that
determines the logical intervention framework for debt relief and links it to the standard
evaluation criteria to judge the intervention, i.e. its efficiency, effectiveness and relevance.
This basic set-up was used in earlier evaluations of debt relief interventions (especially in
Dijkstra, 2003) and is tailored to the current international context, and the specificity of the
Belgian context. Moreover, it also assesses the coherence of the intervention, i.e. to what
extent debt relief has been a coherent instrument of aid policy, again both within an
international as well as Belgian context.
The particular evaluation matrix is presented in Figure 1.1 (see below). The vertical level
describes the different building blocks in the logical framework chain, and links them to
the standard evaluation criteria. The horizontal level describes the link between objectives/
means and the indicators used to assess each of the vertical elements of the intervention
chain. It also indicates that the analysis is done at three different levels: at the international
level (combining donors and recipients), at the overall Belgian policy level (one particular
donor), as well as at the level of one particular recipient country, Cameroon, as a case study.
While this evaluation subjects the Belgian debt relief policy, the necessity to do the
evaluation largely at the international level stems from the basic problem of attribution. As
interventions from a debt relief nature are decided and executed at the international donor
level, in a strictly coordinated way, potential results cannot be attributed to an individual
donor. As such, they have to be assessed at the global (official) creditor community level.
In order to judge the Belgian debt relief policy, we have to assess to what extent the
Belgian policy has (i) influenced overall international decision-making and practice of this
coordinated approach, and (ii) to what extent the Belgian policy has behaved as a ‘good
donor pupil’, using the available ‘policy space’ within the international concerted debt
relief policy in the most efficient and effective way, taking into consideration the specific
Belgian preconditions.
As such, the first vertical column of Figure 1.1 describes the appropriate logical framework
for debt relief interventions, by official creditors, focusing mainly on the objectives and
means of the concerted debt relief approach starting in the late nineties. The reasoning is
the following. First, the two main inputs in our framework are the amounts and modalities
of debt relief granted by the creditors, as well as the type of policy dialogue and other
types of conditionalities attached (see section 2.2.2.1 on issues of conditionality). These
inputs should in principle lead to outputs in the form of a reduction of the amount of debt
(stock level) and/or the debt service (flow variable), as well as increased net resources at
the level of the balance of payments (‘external space’) and the government budget (‘net
fiscal space’), as well as a better quality of country governance. The arguments for the
latter effects are well-established in the literature. Most importantly, relieving countries
from servicing their debt in theory frees up additional room in the recipient country
government’s budget (see Heller, 2005).
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