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Evaluating Country Programmes
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For example, was it inevitable that Beirut would become an international symbol of
anarchy, ethnic warfare, and the law of the jungle? After all, it was the “Paris of the
Middle East” in the early 1960s, where Muslims, Christians and Jews could live in
harmony; where oil sheikhs could escape the rigours of Ramadan; and where prosperity,
based on the growing oil wealth of the region and the entrepreneurial spirit
of the Lebanese, seemed almost inevitable.
Ideally, the historian or evaluator of foreign assistance programmes would work
with an infinite number of cases, each varying from others in one or two specifics
that can be isolated and compared. For example, USAID evaluators would have
available a country identical to what was Costa Rica in 1945, but that received no
funding from USAID in the subsequent half-century. Whatever differences that
evolved over the decades could then be attributed to USAID assistance.
Of course, no such analytical opportunities exist. A less stringent approach
would be to find a country somewhat similar to Costa Rica in 1945 and observe its
evolution since. The closest parallel in 1945 would probably be Uruguay. With
approximately the same population as Costa Rica, it had a long democratic tradition,
an educated population, and a tradition of benign and socially conscious government.
Uruguay was sometimes called “the Switzerland of South America”, just as
the corresponding title has sometimes been used for Costa Rica. (The name also
had a racial overtone, denoting a largely European stock that settled and worked
land where few Indians had lived.) The similarity of the two countries led to their
being directly compared as part of a set of case studies for a World Bank research
project (Rottenberg 1993).
If historical inevitability holds true, both countries should have continued their
similar trajectories from 1945 until the present, except for the effect of differing external
factors. A significant one is that Costa Rica received about 10 times as much economic
assistance from USAID as Uruguay. Of course, there was a multiplicity of other
external differences as well – in the trends in commodity prices for both countries’
exports, in the behaviour of their neighbouring countries, and in myriad other factors.
In any event, the two countries diverged substantially during the 50 years after
1945. Uruguay was unable to address internal social and economic conflicts within
a climate favourable to economic growth (Favaro and Bensión, 1993). Heavy
taxation of the main exports (beef and wool) gradually undermined prosperity by
lowering production and export of these products. Consequently, the country was
increasingly unable to pay for the extensive social welfare system that had grown
up in previous decades. Political conflicts over how to cover the shortfalls could not
be resolved amicably. Populist policies, such as price controls that reached down
to those on a slice of plain pizza, and electricity rates that left the utility unable to
finance expansion or adequate maintenance, further undermined the basic productive
structure.
OECD 1999