Is OECD DAC’s aid effectiveness agenda based on evidence?

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is one of the core international organisations that has promoted aid effectiveness agenda over the past decade. While the OECD DAC claims that its policy is based on evidence, the perception of the ‘evidence’ in relation to aid effectiveness agenda is contested, depending on the interpretation, types and levels of the ‘evidence’. It also argues that one of the reasons is related to the DAC’s structural obstacle in collecting data from recipient countries to build rigorous evidence. Evidence-based policymaking in the international organisation is more complicated, with various actors who might have diverse understanding of what counts as evidence. There is no panacea for evidence-based policymaking as the perception and understanding on evidence is diverse.