Voice and Choice in the Delivery of Public Services
Discussions on voice and choice in public services are never far from the forefront of UK news today. Not only are these topical issues in the UK, they are also highly relevant to public service delivery in developing countries. This lunchtime meeting series at ODI aims to explore these issues in detail, looking at both developed and developing country experiences with regard to targets, voice and choice in the management and delivery of public services. Are targets really helpful? Should increased choice be introduced into the health and education sectors? Which is better, voice or choice? Is there an optimal combination of targets, voice and choice? The objective of the meeting series is to enhance understanding of the key concepts, and to inform the debate, drawing on experience from a wide range of settings, with a particular focus on the health and education sectors. This series included the following meetings (click on the links for more information from the ODI web site):

• Introduction
• The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: Where are we now?
  
• Targets, Voice or Choice: What do we mean?
  
• Targets and Benchmarks in Public Sector Management
  
• Options for Voice in Public Sector Management
  
• Options for Choice in Public Service Delivery
  
• Targets, Voice or Choice: Options for the Health Sector
  
• Targets, Voice or Choice: Options for the Education Sector
  
• Targets, Voice AND Choice: Participatory Budgeting

Africa
The intention of this meeting series is to raise issues that will contribute to the work of the Africa Commission. The focus on developed countries reflects one of the main conclusions of the e-discussion arranged for African think tanks and policy organisations that ODI hosted during the summer. One of the key outcomes of this discussion was the need for a road map of key commitments that developed countries should make to improving development effectiveness in Africa. This series included the following meetings:

• Introduction
• Africa's Development: Past Present and Future Roles of the West
  
• Making Trade Work for Africa
  
• Profit and Development Impact: Business Partnerships for African Development
  
• Doubling Aid? Absorptive Capacity, Impacts and the Donor Response in Africa
  
• External Attempts at Peace and Nation Building: Lessons for and from Africa
  
• Harnessing the Power of the African Diaspora
  
• Will Northern Environmentalism Stop Africa Growing?
  
• Africa's Seat at the Table: Global Governance in a Changing International Context

Millenium Development Goals
The MDGs will feature prominently in 2005, not only in UK initiatives connected to the G8 and our EU Presidency, but also because of the UN summit on the topic in September. The debates about the MDGs are technical (Are these the right targets? Do we know how to reach them?) but also political (Can we raise the money? Will rich countries change their policies? Will they be accountable?). This series included the following meetings:

• Introduction
• Demography, HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health: Implications for the achievement of the MDGs
  
• Building a constituency for poverty reduction
  
• The EU's contribution to achieving the MDGs
  
• Failed and fragile states: How can the MDGs be achieved in difficult environments?
  
• UN Reform: Working For Children
  
• What are the prospects for more and more effective aid in support the MDGs?
  
• The Commission for Africa Report and the UK Response to It
  

Back to Activities index