Accurate reporting of aid results is important for several reasons. It is important from an accountability perspective, for internal learning and for understanding whether Swedish aid is contributing to its overall objective of creating conditions for better living conditions for people living in poverty and oppression. Accurate reporting should help us to understand whether aid can be said to work well at an overall level.
In its annual report, Sida uses what are known as results examples, a selection of results that are intended to provide an understanding of the results to which the aid contributes. The annual report’s results examples are stated to show the effects of the aid. By definition, an impact means that it is the aid that causes the result, that it is Sida’s contribution that makes a difference. ‘Contribution’ is central here; Sida does not work in isolation and cannot alone control the results of aid. This makes it important to understand how large the contribution is, so that the impression is not given that Sida is responsible for the entire change reported.
In this working paper, the author, Markus Burman, has examined the quantitative results in the field of employment that Sida has reported in its annual reports for 2021 and 2022. He finds a frequent mismatch between the original source and the reported results.
The purpose of this study is to examine whether the quantitative results on employment presented in Sida’s annual reports 2021 and 2022 are fair. This means whether the results are reliable and communicated in a factual and transparent manner. The study does not examine the reporting of results in a broader sense, but is limited to quantified results statements in the area of employment. A more detailed examination is also made of three operations that have reported particularly strong results. The study’s conclusion is that Sida reports very good employment results in its annual reports for 2021 and 2022, not least for women and young people. The results have the character of selections or good examples from an unknown total volume of operations, so the representativeness is unknown to the reader. No weak, unexpected or delayed results were reported in the area of employment in the annual reports.
The report is available in Swedish only.