Aid Effectiveness in Practice: A Case Study on the National Data Center in Mongolia

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the aid effectiveness of ODA projects through a case of an e-Government ODA. The case at hand is the Mongolian National Data Center project, which was supported by Korea International Cooperation Agency in 2007~2009. In this paper, we analyze aid effectiveness through a case instead of a long-term macroeconomic analysis. By using OECD DAC guideline for performance evaluation of ODA project combined with PRM (Performance Reference Model) for evaluating e-Government, authors undertakes a post-implementation evaluation on the Mongolian NDC project. The result shows that the NDC project has been relevant and implemented effectively and efficiently given the political instability incurred by the election fraud in 2008. However, there have been problems as well. Provision of defected monitors was a critical problem while disagreement on the safety of the building was lasted for two more years to be settled. Some comments on the training program are also worth to hear to ameliorate similar projects. But more fundamental problems are found in impacts and sustainability areas. Low political status of ICTPA as a coordinating organization for ICT ODA and unstable job security of NDC are serious hurdles to increase effectiveness and efficiency of NDC. ICTPA has played very limited roles in coordinating government-wide ICT ODA projects because it lacks actual power and control over them. Other government organizations do not fully trust NDC as a reliable government data center due to low political status and lack of job security. Thus critical factors to affect the effectiveness and efficiency of e-Government ODA projects are political and organizational instead of economic.