The Center for Global Development’s Commitment to Development Index (CDI) contains aid alongside six other factors in assessing the commitment of the governments of developed countries to development. CGD and ODI are interested in building on the success of the CDI to develop a measure for aid effectiveness which will engage policy makers and the media in a moreinformed debate abut this important issue.

This paper briefly examines the state of debate about aid effectiveness before proposing five possible approaches to developing an aid effectiveness measure. Each of these measures is described and a range of criteria areused to assess which provide the most sensible way forwards.

The objective of developing an enhanced aid effectiveness measurement is to improve individual donor effectiveness by rating and ranking them against their peers. The focus is firmly on the donors and not on recipient countries.