A Crisis of Identity

As we have seen, the MMC found CDC to be an effective institution which ‘provides a particularly valuable form of assistance to the economies of the developing countries’.1 True, it had identified plenty of scope for detailed improvements in the way CDC worked, but its most significant finding was that CDC should be freed to expand its activities at a greater rate, by removing certain constraints and by a capital reorganisation. It was this strategic theme that CDC hoped would be the main business of the delayed quinquennial review. The re-election of the Conservatives in April 1992 for a fourth term sharpened the sense that CDC needed a major policy declaration to clarify its role as virtually the only surviving public corporation; or conversely to state what the alternative was to be. During the course of the two years of a protracted review process lasting to nearly the end of 1993 (with the Report not actually formally accepted until the following May), these hopes were turned to ashes. An exploration of the conflicting objectives of ODA, the Treasury and CDC, reveals how and why these high expectations were dashed. Pressures on the aid budget and, at a deeper level, the desire to exercise greater control over its various components, characterized the position of ODA.