Visibility versus effectiveness

Just as young children want to work for the fire brigade or become footballers when they grow up, so too are politicians in the developed world as well as daid organisations in poorer countries keen on putting their resources into initiatives that are visible to everyone:

According to Lant Pritchett at Oxford University, aid organisations often define success as creating tangible assets (building schools) as opposed to practical benefits (higher literacy). They can create the impression of helping without actually achieving much. In fact, foreign aid can sometimes make things worse. Foreign aid has done little to help Haiti, the Economist, 5 February

I think the same applies to philanthropic people and organisations, and I find it disappointing that their focus on projects with high visibility crowds out efforts to improve people's wellbeing by means of more effective, though less glamorous, initiatives. 

One advantage of a Social Policy Bond regime is that people would be rewarded for achieving societal goals - such as higher literacy. The bond mechanism would channel resources into where they will achieve the highest societal return per pound or dollar outlay; that, not visibility or kudos, would be the sole criterion underlying the choices made by bondholders and their agents. This would be unpopular with many in aid organisations or governments who would have to relinquish control over where society's scarce resources are spent. But the benefits to society of targeting our social  problems coherently and impartially would far outweigh such costs. 

Society as a whole is unlikely to wish for prestige projects that do little to alleviate underlying, complicated, long-term social or environmental problems. Nevertheless, even under a bond regime, philanthropists and their supporters could continue to fund their foundations and pet projects themselves; they'd probably achieve less for society than if they instead contributed to Social Policy Bonds' redemption funds, but that would  be their choice. There's no need for the more altruistic aid bodies or government agencies to do the same.