allAfrica.com: Ghana: Aid Effectiveness Forum (Page 1 of 2)

Ghana is due to host the 3rd Aid Effectiveness Forum from September 2-4. This is one of the high level conferences to be held here in Accra mainly due to Ghana's resurgence, not only as the political voice of Africa, but also the economic voice.

The Accra conference comes against the backdrop of growing concern over the ability of developing countries, most of them from Africa, to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs are the world's agreed goals to cut poverty, hunger, and disease. Established in 2000, the targets were to be met by 2015. We are now at the halfway point. This makes a strong case for developed countries to increase aid to poor countries. But at what cost and to what effect? So far, despite endless words about increasing aid to poor countries, the rich G-8 countries are reneging on their part of the bargain. The use of development aid as a political stick merely deepens the suffering of impoverished and unstable countries, without producing the economic objectives sought by beneficiary countries.

The G-8 and other developed countries are now faced with the consequences of seeing the MDGs and other develop goals remain mere dreams after years of interventions to reverse poverty and disease. The legitimate question that flowed from the inability of governments and donors to apply aid effectively is what went wrong? The international aid effectiveness movement began taking shape in the late 1990s. Donors and aid agencies, in particular, began to realize the costs they imposed on aid recipients by their many different approaches and requirements. They began working with each other, and with partner countries, to harmonize these approaches and requirements. This led to what is now commonly called the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness expresses the international community's consensus on the direction for reforming aid delivery and management to achieve improved effectiveness and results.

The declaration is grounded on five mutually reinforcing principles:

· Ownership: Partner countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies and strategies, and coordinate development actions.

· Alignment: Donors base their overall support on partner countries' national development strategies, institutions, and procedures.

· Harmonization: Donors' actions are more harmonized, transparent, and collectively effective.

· Managing for results: Managing resources and improving decision making for development results.

· Mutual accountability: Donors and partners are accountable for development results.

Commitments. The Paris Declaration contains 56 partnership commitments to improve the quality of aid. For example, under ownership, partner countries commit to exercise leadership in developing and implementing their national development strategies, and donors commit to respect partner countries' leadership and help strengthen their capacity to exercise it.

Indicators and Targets. The Paris Declaration also sets out 12 indicators to provide a measurable and evidence-based way to track progress, and sets targets for 11 of the indicators for the year 2010.

After the high level forum in Paris, ministers of developed and developing countries met at another High-Level Forum on Harmonisation in Rome (February 2003) to reaffirm the commitments to harmonise and align aid delivery. "We are encouraged that many donors and partner countries are making aid effectiveness a high priority, and we reaffirm our commitment to accelerate progress in implementation, especially in the following areas" :

i. Strengthening partner countries' national development strategies and associated operational frameworks (e.g., planning, budget, and performance assessment frameworks).

ii. Increasing alignment of aid with partner countries' priorities, systems and procedures and helping to strengthen their capacities.

iii. Enhancing donors' and partner countries' respective accountability to their citizens and parliaments for their development policies, strategies and performance.

iv. Eliminating duplication of efforts and rationalising donor activities to make them as cost-effective as possible.

v. Reforming and simplifying donor policies and procedures to encourage collaborative behaviour and progressive alignment with partner countries' priorities, systems and procedures.

vi. Defining measures and standards of performance and accountability of partner country systems in public financial management, procurement, fiduciary safeguards and environmental assessments, in line with broadly accepted good practices and their quick and widespread application.

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