09.05.2008
Agenda
SLOGA’s working group for effective development aid, French national platform Coordination Sud and European network of nongovernmental organizations CONCORD have organized conference on 'Aid effectiveness and Paris Declaration' which was held on 10-11 April 2008 in grad Bor, Preddvor, Slovenia. There were 52 participants, among them 33 foreign and 19 Slovenian., 31 European NGO participants, 2 Afrian NGOs, OECD/DAC representatives; representatives from Slovenian ministries: Ministry for foreign affairs, Ministry for agriculture and food, Ministry for finance and Ministry for health. The objective of the seminar was to exchange views and opinions on effectiveness in development aid between European Commissions, development aid board in OECD, Slovenian Government and European non governmental organisations. Recommendations will be then presented in Third High-level Forum in Accra which will be unique political opportunity to agree on strong and decisive action by all donors and partner countries.
Paris declaration targets
OWNERSHIP.
-Partner countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies, and strategies and co-ordinate development actions
ALIGNMENT
-Donors base their overall support on partner countries’ national development strategies, institutions and procedures
HARMONISATION
-Donors’ actions are more harmonised, transparent and collectively effective
MANAGING FOR RESULTS
-Managing resources and improving decision-making for results
MUTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY
-Donors and partners are accountable for development results
OECD statistics
OECD statistics have shown that European countries are falling to meet their promises on bigger development aid. As the result, the European development aid has shrunk from 47.7 billion Euro in 2006 to 46.1 billion Euro in 2007 and from 0.41 % to 0.38% in gross social income. In the last year, 17 out of 27 European countries including Slovenia have not increased development aid, 11 of them have even dropped development aid. The results are leading to conclusion that EU is falling to keep the promise to help reduce poverty in developing countries, and has disappointed and consequently affected poor people from countries who are most affected by poverty. The overall picture is that there is lack of progress in aid. Recommendations for more effective aid were to put democratic ownership at the centre of aid, make EU aid more accountable and transparent and aid targets should have clearer objective to make aid more predictable.
The biggest problems among others in increase of ODA share are: governments other political priorities, keeping the existing share, lacking strategic and realistic plans for an increase, use of aid for domestic purposes, problems in lobbying and lacking strong development cooperation between NGO’s and government.
NGO’s from Slovenia and 23 other European countries had remembered Slovenia about worrying OECD statistics on development aid. As the result, Slovenia should put in the last months of presidency priority to more effective international development aid. Such actions are important before the world meeting of donors in Accra, Ghana, where the main appeal will be worrying declarations on bigger effective development aid.
The preparatory steps in 2006 were to deliver better and faster aid. In 2007, the objective was to name countries with aid priority and the analysis of comparative advantage of EU donors.
Effectiveness of aid
Problems specified at the meeting about aid effectiveness were effectiveness of PRSPs reports, conditionality, black wholes and accountability of donors.
PRSPs are in most cases to broad, there is no specific target, too much policy space for donors and they are not written for general public as the language is very specific. Conditionality is a continuing and growing problem with joint budget support groups and Performance Assessment Frameworks. Aid at the moment is like a taxi – the recipients drive, but the man with the money in the back determines how and where. The result is a pull and push of donors in different directions. ‘Black Hole’ is an expression used for aid money that is given out with unclear outcome. Last but not least, donors should be held accountable for their actions. One way to do this is to set up multi-stakeholder mechanisms in developing countries such as forums or committees for holding governments and donors to account. In other words, when donors do not deliver on time, they should publish an explanation in the recipient country clearly stating the reasons why not.
CONCORD paper: Key Recommendations
1) Put democratic ownership at centre of aid
-Untie all EU aid to all countries
-Phase out economic policy conditionality
2) Make EU aid accountable
-M&E of EU aid independent, support partner country-led independent evaluation bodies
- complaints mechanism
- Supporting in-country accountability eg CSOs
3) Make EU aid transparent
- timely dissemination of information, automatic disclosure of documents
4) Agree ambitious targets to make aid more predictable
5) Reform technical assistance, set own targets to ensure TA is demand-driven/aligned
Civil society organizations (CSO)
CSOs are important stakeholders due to the space they occupy in the development fields. CSOs are closer to communities and have technical experience in certain matters. They succeed in mobilizing people, monitor policies, deliver services and promote social values. They are non-market, non state organizations where diversity is central for their existence. Their emphasis is on human rights and social justice. CSOs are very important partners for governments as they have the know how of dynamic actors in the South to fulfil functions and they act as advocates of the public good, helping to promote accountability for results, and ensuring a better understanding of the development agenda.
EU and aid effectiveness
EU Aid Effectiveness Commitments are:
-Take a lead role in implementing Paris Declaration
-Make aid more predictable (MDG contracts)
-Promote better donor coordination/ complementarity
-Align EU aid with partner countries plans/systems (budget support, SWAPs)
-Promote further untying of EU aid (esp food aid)
-Reform EU Technical Assistance
Worksop ‘Division of Labour’
The main goal of division of labour is to reduce the number of donors involved in the same kind of activities through innovative ways of organizing development cooperation.
The purpose of the workshop was to clarify CSO position or at least contribute to certain clarifications. The priorities of CSO should be to select sectors, chose lead donor, delegate cooperation; assess geographical presence and work towards joint strategy and cross-sector division.
Division of labour is appropriate at country level to enhance alignment and foster predictability. There must be given right to partner country to be able to change the division of labour any time as it is exactly what donors want to avoid, for example long term co-operations.
Common agreeing of what makes division of labour effective, is when: funding (thematic, sectoral) is not neglected; ownership is country lead; predictability; monitoring; it limits the number of EU countries as recipient countries; it encourages donors to move to aid orphans; all actors should count, including NGOs; spending is not politically driven in any way, it should not prioritise neighbouring countries, but it should go for the broader view.
Comparative advantage
The principles of comparative advantage are volume of aid, trust and confidence, capacities, relatively better performance, lower cost etc. The donors alone should not decide where the comparative advantage is, but partner countries should also have a say in the selection of lead donors and that they are able to reject them when donors are performing badly.
Budget support report
Donors need to be honest and transparent about the way they do budget support (BS) because in practise, there is often no democratic ownership as BS is a political process.
Conclusion on aid effectiveness
In general, agenda of aid effectiveness needs to be further clarified and concretised for practical work. Many areas need to have more attention from civil society and there is a need for stronger coordination and cooperation among European and non European NGO, CSOs and citizens in general s in the future. In general, organizations have to be more precise on what they want from EU. Also, they should concentrate not only in long tasks but also what can be done right now like for example making sure that country strategy are translated into country language.
The Third High-level Forum in Accra is a crucial political opportunity to agree strong and decisive action by all donors and partner countries on the outstanding implementation issues that are key to meeting the Paris Declaration targets.
