The Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness got underway this morning in Accra, Ghana, and will continue through Sept. 4. This represents the first attempt by the global community to assess the practical effect of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, adopted at the 2005 High Level Forum, which committed the international development community – donors and recipient countries – to a set of specific actions that would promote more effective use of aid funds:
• 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.
However, in the intervening years the record is decidedly mixed. Some major donors – the multilateral institutions and the EU countries – have moved to coordinate, pool funding and defer more to host country leadership. The World Bank, for example, reports that nearly 70 percent of its aid to surveyed countries now is aligned with national priorities, up from 62% in 2005, and that 54 percent of its aid is disbursed through common arrangements or procedures.
Still, real harmonization, alignment and mutual accountability are the exception rather than the rule. The above cited World Bank story, notes that Vietnam – a major “aid magnet” – attracted 752 donor missions in 2007, or more than three per day. The growing number of aid organizations (230 and counting), funds and programs is taxing low income governments with limited capacity and hurting these countries’ ability to take control of their own development.
The US government – although a signatory to the Paris Declaration – has rather conspicuously stood apart, with much of its development program content dictated in Washington and “harmonization” with other donor programs nearly completely absent. (To be sure, US aid is frequently undertaken in consultation and coordination with other donor efforts, but pooled funding and consolidated management almost never takes place, and prospects for this changing in the near future are dim.)
The goal of the Accra forum will be an agenda for action, committing countries to actions that will accelerate the implementation of the Paris Declaration. A worthy goal, to be sure, but the prospects for its realization – especially absent the active support and participation of the US – are questionable.
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