'Aid Delivery Too Slow'
By Daily Guide - Daily Guide Business/Finance | Wed, 03 Sep 2008
| 
 Nerds don't just happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity. - By: roylexi.com  |
SPEAKERS AT the opening ceremony of the third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra yesterday unanimously called on donors to live up to their commitments, revealing that aid delivery has been rather slow after the Paris Declaration.
Jan Cedergren, Chairman of the Working Party on Effectiveness, in a speech, indicated that though technical cooperation had become more aligned, coordination on aid delivery was not good enough.
Commending donors for rendering most aid untied, he said the framework for measuring aid accountability had gotten too weak.
"We need to change even though old habits die hard", he advised, calling further for the strengthening of capacities of recipient countries in order to manage aid effectively.
Ann Veneman, Executive Director, UNICEF, who praised Ghana as a model of great progress in development, said less than half of aid promised by donors was delivered on schedule.
She therefore urged them to renew their commitments to allowing for greater development.
Mary Chinery-Hesse, Chief Advisor to President Kufuor, addressing the meeting said, "We have to admit that the pace of progress made since 2005 is too slow. We need to increase our efforts at reform and action to meet the aid effectiveness targets we have committed ourselves for 2010."
She continued: "In spite of all our efforts, ironically, aid is getting more fragmented. The challenge forward must focus on greater alignment.
There is the need to move forward with a new sense of urgency. We must not merely talk about things. We must act."
Mrs Chinery-Hesse added that for partner countries to justify their right to be considered as credible drivers, they should give an undertaking to devise and propagate convincing systems of managing results best suited to their domestic planning, management and accountability needs.
Development partners were also urged to modify the modalities for aid demonstration in favour of greater delegation of authority to their field offices. And this is expected to make their representatives better team players at the local level.
The objective of this forum, which has attracted ministers, heads of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, donor organizations and civil society organizations from over 100 countries the world over, is to take stock of progress made in implementing commitments of the Paris Declaration, identify bottlenecks and challenges, and help developing countries as well as marginalized people in their fight against poverty by making aid more transparent, accountable and results-oriented.
Meanwhile a final draft document on the forum has indicated that advances have been made in some sectors.
On education, there has been progress in terms of country ownership and also in donor coordination activities.
Under health, it said progress has been made in coordination and harmonisation, improved health policy, strategic planning and more transparent resource allocation.
However, it said partly due to the increase in global health initiatives, sector coordination in many places has been put under pressure, adding that non-alignment of aid with government priorities has been a significant problem.
Under agriculture, the report noted that progress has been made regarding government leadership, negotiation skills as well as harmonisation and coordination.
Certain areas which it revealed needed more work included addressing ownership gaps, improving coordination across relevant sectors, countering excessive focus on centralised, government-led development interventions and improving planning and policy frameworks.
Samuel Boadi & Emelia Ennin
Jan Cedergren, Chairman of the Working Party on Effectiveness, in a speech, indicated that though technical cooperation had become more aligned, coordination on aid delivery was not good enough.
Commending donors for rendering most aid untied, he said the framework for measuring aid accountability had gotten too weak.
"We need to change even though old habits die hard", he advised, calling further for the strengthening of capacities of recipient countries in order to manage aid effectively.
Ann Veneman, Executive Director, UNICEF, who praised Ghana as a model of great progress in development, said less than half of aid promised by donors was delivered on schedule.
She therefore urged them to renew their commitments to allowing for greater development.
Mary Chinery-Hesse, Chief Advisor to President Kufuor, addressing the meeting said, "We have to admit that the pace of progress made since 2005 is too slow. We need to increase our efforts at reform and action to meet the aid effectiveness targets we have committed ourselves for 2010."
She continued: "In spite of all our efforts, ironically, aid is getting more fragmented. The challenge forward must focus on greater alignment.
There is the need to move forward with a new sense of urgency. We must not merely talk about things. We must act."
Mrs Chinery-Hesse added that for partner countries to justify their right to be considered as credible drivers, they should give an undertaking to devise and propagate convincing systems of managing results best suited to their domestic planning, management and accountability needs.
Development partners were also urged to modify the modalities for aid demonstration in favour of greater delegation of authority to their field offices. And this is expected to make their representatives better team players at the local level.
The objective of this forum, which has attracted ministers, heads of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, donor organizations and civil society organizations from over 100 countries the world over, is to take stock of progress made in implementing commitments of the Paris Declaration, identify bottlenecks and challenges, and help developing countries as well as marginalized people in their fight against poverty by making aid more transparent, accountable and results-oriented.
Meanwhile a final draft document on the forum has indicated that advances have been made in some sectors.
On education, there has been progress in terms of country ownership and also in donor coordination activities.
Under health, it said progress has been made in coordination and harmonisation, improved health policy, strategic planning and more transparent resource allocation.
However, it said partly due to the increase in global health initiatives, sector coordination in many places has been put under pressure, adding that non-alignment of aid with government priorities has been a significant problem.
Under agriculture, the report noted that progress has been made regarding government leadership, negotiation skills as well as harmonisation and coordination.
Certain areas which it revealed needed more work included addressing ownership gaps, improving coordination across relevant sectors, countering excessive focus on centralised, government-led development interventions and improving planning and policy frameworks.
Samuel Boadi & Emelia Ennin
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