Aid Effectiveness - Perspective Of Civil Society

The third High Level Forum (HLF) on Aid Effectiveness opens in Accra from tomorrow, September 2 to 4. Before this forum there will be a parallel meeting of civil society organisations (CSO) during which a position paper will be deliberated upon and handed over to the HLF for consideration.

The main forum will debate the structure and use of aid, based on the spirit and letter of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness passed in March 2005 which establishes a global commitment for donor and recipient countries to support an effective use of aid.

 Signed by 35 donor countries and agencies, 26 multilateral agencies and 56 aid recipient countries, the declaration also outlines five key principles listed below:

- Ownership: Developing countries will exercise effective leadership over their development policies and strategies and will co-ordinate development actions

Alignment: Donor countries will base their overall support on recipient countries' national development strategies and institutions and procedures.

Harmonisation: Donor countries will work so that their actions are more harmonised, transparent and collectively effective.

Managing for results. All countries will manage resources and improve decision making for results.

Mutual accountability: Donor countries pledge that they will be mutually accountable for development result.

One will ask what business has civil society got to do with issues of aid which usually flows from countries, multilateral or bilateral arrangements to recipient countries.

Civil societies have a stake in these development issues as they play a key role in alleviating the plight of the underprivilege in the society.

 CSO has therefore developed a position paper that seeks to express some basic facts that favour the constituents and communities, and to protect governments from being unduly disadvantaged in their efforts to tackle the issue of poverty.

According to CSO more often than not governments hardly consult adequately before taking any form of aid.

Paris Declaration

A compilation of the demands of extensive consultation by CSOs at the community level of the Paris Declaration is as follows:

Ownership -70 per cent of respondents said they felt the ownership of Aid-funded programmes because they were involved in selecting and choosing the programmes.

Thirty per cent said they did not feel ownership because they were not involved in the different stages of implementing aid projects.

Alignment – Almost all respondents felt that the projects were in conformity with the needs of the community.

Strangely enough the 30 per cent that said that they did not feel any sense of ownership of the projects still felt they were aligned to community needs.

Harmonisation – There is also the general feeling that there was a gradual decrease in duplication of projects and that district and agencies were assuming direct leadership of the projects.

Accountability – More people want more accountability in the reporting structures and better use of resources.

Reporting Structures

Development Partners as donors are referred to in Ghana, had given so stringent reporting structures that they just had to be accountable.

Those who felt there was not enough accountability gave the reasons as government reports were not very well presented and that there was too much bureaucracy in reporting.

Others were of the view that there is no proper monitoring and evaluation after a project has been commissioned.

These and other similar surveys and workshops at country levels have contributed to inform CSOs in their demands to the forum.

Government actions alone will not reduce poverty, they say and therefore CSOs are particularly concerned about the interest and representation of groups which are often excluded or marginalised like women and women's groups.

CSOs are pushing for the broader interpretation of aid effectiveness, in reforming the aspects of the aid relationship including donor selectivity.

Three issues are raised. These relate to development financing, that developing countries commit themselves to provide 0.7 per cent of their Gross National Income while agreeing to 100 per cent debt cancellation.

The CSOs have taken a critical interrogation of the Paris Declaration and are with one accord saying that though the principles of ownership and accountability are very important and in the right direction, accountable aid relationship based on real ownership can help to support democracy and the empowerment of the poor and marginalised.

CSOs have criticised the attitude of some donor countries which have attempted to circumvent the Paris Declaration.

In their Accra Agenda for Action sometimes referred to as AAA, the CSOs have put out 16 strong recommendations to drive home their point.

They have called for recognition of poverty reduction, gender equality, human rights, social justice and environment as well as end all conditionally on aid.

The AAA should include a commitment to end all donor-imposed policy conditions and practice of using aid with foreign and economic interests.

Both donors and recipient must adhere to the highest standards of openness and transparency.

Donors must be commit themselves to the highest standards of openness and transparency.

This should include timely and meaningful dissemination of information, particularly during aid negotiations and disbursements.

CSOs must be recognised as development actors in their own right and acknowledge the conditions that enable them to play effective roles in development.

Donors and recipient countries should support the conditions which are necessary to enable CSOs mostly in the developing world to fulfil their roles in the development process.

CSOs need legal frameworks and mechanisms which provide for freedom of association, the right to organise and participate in national decision-making processes, and a free and open media.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The CSOs recommended the creation of an effective and relevant independent monitoring and evaluation system for the Paris Declaration.

The AAA should create a system of independent monitoring and evaluation of the Paris Declaration at international, national and local levels.

At the international level, new independent institutions will be needed to play this role, in order to hold donors to account for their overall performance.

At the national and local levels, monitoring and evaluation should involve a range of stakeholders; including CSOs.

Create new multi-stakeholder mechanisms for holding governments and donors accountable.

Multi-stakeholder mechanisms for holding governments and donors to account for the use of aid should be developed; these should be the real test of whether commitments to mutual accountability; and (indicator 12) are being met.

They should be open, transparent and regular, with real room for citizens of southern countries to hold their governments and donors to account.

The CSOs also recommended the establishment of an equitable multilateral governance system for ODA in which to negotiate future agreements on the reform of aid while at the same time committing to give aid that will lend to poverty eradication and the promotion of human rights.

Donors must commit to give aid mostly to eradicate poverty and inequalities and to promote human rights.

They must end the practice of using aid for their own foreign and economic policy interests and priorities.

CSO urge for a stronger expression of commitments to untied aid.

At Accra, donors should commit to expanding the agreement on untying aid to all countries, and all aid modalities (including food aid and technical assistance) and set up independently monitored targets for translating this commitment into practice.

There is also the need to reform technical assistance to respond to national priorities and build capacity.

Targets on improving technical assistance should be strengthened; and ensuring that 100 per cent of technical assistance is demand-driven and aligned to national strategies, this they believe can improve upon aid allocation.

The agenda for the HLF must reflect the concerns of groups which are often excluded from these processes.

Article by Rayborn Bulley