The Accra Agenda for Action

CSOs call for elimination of conditionality on aid Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have called for the immediate removal of conditionalities attached to aid by donor Countries to the developing world, for better and efficient utilization of aid by the recipients (developing world). The CSOs hold the view that conditionalities attached to aid undermines the democratic ownership which is the freedom of countries to choose what they want to do with their developments.

The elimination of conditionalities by donor Countries according to the CSOs would enable the developing world to be dependent in their decision making without external interferences and influences towards the utilization of the aid.

“To impose policies on aid by donor Countries is not a good thing. There should be no conditionalities attached to aid by donor Countries. This will help the developing world to make effective utilization of aid to improve living standards in their respective communities in order to achieve the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015”, said Mr. Yao Graham, from the Third World Network in an interview with the paper at the ongoing CSO parallel conference on aid effectiveness in Accra yesterday.

According to him, donor Countries and their recipients (developing world) all have equal responsibilities in making sure that aid is effectively used for its intended purpose. “Our attacks on conditionalities have never been that there should be no system of making sure that aid money is spent as intended. This is because we also have a position against corruption and the misuse of resources. It is in our interest as a small country to insist that we have freedom to make our own development choices without any conditionality imposed on us”, he added.

Mr. Graham therefore urged the developing world to welcome development assistants that does not constrain the freedom of developing countries in order to choose the direction of where they should go.

Aid effectiveness have over the years been canvassed by CSOs which had led to a number of fora to enable participants to deliberate on how best to eliminate hunger and poverty in the developing world. The dialogue and rhetoric on aid effectiveness is constantly changing, all in the name of positive transformation of the developing world to improve living standards among its citizens.

The Paris Declaration, which sought among other things on the direction for reforming aid delivery and management to achieve improved effectiveness and results was seen by many as an attempt to revolutionize international aid by combining the concepts of country ownership and accountability. However, the resulting Declaration has been seen as a failure by Civil Society Organisations for ignoring the unique and essential role of civil society in executing the principles of the Declaration.

“We are disappointed that our views on previous drafts have not been taken into account”, contended the CSOs.

To them, the Accra Agenda for Action forum would create a space for agreement on principles to guide the effectiveness of CSOs, on guidelines for applying such principles and for documenting good-practice.

They therefore stressed the need for effective aid to be based on the principle of democratic ownership.

“Effective aid must be based on the principle of democratic ownership and have poverty reduction and the realization of human rights, gender equality, environmental sustainability and decent work as its objectives. Poor and vulnerable people's voices need to be heard if aid is to be effective. When donors impose their own policies, systems and priorities, they drown out those voices”, noted the CSOs.