This piece by Gregory Adams was originally published on Oxfam America’s Politics of Poverty blog.
Most people probably weren’t paying attention to the Washington Post business page on Dec 25. (Myself, I was trying to corral two toddlers and navigate a sea of Legos and torn paper). But for people in poor countries who are trying to lead their societies out of poverty, Christmas day brought good news: USAID is changing the way it works to get closer to the people it’s trying to help.
Dy Yong keeps the books for the rice Bank Committee so that everybody can see how it run and maintained at the Rice cooperative in Takom village, Battambang. The rice store committee has many members and they introduce villagers to the principles of trading rice to give them security at a much reduced rate than the market offers. Photo by Jim Holmes/Oxfam.
Ahead of the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in South Korea this week, we asked you to send messages of support to Secretary Clinton to make bold commitments on transparent and accountable aid. And as part of the ONE Act a Week, almost 100 of you responded! In this PDF you can read the messages that ONE members submitted.
In addition to sending your messages in a tweet to the State Department, I also personally delivered your messages to an official member of the US delegation in Busan, South Korea for the Forum.
Robin Matthewman, director of the Bureau for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs at the State Department thanked ONE members for their support and encouragement.
The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness drew to a close on 1 December, with the Korean hosts able to celebrate the delivery of a new global partnership on effective development cooperation. Emerging powers including China and India have endorsed the document, a document that makes clear in its second paragraph that commitments that apply to traditional aid differ from those that apply to south-south cooperation, and that contains few clear and concrete commitments on making aid more effective.
For the glass half-full types, the conversation has been usefully broadened to consider issues that go far beyond aid and that involve new actors. Civil society had a seat at the table and the private sector was brought into the fold. For the glass half-empty types, the aid effectiveness gains that might have been achieved have been surrendered in the enthusiasm to broaden the conversation, or, perhaps, in the effort by some donors to avoid their aid effectiveness commitments.
The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness isn’t even finished yet, but we can already log big wins for transparent and accountable aid. In Secretary Clinton’s keynote address at the forum in South Korea, she officially announced that the United States would be signing the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), something that ONE has been pushing hard on in advance of Busan. As ONE’s Executive Director, Sheila Nix said:
“Secretary Clinton’s announcement that the United States will join the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) reinforces America’s leadership in making foreign assistance more transparent and accountable. Being open and clear about how the U.S. is spending foreign aid—where and on what—will help make aid more efficient and accountable to US taxpayers and will maximize resources to help those living on less than $1.25 lift themselves out of poverty.”
This week in Busan, South Korea, decisions will be made that have an impact on millions of people’s lives. Guest blogger Timo Lappalainen of KEPA, a Finnish international development organization, explains why now is not the time for concessions on aid effectiveness.
At the Fourth OECD High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, donors and developing countries work out the principles and commitments needed to eliminate poverty. As if that was not tough enough, the global financial crisis, natural disasters, increasing poverty and conflicts as well as the need to get China to step aboard shake up the negotiations.
The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) is both a global voluntary initiative and a common standard for publishing aid information that aims to make it “easier to access, use and understand.” It was formed following the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action as a way to implement those commitments made by donors in Accra on aid transparency. Twenty-one donors covering more than 50 percent of overseas development assistance flows have signed on to IATI, and 22 partner countries have endorsed it. In order to achieve its goals — like helping governments in developing countries manage aid resources more effectively or allowing citizens in both donor and partner countries to better monitor aid spending and reduce corruption — it needs to encompass a much broader range of donors and aid flows, and be fully implemented.
Last week in Tanzania, nearly 100 civil society groups and 12 international organizations, including the International Budget Partnership, Greenpeace, ONE and many smaller organizations from across the globe, launched a global effort to make public budgets transparent, participatory and accountable. Budgets are the most critical tool that governments have to address problems like poverty, provide critical services like education and health care, and invest in their country’s future. When the political speeches end, it is how governments actually manage funds to meet their promises and priorities that matters.
The Global Movement for Budget Transparency, Accountability, and Participation envisions public finance systems that make all budget information easily accessible, provide meaningful opportunities for citizens and civil society to participate in budget decisions and oversight throughout the process, and include strong institutions to hold governments accountable for how they raise and spend the public’s money.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness drew to a close on 1 December, with the Korean hosts able to celebrate the delivery of a 
