THE COMMITMENTS IN DETAIL

To understand how donors are doing compared with the promises that they made at L’Aquila, ONE reviewed the specific promises they made both individually and collectively. ONE then analysed publicly available information and, in many cases, consulted with donors directly to assess their progress. The promises can be broken down into three major categories: financial commitments, qualitative commitments (including the Rome Principles) and other core commitments, including promises to invest in women and environmental sustainability and to be transparent and accountable.

The Financial Commitments
In total, the 13 L’Aquila donors – Australia, Canada, the European Commission (EC), France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States – pledged $22 billion in support for agriculture and food security. About $6 billion was pledged as new money. Another 16 countries and 14 international and regional organisations endorsed the AFSI and promised to provide technical support and cooperation. However, the major donors did not agree to consistent pledge years or a uniform system for measuring progress. For example, most donors agreed to report financial progress in disbursements, but the US, Germany and Japan specified that their pledges would be measured in appropriations or commitments. About half of the primary financial commitments are due to be delivered by the end of 2011 and the rest by the end of 2012. [1] Donors pledged nearly half of the funds – $9.2 billion – to agriculture, forestry and fishing, and the remainder was split amongst multilateral channels and other development assistance sectors with the main purpose of food security (see Figures 2–3). To uniformly measure donor financial promises and progress, ONE assessed: (1) disbursements; (2) additionality; (3) commitments in the pipeline; and (4) disbursements needed to fulfil the pledge. Despite the fact that some donors pledged disbursements and others appropriations or commitments, ONE considers disbursements to be the ultimate measure of political will and bureaucratic expediency. 

The Qualitative Commitments
Just as important as the amount of funds donors promised is how donors promised to spend those funds. With severe budget constraints in many countries, maximising the impact of every aid dollar is imperative. The Rome Principles call on donors to design development plans based on the needs of developing countries and to ensure that all actors are working together cooperatively to achieve sustainable outcomes. In addition to the Rome Principles, ONE assesses donor transparency and attention to gender and environmental sustainability, all core commitments explicit in the AFSI promise. Below are the criteria for what ONE has looked at to measure donor progress in these categories. [2]

Rome Principle 1: country ownership
Invest in country-owned plans, aimed at channelling resources to well-designed and results-based programmes and partnerships.

This means that donors will work to develop investment plans that are country-led, include the views of multiple stakeholders and align with any existing national development or agriculture and food security plans.

What we assessed:
- Multi-stakeholder decision-making
- Alignment with country development plans

Rome Principle 2: strategic coordination
Foster strategic coordination at national, regional and global levels to improve governance, promote better allocation of resources, avoid duplication of efforts and identify resource gaps.

This means that donors will work towards improving coordination and collaboration with each other, national governments and multilateral organisations to avoid overlaps and fill gaps in programme financing.

What we assessed:
- Global coordination
- Regional- and country-level coordination
- Filling finance gaps

Rome Principle 3: comprehensive approach
Strive for a comprehensive twin-track approach to food security that consists of: 1) direct action to immediately tackle hunger for the most vulnerable and 2) medium- and long-term sustainable agricultural, food security, nutrition and rural development programmes to eliminate the root causes of hunger and poverty, including through the progressive realisation of the right to adequate food.

This means that donors will continue to respond to food emergencies and support the chronically hungry, but that reducing poverty over the long term also means investing in farms, in people and in communities. It also involves reaching smallholder farmers, meeting women’s needs and promoting environmental sustainability.

What we assessed:
- Balanced twin-track approach
- Focus on smallholders
- Encouragement of private sector investment
- Focus on capacity building
- Actions taken to address the root causes of food insecurity

Rome Principle 4: multilateral support and improvement
Ensure a strong role for the multilateral system by sustained improvements in efficiency, responsiveness, coordination and effectiveness of multilateral institutions.

Donors here commit to leveraging the expertise of the multilateral institutions but also to work to make them more effective at their jobs.

What we assessed:
- Engagement in reform processes
- Pledges and contributions to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP)
- Multilateral share of resources
- Other coordination efforts

Rome Principle 5: sustained financial commitment
Ensure sustained and substantial commitment by all partners to invest in agriculture and food security and nutrition, with provision of necessary resources in a timely and reliable fashion, aimed at multi-year plans and programmes.

This means that donors will fulfil their promises to meet their pledges in a timely manner, but that they will also demonstrate their solid commitment to fight poverty and chronic hunger beyond the lifespan of the three-year L’Aquila initiative.

What we assessed:
- Timeliness
- Sectoral consistency of delivery with pledge
- Sustained commitment
- Funding increase from 2008

Other Core Commitments

Gender
Taking a gender-sensitive approach to food security investments is paramount. Women are typically responsible for a family’s food and make up a large share of the world’s farmers. By providing women with the same level of access to resources as men, women could increase yields on their farms by 20–30%, in turn reducing the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17%. [3]

What we assessed:
- Gender strategies (where available)
- Integration of gender into food security strategies
- Evidence of gender-sensitive programmes

Environmental Sustainability
Emphasising environmental sustainability through soil conservation, water management and smart land use practices and policy is critical to long-term agricultural productivity, resilience and food security. Many of those most affected by rising food prices are also threatened by environmental degradation, drought and changing weather patterns, all of which can compromise farmers’ ability to make a living and can cost governments significantly.

What we assessed:
- Environmental sustainability in monitoring and evaluation frameworks (where available)
- Integration of natural resource management into food security strategies

Transparency
Transparency refers to how readily and thoroughly the donor shares information regarding food security funding and programmes. This is key to making aid predictable for implementers and recipients and allowing civil society to hold donors accountable to their promises, both of which are extremely important to improving agricultural aid effectiveness, as well as successfully ending poverty and chronic hunger.

What we assessed:
- Publicly available food security-related information
- Availability of specific information more generally
- ONE questionnaire on response thoroughness