Accra: Improve Aid Quality
August - September, 2008
ONE members from around the world sent tens of thousands of letters and made hundreds of phone calls to Development Ministers in donor countries, calling for increased aid effectiveness. The Ministers responded with a new level of commitment to providing more predictable and transparent aid.
Overview
In 2005, over 150 countries, multilateral institutions, and NGOs signed a declaration at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Paris, which outlined the principles essential in making aid more effective:
Ownership: Poor countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies and strategies, and coordinate development actions.
Alignment: Donors base their overall support on partner countries' national development strategies, institutions, and procedures.
Harmonisation: Donors' actions are more harmonised, transparent, and collectively effective.
Managing for results: Managing resources and improving decision making for development results.
Mutual accountability: Donors and partners are accountable for development results.
This Paris Declaration was an important first step towards improving the overall effectiveness of aid. Together, the Paris Declaration and the Gleneagles G8 Summit in 2005 put pressure on donors to increase both the levels and effectiveness of their aid.
In September 2008, donors, recipient countries, and organisations in the fight against extreme poverty gathered in Accra at the 2nd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, to discuss progress towards these principles and continue discussions on how to increase aid effectiveness. This forum provided an opportunity to expand on the Paris Declaration principles and set specific, time-bound actions for their implementation.
To provide impetus and encouragement in advance of the meeting, ONE members sent more than 22,000 letters asking leaders to commit to the principles of the new global aid transparency campaign, Publish What You Fund, which are as follows:
1. Information on aid should be published pro-actively
2. Everyone can request and receive information on aid processes
3. Information on aid should be timely and accessible
4. Information on aid should be comparable
5. The right of access to information about aid should be promoted
The Accra Agenda for Action that emerged from the forum contained many of these demands, including agreements on predictability, the use of country systems, and greater aid transparency. The next step in this campaign will be to follow through with donors to ensure they live up to these commitments.
Campaign Milestones
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Aug 15 2008
Aid Effectiveness Campaign Begins
ONE members around the world send emails to their national Development Ministers, World Bank President Bob Zoellick, and Chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Eckhard Deutscher, asking them to agree to the principles of "Publish What You Fund".
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Aug 27 2008
Manning Encourages Phone Calls
Former chairman of the DAC, Richard Manning, emails ONE members, encouraging them to make over 250 phone calls to key European Development Ministers, the World Bank, and the DAC.
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Aug 31 2008
ONE Arrives at Accra
ONE staff from the London and Nigeria offices arrive in Accra to lobby the assembled ministers and aid experts.
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Sep 4 2008
Accra Agenda for Action Emerges
After intense negotiations, the Accra summit produces a real win for aid effectiveness. In the summit’s outcomes document, the Accra Agenda for Action, donors agreed to look at increasing aid predictability, using country systems, and improving aid transparency.
Related Policy Hot Topics
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Accra Forum on Aid Effectiveness
In September 2008, the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra brought together ministers and officials, civil society organisations and development experts to discuss how to maximise the effectiveness of the $100 billion spent each year on development assistance.
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Quick Facts
More than 22,000
More than 22,000 letters from ONE members asking for increased aid transparency were sent to Development Ministers, the Chair of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), and the President of the World Bank.
Agenda for Action
The Accra Agenda for Action included promises from international donors to increase aid predictability, use of country systems, and improve aid transparency.
Nigeria and Uganda
Nigeria, Uganda and other countries are doing their part to ensure that the resources from debt relief are directed towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, by setting up poverty funds to monitor the flow of the funds and evaluate their impact.
Impact
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Accra: Improve Aid Quality
Increasing transparency doesn't have the same tangible result as simply increasing development assistance, so it can be more difficult to sell to results-driven politicians. However, increasing aid effectiveness is crucial to making sure that when we do give aid, it effectively achieves its intended purpose.
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