The Paris Declaration was signed in 2005 by 107 countries, 26 International Organisations and 14 International Civil Society Organisations. This moved the aid effectiveness agenda beyond the general consensus around making aid more effective in combating poverty and accelerating progress in achieving the MDGS, reached at Rome in 2003, towards committing its signatories to take action to strengthen national ownership, aid alignment and harmonisation, mutual accountability and results orientation.
The Paris Declaration presents a monitoring framework to assess progress toward fulfilling these commitments, based on 12 actionable baseline survey against the targets and indicators in 2006/07 in 34 countries receiving aid . The OECD has published an overview of the results to the Paris Declaration and the country chapters. A second round of monitoring will be organised in the first quarter of 2008 and will be an important contribution to the Accra High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to be held between 2nd and 4th September 2008.
The High Level Forum in Accra
The main objectives of the third High Level Forum on aid effectiveness in Accra (HLF 3) are:
- to review the progress made in implementing the Paris Declaration;
- broaden and deepen the dialogue on aid effectiveness by giving space and voice to partner countries and newer actors, such as Civil Society Organisations and emerging donors; and
- identify the action needed to make progress in improving aid effectiveness for 2010 and beyond.
Structure of the consultation
The HLF 3 will be organised as a three-tier structure:
1) The Marketplace, which will provide an opportunity for different actors to showcase good and innovative practices and lessons from promoting aid effectiveness;
2) Roundtable meetings, which will provide an opportunity for in-depth discussion on key issues to facilitate and support decision making and policy endorsement on aid effectiveness; and
3) Ministerial-Level Meeting, which is expected to conclude the HLF 3 with an endorsement of a ministerial statement based on high-level discussions and negotiation around key issues.
Management of the HLF-3
The overall responsibility for the substance of the HLF 3 rests with the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness. This was set up in May 2003 in the context of the international consensus reached at Monterrey on the actions needed to promote a global partnership for development and accelerate progress towards the MDGs. The Working Party is mandated to promote, facilitate and monitor the Paris Declaration. It is an international forum in which equal numbers of bilateral donors and partner countries are represented, with participation from all the multilateral banks, the OECD, and the United Nations. Under the umbrella of the Working Party, the Steering Committee, chaired by the Chair of the Working Party with the World Bank and the Government of Ghana as vice-chairs, meets on a quarterly basis to provide advice on the content of the Forum. The Core Group, comprised of the World Bank, the Government of Ghana and OECD, is undertaking much of the preparatory work, including overseeing the planning of preparatory events.
The HLF-3 consultation process
Consultation processes leading up to HLF 3 are underpinned by the desire to:
- deepen the understanding on aid effectiveness issues;
- build ownership of the Accra agenda; and
- help build consensus around key issues by the broadest range of actors.
Several strands of consultation events are planned or underway. Four rounds of mini-consultation meetings with partner countries were carried out from June to September 2007 in Mauritius, Ghana, Honduras and the Philippines. Inviting eight to ten partner countries primarily from the region, the consultation meetings identified important issues for HLF 3 through frank discussions around issues and challenges partner countries face when implementing the Paris commitments at country level. These consultations are expected to be followed-up by broader regional consultations in 2008 in order to start to build consensus around key aid effectiveness issues amongst a broader range of actors.
Specific consultations are also underway or planned around various relevant topics on aid effectiveness. This includes each of the Joint Ventures on Public Financial Management, Procure-ment, Managing for Development Results and Monitoring the Paris Declaration, the DAC subsidiary bodies (DAC Network on Govern-ment, Fragile States, Evaluation, Gender Equality, Poverty Reduction, Conflict, Peace and Development, Environment, and the Working Party on Statistics), other institutions (for example, the World Health Organisation and the Global Fund) and other informal working groups. It is expected that these workstreams will provide supporting analytic work on various topics through consultation with various stakeholders.
In addition to the official HLF process, there are two parallel spaces for CSOs in the process to the HLF in Accra, 2008: The official process, led by the Advisory Group on Civil Society and Aid Effect-iveness (AG-CSO), which was established by the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness; and the CSO’s own parallel process.
The Official CSO process
The official CSO process aims to discuss how civil society’s own contribution to development could be enhanced, with the Paris Declaration taken as a key reference point, as well as provide advice on CSO participation in the official process in Accra. The AG CSO pursues outcomes in three areas: better recognition and voice of CSOs in discussions of aid effectiveness; applying and enriching the international aid effectiveness agenda; and sharing good practice. The AG takes the Paris Declaration and the aid effectiveness principles contained therein as a reference point upon which to build as required to meet the requirements of its specific mandate.
The AG-CSO is a multi-stakeholder group consisting of 12 members, including three members each from developing country partner governments, donors, and civil society organizations (CSOs) from developed and developing countries and is intended to function at least until the HLF3. The AG-CSO have scheduled five regional consultations to involve Southern CSOs, one Northern CSO consultationv(in Belgium and organised by CONCORD, an umbrella of European CSO platforms) and a North/South CSO consultation (in Johannesburg bringing together selected representatives from each of the regional consultations, including the Northern Consultation to analyse the outcomes of the regional consultations and discuss outstanding North/South civil Society issues related to CSO aid effectiveness) all to take place between September 2007 and September 2008, to receive input on the official process.
Except for the Northern Consultation, each consultation will have a two-day CSOs-only session in which approximately half the time is devoted to CSO perspectives on the current aid effectiveness agenda (the Paris Declaration) and the remaining time is devoted to case studies, best practices and issues in CSO aid effectiveness. This will then be followed by a day-and-a-half in a multi-stakeholder format with Southern CSOs, government representations, donors and Northern CSOs.
Nordic Plus, aid effectiveness and civil society
A number of donors, led by Norway, are organizing a research program on reforming donor funding models and mechanisms for supporting civil society at country level, from an aid effectiveness perspective. This research will identify the strengths and weaknesses of current funding mechanisms and make recommendations for support to more harmonized, transparent and collectively effective support to NGOs/CSOs. In carrying out the research, country analyses will look at the strengths and weaknesses of the structure, value and impact of civil society within the particular country.
While it is unclear how CSOs will contribute to this research, Norway is a member of the Advisory Group and will presumably feed the results to the AG-CSO.
The International CSO forum
The AG-CSO will be bringing together approximately 150 to 200 CSOs from the South and the North, donor representatives and Southern government representa-tives for an International Forum to consider the results of the consultations (and from other processes related to the mandate of the AG-CSO). This will be held in Ottawa, Canada between 3rd and 6th February 2008. The International Forum will offer analysis and advice to the Advisory Group on issues related to its mandate. The Advisory Group in turn will be providing some recommendations on CSO aid effectiveness to the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness, the body hosted by the DAC to monitor the implementation of the Paris Declaration.
Most of the CSO participants for the International Forum will be identified through the regional consultations; however, there will be space for other interested CSOs who have considered some of the issues involved and/or have produced case studies related to these issues. The Canadian Council for International Cooperation (which is a member of the Advisory Group) has been mandated by the Advisory Group to organize this Forum.
The CSO parallel process
The CSO Parallel process aims to influence the outcomes of the official HLF process in the months leading up to Accra by raising CSOs’ concerns around the aid effectiveness agenda and its broader implications for development effectiveness. This process brings together various local, national, regional and international NGOs who are engaged in aid architecture and effectiveness issues. This process is led by the International CSO Steering Group for the Accra High Level (ISG), which promotes the participation of CSOs in the AG-CSO sponsored consultations and aims to support CSOs to critically analyse the aid effectiveness agenda. There are a series of national and regional consultations leading up to the above mentioned international conference in Ottawa in February 2008. All of this will feed into the High-Level Forum in Accra. In addition, the ISG has created a new web site, www.betteraid.org, which brings together the latest information on CSO perspectives and plans relating to the Accra High Level Forum on aid effectiveness.
The network is keen to develop awareness of the aid effectiveness agenda at the local and national level and sees the HLF-3 as an important opportunity for bringing about discussion and debate and the engagement of CSOs on the said agenda. CSO concerns include among others, governance and accountability, ownership, effective aid delivery, tied aid and conditionality, at the same time ensuring that the core issues of gender equality, human rights and solidarity in the aid architecture are seriously addressed.
The list of current partner networks involved in this initiative include Alliance 2015, Eurodad, Social Watch, Civicus, IBIS, Reality of Aid, Third World Network (TWN), IBON, and CONCORD. The ISG is currently under the chairmanship of IBON in the Philippines.
The ISG has proposed two potential engagements with official process planning the High Level Forum (the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness, based at the OECD DAC and its Steering Committee for the High Level Forum):
1) The Advisory Group on CSOs and Aid Effectiveness will be meeting on 5-6 November 2007. The Chair of the Advisory Group will invite members of the CSO International Steering Committee and members of the Steering Committee of the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness to a half day engagement on issues of concern to CSOs for the High Level Forum. The timing for this meeting during these two days has not yet been confirmed.
2) The full Working Party on Aid Effectiveness (23 donors, 23 partner governments from the South, multilateral donors) will be meeting on 27-28 November 2007. The CSO International Steering Committee is in discussion with the Chair of the Working Party, Ambassador Cedergren from Sweden, to arrange a meeting with the Working Party for selected members of the CSO International Steering Committee. The timing and agenda for such a meeting is yet to be confirmed.
In addition, the Canada-based Halifax Initiative is planning a Conference on International Finance and Cooperation, timed to take advantage of participants coming to Ottawa for the Advisory Group’s International Forum. The Halifax Initiative is a coalition of Canadian CSOs working on reform of the international financial institutions.
The themes of this conference are intended to cover a broader scope of international financing issues than development assistance. This is due to be held from 1st to 2nd February 2008.
The follow-up to Accra (HLF-4) will be taking place in December 2011.
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