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Development Partners agree a new Joint Assistance Strategy for Uganda (UJAS)

A new joint strategy for development assistance to Uganda (481 kb) has recently been agreed by seven of the country’s main development partners. DFID and the World Bank have led the process in collaboration with the African Development Bank, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

The Secretary of State agreed the UJAS as DFID’s medium term strategy for Uganda on 13 January. The World Bank’s Executive Board endorsed the UJAS on 17 January, commending it for operationalising the principles of the Rome and Paris declarations on aid effectiveness and harmonisation.

Executive Directors recommended that "the UJAS serve as a model for achieving better coordination among development partners in support of the government’s development goals".

The Government of Uganda has warmly welcomed the UJAS as representing an important opportunity to improve the effectiveness of development assistance and reduce its own transaction costs in managing aid. The UJAS is recognised as building on the Partnership Principles agreed by the government and development partners in 2003. A number of other development partners in Uganda, including the European Commission, have expressed the intention to join the UJAS partner group over the next few months.

Why is it important?

The UJAS sets out how development partners will both implement the Rome and Paris Declarations and help the government achieve the objectives of the third phase of its Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP). In particular the UJAS includes:

• an agreed set of priorities for development assistance
• a common assessment framework for making decisions about levels of development financing, and
• a set of indicators for assessing impact, which include both development outcomes drawn from the PEAP (consistent with the Millennium Development Goals) and measures of donor organisational effectiveness drawn from the Paris Declaration.

The UJAS identifies an implementation process, which in the first year will focus on improving the division of labour between development partners based on the principle of comparative advantage.

The strategy provides a framework for DFID’s programme in Uganda and, more widely, for donor co-operation over the medium term. The joint strategy does not remove the UJAS partners’ independence in decision making, but it does ensure they consult more systematically on key decisions and work more effectively together in pursuit of the Rome and Paris objectives and in support of PEAP implementation. It also provides greater clarity about expectations in the relationship between development partners and the government.

For more information, contact Kate Binns.

Last updated: 20 December 2006

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