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Aid Effectiveness Network news
Newsletter - April 2006
Highlights
- Secretary of State makes his Sixth & Final White Paper Speech.
- Internal Review of DFID's Engagement with Conflict in Northern Uganda.
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Network on Governance
Aid Relationships
Aid Harmonisation and Alignment
- The UK and Pakistan have signed a Letter of Intent to develop a long-term Development Partnership Arrangement (DPA) by the end of 2006. Pakistan is keen to establish a new long-term arrangement with the UK to reaffirm the UK's commitments, including delivering more predictable and better aid. The 10 year DPA will be an overarching statement sending a clear signal of our intentions for long-term planning.
- Dave Fish recently approved a £13 million contribution to Rwanda's Joint Education Sector Support (JESS). In late 2004 donors and the Government of Rwanda began to ask how external finance could best support the education strategic plan. After many consultations, the JESS programme was endorsed which has two components: sector budget support and a capacity building pool. Contact Jo Bourne for more details.
Mutual Accountability
- An Internal Review of DFID's Engagement with Conflict in Northern Uganda
(171 kb) was undertaken as part of the programme of independent evaluation studies commissioned by Evaluation Department. The evaluation, managed by John Murray is one of a series of short reviews commissioned by Evaluation Department to provide quick evidence for ongoing programmes. The report presents the results of a review of DFID's support to conflict prevention and peace building in Northern Uganda. It presents preliminary conclusions on the effectiveness of DFID's conflict reduction and peace building programme in Northern Uganda from 1999 to 2005, it also draws out lessons for other conflict reduction programmes. Contact John Murray for more information on the series of short reviews or contact Gerald Owachi or Graham Carrington for further information on the situation in Uganda.
Policy Coherence
- The Secretary of State (SoS) made his sixth and final White Paper speech at Portcullis house as part of the consultation on DFID's forthcoming White Paper. Speaking to an audience of MPs, NGOs and academics he sought views on the reform of the International Development System and how important it is to respond to the challenges of the 21st century Contact Jas Malhi for more details.
Poverty and Social Impact Analysis
- Country Teams, do you want assistance analysing the potential poverty impacts of the interventions you support? A DAC working group, with support from the former Poverty Analysis and Monitoring (PAM) team within DFID's Development Effectiveness Group, has developed a simplified approach to ex-ante poverty impact assessment which is appropriate for both donors and countries. Country Teams interested in testing the approach on their interventions should contact Peter Poulsen.
- The former PAM team in collaboration with GTZ and others in the Poverty and Social Impact Analyses (PSIA) network have produced a note on Principles for PSIA Process in Policy Cycles and Stakeholder Participation
Development Finance/Aid Instruments
- Russia's Minister of Education & Science announced Russia's contribution to the Fast Track Initiative (FTI) of US$7.2 million, confirming that education would be one of three topics on the agenda for the next G8 summit with EFA and FTI being included in the discussion on education. The Russians welcomed the support from other G8 nations and indicated that it was an important part of the effort to retain this political momentum from previous G8 meetings. Please contact the Education & Skills Team for more details.
Financial Accountability and Anti-Corruption
- In Paris, on 22 and 23 March 2006, the Financial Accountability and Anti-Corruption Team (FACT) participated in an expert meeting on Political Corruption and the Role of Donors. The meeting was organised by the OECD DAC Network (GOVNET) and the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre. The objectives of the meeting were to come to a better understanding on the drivers and manifestations of political corruption, unpacking lessons learnt from donor experiences, and identifying entry points for collective donor action. The purpose of the meeting, related to FACT's work on the drivers of political corruption, was to feed into the articulation of a OECD DAC policy paper to set a collective agenda for tackling grand corruption, including upgrading donor corruption diagnosis instruments. The policy paper will be finalised in June 2006 with the objective of presenting it to the OECD DAC Senior Level Meeting in December 2006. Contact Carlos Santiso for more details.
Other Aid Effectiveness Information
- Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has been working on coordinating and facilitating a project called 'Southern Voices for Change in the International Aid System' that seeks to capture the views and opinions of Southern-based civil society organisations on how the international aid system currently works and how it could be reformed. As part of that initiative, a virtual
Forum on the Future of Aid (FFA) was also launched. The FFA are trying to achieve important aims with this new website. One is to make the FFA site more autonomous and independent from ODI while still linked to it, and the second is to give as much space as possible to feedback/documents coming from the South. Your comments and feedback are most welcome.
DFID's Development Effectiveness Group Restructuring Update
- The Development Effectiveness Group in Policy Division has completed its relocation of posts to Abercrombie House and now has four teams with effect from 3 April. Three London-based teams have closed in this re-organisation - the Aid Effectiveness Team, the Poverty Reduction Strategies and Aid Harmonisation Team, and the Poverty Analysis and MDG review Team.
Upcoming Events
- The DAC Joint Venture on Managing for Development Results will meet in the Hague April 10-12. This includes a workshop to share perspectives on results reporting by donor agencies. Contact Helen Wedgwood or Lynne Henderson for more details.
- ODI are running a series of seminars on
Recent Events
- A lunchtime seminar was held on 27 March at DFID's London Office on Developing the Colombian Poverty and Inequality Strategy: What Lessons Can We Learn About ‘Home-Grown’ Poverty Reduction Strategies In Middle Income Countries? Contact Emma Morley for more details.
- A PSIA workshop hosted by New Rules organisation and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was held in Washington 13-16th March, supported by DFID. The workshop shared experience from IMF, the World Bank and civil society organisations on the use of evidence in policy processes, and reviewed the progress by International Financial Institutions (IFI's) on their commitments to mainstream PSIA. It also provided an opportunity to explore ways in which countries are using econometrics to understand impact analysis, and how to integrate this work into a broader policy making dialogue. Contact Peter Poulsen or Katja Jobes for more details.
- DFID was represented at the European Union (EU) Conference on Trade Sustainable Impact Analysis (SIA) Stocktaking to launch the Handbook on SIA. This provided a forum to learn more about this work, and share experience with other impact methods with which DFID has been working. Contact Peter Poulsen for more details.
- Strengthening domestic accountability: The first meeting of the informal Policy Division working group was held on April 4th to agree objectives and Terms of Reference for the group to support a coherent position and promote the agenda in a coordinates way within and beyond DFID. Contact Katja Jobes for more details.
- Policy Division's Investment Team, the World Bank and the OECD jointly organised the first ever workshop on Public Private Dialogue (PPD) on 01 and 02 February in Paris. The workshop was attended by 100 participants from 30 countries and 10 donor agencies, representing both public and private sectors. The importance of PPD was one of the key points emphasised in the recent Asia 2015 Private Sector Conference which took place in London. Drawing on the lessons emerging from the workshop, the World Bank, DFID and OECD will now collaborate in producing a more detailed practical handbook for policy makers and practitioners on how to facilitate effective PPD processes. For further information on this topic, see workshop documentation at
The co-ordination of the Aid Effectiveness network, including the AE
newsletter, is now being undertaken by the Country Led Approaches and Results
(CLEAR) team, based in Abercrombie House. Catherine McGowan and
Nicola Cairns
are the new contacts. To keep abreast of the latest in aid effectiveness, please
e-mail Catherine or Nicola who will add your name to the mailing list. Please
also let us know of any news you have which relates to Aid Effectiveness. We
will be glad to publicise anything you are doing.
All the Best
Catherine McGowan
Nicola Cairns