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Aid Effectiveness Network news - Newsletter - July 2007

Highlights

Millennium Development Goals Report 2007 published.

Business Anti-Corruption Portal launched.

Evaluation of the Paris Declaration.

Results

Millennium Development Goals Report 2007: The UN published ‘The Millennium Development Goals Report 2007’ at the beginning of July. Findings include: the proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell from 32% to 20% between 1990 and 2004, or about 980 million. There have been some gains, but much remains to be done. The report also calls on stakeholders to meet their commitments and to fulfil their pledges to increase ODA. For further information visit the UN website or contact Bénédicte Terryn, email: B-Terryn@dfid.gov.uk.

Financial Accountability & Anti-Corruption

Business Anti-Corruption Portal: The newBusiness Anti-Corruption Portal , which the FACT team in AEAD co-funds with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, recently won a competition run by Changemakers.net, to identify the most 'innovative new anti-corruption initiative'. The Portal was selected as the winner from over 80 entries submitted from all over the world. The Portal is intended to help companies avoid bribery and extortion by providing them with necessary information and tools. It is constructed as a “one stop shop” on anti-corruption for companies operating in emerging markets. The portal was originally launched as a public private partnership between the Danish Government and Global Advice Network and underlines the importance of private sector participation in development strategies. The main elements of the portal are country profiles, Due Diligence Tools, Integrity System, Information Network, “About Corruption”, Links and Training modules. For more information please contact Robert Hyland, email: R-Hyland@dfid.gov.uk.

Other Aid Effectiveness Information

Consultation on New Research Strategy 2008-2013: Central Research Department is seeking views to help it develop a new research strategy. The 2006 White Paper emphasises the importance of new technologies, knowledge and evidenced-based policies for development and how these are fundamental to growth and poverty reduction. DFID's budget for research will double from £110 million in 2005/06 to £220 million in 2010. Around £650 million will be available to fund new research programmes in the forthcoming strategy period (2008-2013). The new strategy is an opportunity for DFID to refocus on the most pressing research challenges, work in innovative ways and make new research partnerships. We welcome your views on the direction the strategy should take. The consultation is available on the DFID website . For more information contact Emma Spicer, email: E-Spicer@dfid.gov.uk.

Aid effectiveness in Cambodia: ‘Business as usual is no longer an option’ : To coincide with the first meeting of the Cambodia Development Forum (CDCF), the Royal Government of Cambodia launched its flagshipAid Effectiveness Report 2007 . This year’s high level government-donor consultations marked a change as the Government took the lead in organising and chairing the meeting, which have until now been organised jointly with the World Bank. The analytical report provides evidence-based analysis of development assistance in 2006 that should be a role model for other developing countries. Key findings include: - disparities between financial pledges by donors and disbursements; - severe fragmentation of development assistance relative to other LDCs; - high level of technical cooperation relative to other LDCs. As the lead donor facilitator for aid effectiveness work in Cambodia, DFID provided the development partner consensus statement and is working closely with Government and donors to take the agenda forward. In response to the report, development partners committed at the CDCF to: - provide timely, consistent and accurate information on aid disbursements through the data-base recently established by the Government, - provide the Government with 3 year indicative financing framework, - support the Government’s efforts to promote better division of labour and reduced fragmentation between and within sectors; - work with the Government to agree targets to measure increased funds flowing through programme-based approaches; - work closely with the Government to find ways to move forward in rationalising the provision and use of technical cooperation in Cambodia linked to a government review of TC later in 2007. For more information please see the joint donor statement on aid effectiveness or contact Marjolaine Nicod, email: M-Nicod@dfid.gov.uk.

Health and Education in Fragile States: Fragile States and Education & Skills Teams are to finance a programme that will support international sector networks on health and education in fragile states. Our contribution is largely catalytic, aimed at kick-starting the process and supporting the lead agencies in coordinating key activities. USAID will fund specific activities in the network and UNICEF is considering funding for some education activities. CIDA has agreed to contribute support for the network’s initial activity: Policy Roundtable on Education and Fragile States (Nov 2007). For more information please contact John Howarth, email: J-Howarth@dfid.gov.uk.

Evaluating Coordination, Complementarity and Coherence (3Cs) in EU Development Cooperation: In 2004, the EU Heads of Evaluation Taskforce on the 3Cs initiated a series of six joint evaluations to assess the role played by the Maastricht Treaty precepts of coordination, complementarity and coherence in the European Commission's and the EU Member States' development cooperation policies. The evaluations determine to what extent the 3Cs have been applied in practice and with what impact in areas including policy coherence, humanitarian assistance, trade capacity building and the use of Country Strategy Papers. All six evaluation reports, including the country reports, literature studies and other annexes, are now available.

This year, the Taskforce invited the European Centre for Development Policy Management to produce a synthesis study of all six evaluations, with the aim to support discussions on the policy implications of the findings of the evaluations. A draft synthesis was discussed on June 14 at a seminar in Brussels where it was decided that a finalized version should be sent to EU Directors General for Development Cooperation for consideration at their next 6-monthly meeting (October/ November 2007). For more information please contact Lynn Quinn, email: L-Quinn@dfid.gov.uk.

Recent Seminars & Events

Second European Summit on Sustainable Development: Sustainable Growth and Poverty Reduction in rural Africa: How can Europe be a more effective partner? Liz Drake recently attended this conference in Berlin during which she took part in both plenary and group work and jointly delivered an ‘open space’ session on lessons learned from the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Plan (CAADP) process in Rwanda. During the final day on Aid Effectiveness, Liz was a panel member in the discussion on division of labour and also fed back to plenary. For more information contact Liz Drake, email: LC-Drake@dfid.gov.uk.

Global Forum on Migration and Development: took place in Brussels recently and included a civil society day on 9 July. The forum built on the UN High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development which took place in New York last September during which states agreed to continue the dialogue on migration and development during an annual forum. The main theme of the forum was that migration, when it is well managed has significant potential to pull people out of poverty. Temporary migration alone could lead to gains of $300 billion a year shared between developed and developing countries if current trends continue. Mark Lowcock represented the UK at the forum together with officials from Home Office and FCO. For more information contact Camilla Bowen, email C-Bowen@dfid.gov.uk.

Evaluation of the Paris Declaration: Alison Girdwood and Lynn Macdonald recently attended a meeting held in Copenhagen to take stock of progress made in the various activities grouped as the evaluation of the ‘Paris Declaration’. The evaluation is joint, involving a number of donors and partner countries, and is being managed by Denmark. Ten partner countries have volunteered as case studies for the evaluation including Bangladesh, Bolivia, Mali, Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia, and ten donors: Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxemburg, Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK and UNDP/UNEG. There are also a number of potential thematic studies (fragile states, technical co-operation and statistical capacity building), which DFID is likely to manage. DFID has only recently agreed to undertake a case study and are currently drafting Terms of Reference for the work. Partner country evaluations will focus on the themes of Clarity, Relevance and Coherence; and donor evaluations on themes of Commitment, Capacities and Incentives. The findings of the evaluations will be synthesised in advance of the Accra High Level Forum, and will constitute a key part of the evidence base for the Forum. Further details will be available shortly, and updates provided on all these activities up to the 2008 Forum. For more information contact Alison Girdwood, email A-Girdwood@dfid.gov.uk.

Development Effectiveness in Practice: Applying the Paris Declaration to advancing gender equality, environmental sustainability and human rights This workshop was held in Dublin, hosted by Irish Aid bringing together 120 participants representing Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Members, partner countries, civil society and United Nations agencies. It was jointly organised by the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness (WP-EFF), the DAC Networks on Environment and Development Co-operation (ENVIRONET), on Governance (GOVNET) and on Gender Equality (GENDERNET), with funding provided by Ireland, Denmark and other DAC Members. The purpose of the Workshop was to increase mutual knowledge and understanding of how practitioners are applying the Paris Declarations overarching principles to advance gender equality, environmental sustainability and human rights. The long-term goal is to demonstrate how attention to these issues enhances development effectiveness. For more information contact Helen Wedgwood, email H-Wedgwood@dfid.gov.uk.

First Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction: In June officials from DFID, Cabinet Office and DEFRA attended the first meeting of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. The Platform is a global forum that advocates for effective and timely action by nations, communities and all stakeholders and partners to mitigate risk, manage vulnerabilities and reduce disaster. This first meeting assessed progress towards the Hyogo Framework for Action and concluded more needs to be done, particularly in making the important links between DRR and climate change adaptation, working with the private sector and developing targets and indicators for achieving them. It also concluded that the cost-benefit case for DRR needed to be strengthened. To this end, Sir John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, is planning a high profile Stern-type review, backed by Amartya Sen. For more information contact John Wearing, email: J-Wearing@dfid.gov uk or Elly Saunders, email: E-Saunders@dfid.gov.uk.

Health in Fragile States: A workshop was held recently at DFID on Health in Fragile States – launching a network of donors, NGOS, UN agencies and build the evidence base and learn lessons on what works in order to deliver health effectively in fragile states. For more information contact John Howarth, email: J-Howarth@dfid.gov.uk.

Multilateral Effectiveness and Financing: DFID recently hosted a senior-level bilateral donor meeting in London to address Multilateral Effectiveness and Financing issues. The meeting, conducted under Chatham House rules, confirmed an interest by a number of bilateral donors in taking forward work to develop a common multilateral effectiveness assessment tool. This work will be carried out under the auspices of the Multilateral Organisations Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN) and discussed at its next meeting in September this year. For more information contact Stefan Kossoff, email: S-Kossoff@dfid.gov.uk.

Improving MDG Monitoring: What can we say about progress towards the Millennium Development Goals as we approach the half way point between the 1990 baseline and the 2015 targets? How we monitor the goals can be a contentious issue, and this is a key moment to consider it as we develop new PSAs and DSOs largely based on the MDGs. This seminar was chaired by Sarah Cooke, Head of AEAD. For more information contact Benedicte Terryn, email: B-Terry@dfid.gov.uk.

How well is DFID doing in increasing aid effectiveness and mutual accountability? A view from countries: Focusing on the work of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Capacity Building Programme, whose purpose is to assist countries in evaluating their donors. The findings, methods and contribution of the Programme were discussed, with the aim of improving DFID's aid effectiveness strategy, including how to strengthen mutual accountability. Messers Martin and Johnson of Debt Relief International, which manages the programme, presented the seminar. For more information contact Katja Jobes, email: K-Jobes@dfid.gov.uk.

Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Event: The Financial Accountability and anti-Corruption Team (FACT) participated in the CIPFA Annual Conference and Exhibition in Bournemouth. The theme of this year’s conference was “Modern Public Services - are we there yet?” DFID’s stand in the conference exhibition provided a good opportunity to raise awareness of our work and we also participated in a seminar “How the UK can help in improving developing and transition economy country public sector performance”. If you have any questions on the CIPFA conference, contact Mark Herbert, email: M-Herbert@dfid.gov.uk.

The co-ordination of the Aid Effectiveness network, including the AE newsletter, is undertaken by the Country Led Approaches and Results (CLEAR) Team based in Abercrombie House. Catherine Ferry and Nicola Cairns are the 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.