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Aid Effectiveness Network news
Newsletter - March 2007
Highlights
Aid Relationships
Results
- The third Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Roundtable on Managing for Development Results (MfDR) was held in Hanoi on 5-8 February. It was attended by about 500 people from donors agencies, partner countries, civil society and the private sector. Greater country ownership of the agenda was demonstrated with some countries making real progress (for example, Mozambique, Vietnam, Cambodia). It helped to define better what managing for development results really means, including the key role of accountability in promoting results. There was a clear implication that donors and countries need to do much more to build the capacity to manage for development results. This means not only by enhancing capacity in statistics and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) (responding to country rather than donor objectives) but also by focusing in a more systematic way on strengthening domestic institutions - such as audit, parliaments, media, the judiciary and civil society - which ultimately hold governments to account. The meeting also materially advanced DFID’s agenda on agency effectiveness, emphasising the importance of continuing to work on assessment in a more coordinated manner, and the need to look at how incentives in donor agencies to manage for results at country level can be strengthened in ways that support country leadership and accountability. Less progress was made, however, in agreeing specific changes in the international architecture to improve donor accountability. Presentations and documents can be found on the
MfDR website.
Other Aid Effectiveness information
- There was a promising outcome to
- Donors in Ghana have agreed new ways to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Ghana’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. On Thursday 1 March, 17 donors signed the Ghana Joint Assistance Strategy (G-JAS)
(757 kb) in Accra. The signing of this agreement couldn’t be more appropriate coming as it does just a few days before Ghana’s 50th Independence Anniversary on 6th March, and as Ghana looks to strengthen its alliances with its development partners. The 17 donors are Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), African Development Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), United Nations (UN), World Bank, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Danish International Development Agency (Danida), European Commission, France, Germany, Japan, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and DFID. For more information please contact Pauline Seenan, e-mail: pauline-seenan@dfid.gov.uk
- Evaluation of DFID Country Programmes (CPE) Kenya Country Study 2000-2005
- Multilateral Effectiveness: What do our partners think? As Official Development Assistance (ODA) rises, there is a strong case for collecting more information on the effectiveness of the agencies that disburse it. DFID have been one of a number of donors to develop methods for assessing agency effectiveness. But methods for capturing partner perceptions of agencies working at the country level remain weak. Our long term aim is to build the capacity of mutual accountability mechanisms and to encourage agencies themselves to do their own client surveys, but there is also a strong case for independent work to gather national perceptions. At a meeting with the Secretary of State in September 2006 it was agreed that we needed to better understand what partner countries thought of the effectiveness of different multilaterals. We have commissioned Overseas Development Institute (ODI) to complete pilot “client surveys” of seven of our key multilateral partners. These will cover the European Commission, World Bank, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) and UNICEF. ODI will solicit views on their effectiveness in Bangladesh, Ghana, India, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. ODI will collate and share the findings of the survey in the autumn (2007). Please contact Andrew Felton, e-mail: a-felton@dfid.gov.uk or Daniel Davis, e-mail: daniel-davis@dfid.gov.uk for more information.
Recent events
- The 38th Session of the United Nations (UN) Statistical Commission took place in New York on 27 February - 2 March 2007. It discussed questions such as education statistics, population and housing censuses, national accounts, development indicators and national statistical capacity building. It also shared information on such issues as migration, energy and finance statistics. For more information please refer to the
The co-ordination of the Aid Effectiveness (AE) network, including the AE newsletter, is undertaken by the Country Led Approaches and Results (CLEAR) team, based in Abercrombie House. Catherine Ferry, e-mail: c-ferry@dfid.gov.uk and Nicola Cairns, e-mail: n-cairns@dfid.gov.uk 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.
Catherine Ferry and Nicola Cairns