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Aid Effectiveness Network news

Newsletter - May 2006

Highlights

Outcomes on the Evaluation of General Budget Support.

Report on How DFID can use Aid Instruments to take forward work on Exclusion & Gender

Final Report – 'Does a Country Led Approach Deliver Results'

Aid Relationships

Country Led Approaches

The Country Led Approaches and Results Team held a seminar on 08 May to discuss the final report, ‘Does a Country led approach (CLA) deliver results? A synthesis of emerging evidence April 2006’. The report highlights progress to date, it makes a strong case for strengthening our commitment to CLA and puts forward a number of policy recommendations. The report draws principally on the experiences of Tanzania, Mozambique, Ghana, Ethiopia and Uganda. The consultants Marcus Cox and Nigel Thornton from Agulhas gave a presentation of the findings and then discussed the policy implications and the evidence and information gaps around the CLA agenda. Contact Katja Jobes for more details.

Aid Harmonisation and Alignment

The Government of Rwanda and other major development partners in the education sector signed a Memorandum of Understanding on partnership principles. DFID, as lead donor in the Education sector in Rwanda, has played a significant role in helping the government and donors to move towards effective harmonisation in the education sector. Contact Jo Bourne for more details.

Accountability

Around 80 representatives from governments, media, donor agencies and international development organisations met in Paris at the end of March to participate in discussions about deepening voice and accountability. The conference brought together voices and experiences of participants in the policy community who focus on poverty reduction. Discussions recognised that deepening voice and accountability in developing countries is about people, including those living in poverty, making decisions that affect their lives. Consensus was that governments, donors, media and civil society need to foster an enabling environment which demands accountability from governments and other leaders

Policy Coherence

Public Consultation on DFID’s new White Paper has been completed. Since January, the Secretary of State has been involved in a series of six speeches as part of the consultation process for DFID’s new White Paper. These discussions raised a number of questions around a wide range of subjects including trade, governance and growth in which DFID invited views. Contact Jas Malhi for more details

Managing for Results

The Development Assistance Committee’s (DAC) Aid Effectiveness Working Party Joint Venture (JV) on Managing for Development Results (MfDR) focuses on the results of aid and development efforts, including the information systems to track results and their use in accountability and policy management processes. The 7th meeting of the JV MfDR took place on 10 April, hosted by the Netherlands, followed by a workshop to share perspectives on results reporting by donor agencies. The 3rd roundtable will take place in Vietnam in February 2007, aiming for greater coherence and international harmonisation of efforts to build capacity in results systems. Contact Helen Wedgwood or Lynne Henderson for more details.

The first meeting of an informal Results Working Group was held on the 26 April. This is a cross-divisional group aimed at developing a coherent and harmonised approach to results within DFID, linking with international initiatives. A results Action plan will be prepared for presentation to the Development Committee late summer. Contact Lynne Henderson for more details.

A book on the institutional arrangements of Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) monitoring is to be published in June. This work was co-funded by DFID and the World Bank. The book provides lessons on the design and functioning of PRS monitoring systems, based on the experience of twelve PRS countries. This book provides practitioners with lessons and guidance, a diagnostic tool, and a summary of the situation in twelve PRS countries. Contact Lynne Henderson for more details.

DFID and German society for technical cooperation (GTZ) in consultation with other key members of the Poverty Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) network, have completed, ‘Principles for PSIA in Policy and Stakeholder Participation’(247 kb). This focuses on the importance of getting the process right: ensuring that appropriate transparency, participation and accountability are integrated into all stages of the PSAI process and associated policy making and implementation. This document complements the methodological guidance contained in the PSIA Users Guide, and Sourcebook of Tools for Institutional, Political and Social Analysis in PSIA. Contact Peter Poulsen with comments or for more details.

Development Finance/Aid Instruments

The Secretary of State briefed journalists on 08 May on the findings from the Joint Evaluation of Budget Support prior to the closing conference hosted by the DAC network on Development Evaluation in Paris 09/10 May. The evaluation assessed General Budget Support (GBS) from all donors in 7 partner countries over the last five years. You can access all the GBS evaluation material on the DAC website. Contact Kate Tench for more details.

DFID has approved a new £215 million rolling programme of budget support for Mozambique, which will be provided directly to the Government of Mozambique (GoM) over the next five years. The money will be used to support the GoM to achieve the goals for poverty reduction and economic growth that it will set out in its new poverty reduction strategy (PARPA). The funding demonstrates confidence in the GoM’s ability to sustain the impressive progress already made in improving the lives of Mozambican people. Contact Vitor Novele for more details.

The SoS has announces an additional £100 million from the UK over the next two years to help ensure faster progress towards the MDG of getting every child in the world into primary schools by 2015. This additional funding represents a down payment to meet our share of the Fast Track Initiative’s current financing gap. We now call on other donors to come forward with their contribution to help fill the rest of this gap.

A report on ‘Aid Instruments, Social Exclusion and Gender’ , was commissioned to inform the Guidance on Aid Instruments which the Development Financing and Instruments Team is leading. The report stresses the complementarily of aid instruments, and looks at ways DFID can use aid instruments to take forward work on exclusion and gender. Contact Zoe Stephenson for more details.

Financial Accountability and Anti-Corruption

Recently commissioned work from Oxford Policy Management (OPM) on 'Corruption Measurement' and 'Successful Anti-Corruption Initiatives' is near completion. The work was undertaken in two phases. The first report on ‘Corruption Measurement’ provides findings on the more prominent corruption indices detailing purpose of the index, i.e. the type of corruption measured and highlighting the sources of indicators and their general limitations. There is also a useful summary table which includes a definition of the type of corruption measured, interpretation of the underpinning methodology, information sources used and applicable coverage. The findings will be incorporated into the new 'How to' note on use of indicators and in Financial Accountability and Anti-Corruption Team's
(FACT) updated Fiduciary Risk Assessment (FRA) guidance. OPM will publicise the report. The second report on ‘Successful Anti-Corruption Initiatives’, looks at evidence of successful anti-corruption initiatives and includes interesting country case studies on Ghana and Tanzania. FACT has commissioned a further case study on Kenya and plans to undertake further research on success 'categorisation' to facilitate better design and appraisal of future initiatives. Contact Robert Hyland for more details.

The Development Committee broadly endorsed an interim paper produced jointly by Aid Effectiveness and Governance and Social Development Groups. Corruption is seen as an outcome of more fundamental failures of governance systems. The three main elements of DFID policy are 1) addressing the global drivers of corruption 2) addressing the in country governance failures that lead to corruption and 3) protecting development assistance. DFID focuses on ‘direction of travel’ rather than ‘minimum standards’ and will work to a credible strategy on risk management informed by a look at past progress. The Committee agreed the paper should form the basis for briefing the Secretary of State at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Spring Meetings at which there was a strong focus on governance and anti corruption. The Committee will look at the issues discussed , later this year and consider the case for a more formal policy and approach paper. Contact Tim Steele for more details.

The World Bank Spring Meetings found support for the Secretary of State’s view (underlined in a signed FT online newspaper article) that donors needed to engage and not to walk away from poor countries where corruption is a problem. Mr Wolfowitz agreed to extend work by the World Bank on a common framework to help define governance and propose tools for monitoring. It will build on this year’s Global Monitoring Report, discussed by the Secretary of State and other members at the World Bank’s Development Committee. The report argues compellingly that the best check against corruption is to strengthen governance systems supported by regular monitoring. Suspension of World Bank loans in countries where corruption was suspected prompted action by DFID to work for solutions which did not penalise poor people. The UK Delegation (IMF/International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), Governance and Social Development Group and Development Effectiveness Group put considerable effort into re-emphasising the case for fighting corruption by building institutions in developing countries. This view is attracting support and work by the World Bank on a common framework is a positive step. A record of the Press Conference, is available on the World’s Bank website.

Other Aid Effectiveness Information

The World Bank has published the Global Monitoring Report 2006: Millennium Development Goals: Strengthening Mutual Accountability, Aid, Trade and Governance . It reports on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, argues that governance is one of the central challenges facing developing countries, and provides a governance framework. Contact Benedicte Terryn for more details.

An evaluation of Technical Co-operation (TC) for Economic Management (1999-2004) in sub-Saharan Africa drawing on DFID experience in TC support for capacity building in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia will be published in June. Details available from Alison Girdwood.

DFID's Development Effectiveness Group Restructuring Update

The Development Financing Team has been renamed the Development Financing and Instruments Team (DFIT) headed by Nick Highton. New members to the team are Jennie Baraugh and Peter Colenso from the old Aid Effectiveness team, Gary Jenkins from the Poverty Reduction Strategy and Harmonisation (PRSH) Team and Weyinmi Omamuli, who as returned from a secondment to HM Treasury.

The Social Protection and Exclusion, Rights and Justice Teams have merged to become the Equity & Rights Team, headed by Stephen Kidd. The focus of the team will continue to promote innovative policy thinking within DFID and among international partners, provide support to regional division and country offices and support lesson-learning across DFID.

Upcoming Events

A seminar on The EUD funded research programme: European Community's Poverty Reduction Effectiveness Programme, is now in it's dissemination phase and is holding a series of London Seminars. The seminars are running from May to July, the first in the series 'EU Trade Policy and the Poor: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean' taking place on Wednesday 24 May from 12.30 - 2pm. Contact Anna Morris for more details.

Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountability (CIPFA) annual conference will be held in Harrogate on 14/15 June. DFID will provide a workshop on 'What's Next in International Development', and a stand disseminating DFID material and information. Contact Mark Herbert for more details.

ODI are running a series of seminars on What’s next in International Development following 2005. This series will be continuing into the summer. Details of meetings including one on the issue of UN reform, will be posted when they have been confirmed. ODI are also running a series of seminars on (Re)building Developmental States: From Theory to Practice , forthcoming meetings include: 'State-Building, Aid and Security in the Context of Failed States' on 18 May and 'Aid and its Impact on State Formation' on the 22 May.

Recent Events

Gordon Conway recently took part in a panel discussion on the links between climate change and sustainable development at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York. He spoke about the need for poverty reduction strategies to address the challenges of improving industrial development and energy access for households while tackling climate risks. Partnerships such as the Global Village Energy Partnership can help with this. He also spoke about DFID's work on how to assess and manage climate risks for development assistance. Pilot work in four of our country programmes, beginning with Bangladesh starts in May.

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

DFID Department for International Development