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Aid Effectiveness Network news - Newsletter - October 2007

Highlights

  • Joint Venture Monitoring the Paris Declaration. .
  • Joint Study on Effective Technical Cooperation for Capacity Development.

    • Accra High Level Forum

    Joint Venture Monitoring the Paris Declaration (JVMPD):  The JVMPD recently met in Accra, Ghana to discuss preparations for the 2008 survey round and inputs into the Accra High Level Forum (HLF), planned for September 2008. Attending from DFID were Liz Drake and Helen Wedgwood (CLEAR) and Roland Fox (in a DAC observer role). The meeting was chaired by George Carner (US). The overall tone of the meeting was constructive which was helped significantly by the chair who intervened to support the collective views of the JV. This was particularly in relation to the requirements and timelines for the preparation phase where it was felt that initial proposals (e.g. on timing, process and content), were not going to be sufficient or the most practical in the time available. For more information contact Liz Drake,

    Financial Accountability and Anti-Corruption

    Namibian Police Trained to Tackle Money Laundering In September, 18 financial investigators of the Namibian Police, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and Namibian Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa) finished a two-week training course in Windhoek on how to deal with money laundering and other complex financial crimes. Certificates were presented to candidates by the British High Commissioner, Mark Bensberg. Although laws such as the Prevention of Organised Crime Act and the recently passed Financial Intelligence Act are in place, Namibian law enforcers have up to now lacked the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively enforce them. DFID was the main sponsor of the course, presented by the UK Asset Recovery Agency, which works to disrupt organised crime and recovering such gains. For more information contact Robert Hyland,

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    Other Aid Effectiveness Information

    Joint Study on Effective Technical Cooperation for Capacity Development:DFID is supporting a joint study, initiated by JICA to identify how to implement effective technical cooperation as part of country-led capacity development. Other donors involved include JICA, BMZ, GTZ, ADB, UNDP, and the World Bank. Partner countries include Cambodia, Ghana, Kenya, Laos, Malawi, Malaysia, Tanzania, Thailand, Vietnam, and Zambia. A workshop is being held in Bangkok on 8 and 9 October to agree the way forward including the overall framework of the study, the basic study design and methodology for country case studies and the implementation plan of each country case study. For more information contact Mike Battcock

    Strategic Partnership with Africa (SPA) Quarterly Report 2nd Quarter 2007: As agreed in the Ouagadougou Plenary the Secretariat will be sending brief quarterly reports to the membership describing the activities of the previous three months as well as briefly discussing what the near term future holds. Brief reports from the nine task teams can be found in the Annex to this Report. We can expect a very active year for the SPA Working Groups with nine teams producing a variety of outputs. As you will see from the task team reports, all teams are expecting their activities this year to be effectively concluded before the next Plenary, so there will be a lot to discuss. For more information contact Peter Dearden

    Upcoming Seminars and Events

    Moving Beyond Aid towards Development: It is recognised that DFID needs to move from being an aid agency into becoming a Development Agency. This involves more cross Whitehall working and greater engagement on global issues (such as Climate Change, Migration, Trade, Conflict etc). But what does this mean in practice? How well placed is DFID and Whitehall more generally to do this? What are the issues and what are the challenges to be overcome? During October the IPAF Team have organised two events bringing together policy-makers and policy-influencers from the UK and internationally to consider the theme of policy coherence for development, or how both aid and non aid policies can best contribute towards achieving development outcomes. The 1st event took place on 10th October and the next on is:

    Round Table: Moving Beyond Aid towards Development: Working better across Whitehall and building international partnerships

              23 October 12:30-14:00 at ODI (limited space).

    For further information contact Tim Palmer, e-mail t-palmer@dfid.gov.uk.

     

    Democracy and Development: The Effective States Team team are co-funding (with WBI) a forthcoming conference on Democracy for Development to be held at Wilton Park between 23-25 October. The key objectives of the conference are to i) develop a shared understanding about the relationships between democracy and development; ii) to better understand how democracy is evolving in developing countries and how it is experienced in practice; and iii) to share lessons of roles for internal and external actors; and iv) to contribute to international policy debates. For more information contact Ranjan Sen, e-mail r-sen@dfid.gov.uk.

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    Recent Seminars and Events

    2007 Commitment to Development Index (CDI) Launch:  The 2007 Commitment to Development Index (CDI) Launch took place on 10th October in Portcullis House. Gareth Thomas was one of three speakers. The Centre for Global Development (CGD), a US think-tank on aid, publishes the CDI which ranks the 21 Donor nations in terms of the extent to which their aid and non-aid policies promote development in the South. The 2006 version can be viewed on CGD's website. For more information contact Tim Palmer, e-mail t-palmer@dfid.gov.uk. 

    MDG Mid-Point Lesson Learning: 2007 is the mid point between the international agreement to the 8 millennium development goals in 2000 and 2015. In a series of seminars staff from DFID and other government departments will consider progress made towards the MDGs, what has and hasn’t worked so far and what more needs to be done. The first seminar took place on 1-4 October. For more information contact Dan Robb, e-mail d-robb@dfid.gov.uk.

    Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD): The Donor Policy and Partnerships Team began its secondment of 3 colleagues for a period of one month each to the British Embassy in Tokyo which started in September and will run to December to assist the Embassy on development issues including for the Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD) and G8. For more information contact Tim Palmer, e-mail t-palmer@dfid.gov.uk.

    The co-ordination of the Aid Effectiveness network, including the AE newsletter, is undertaken by Catherine Ferry and Nikki Cairns on behalf of the Country Led Approaches and Results (CLEAR) Team. To keep abreast of the latest in aid effectiveness, please e-mail Catherine, c-ferry@dfid.gov.uk or Nikki, n-cairns@dfid.gov.uk who will add your name to the mailing list.