Aid Effectiveness and South-South Cooperation
Aid Effectiveness can be defined in simple terms as the degree of sucess achieved by aid in effectively contributing to reaching the goals of human and economic development of the recipient countries, organizations or individuals. The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is a landmark international agreement aimed at improving the quality of aid and its impact on development.
What is the purpose of The Paris Declaration?
The Paris Declaration, endorsed on 2 March 2005, is an international agreement to which over one hundred Ministers, Heads of Agencies and other Senior Officials adhered and committed their countries and organisations to take far-reaching and monitorable actions to reform the ways they delivered and managed aid as the World leaders look ahead to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The declaration lays out a road-map of practical commitments, organised around five key principles of effective aid:
Ownership - Developing countries set their own strategies for poverty reduction, improve their institutions and tackle corruption.
Alignment - Donor countries align behind these objectives and use local systems.
Harmonisation - Donor countries coordinate; simplify procedures and share information to avoid duplication.
Results - Developing countries and donors shift focus to development results and results get measured.
Mutual Accountability - Donors and partners are accountable for development results.
See the evaluation of the implementation of the Paris Declaration (Synthesis Report).
What is The Accra Agenda for Action (AAA)?
At the Third High Level Forum (HLF) on Aid Effectiveness, held in Accra (Ghana) in 2008, Ministers and agency heads endorsed renewed commitments to deepen the implementation of the Paris Declaration and respond to emerging aid effectiveness issues.
2008 was a moment of opportunity -as the Accra Agenda for Action states- because that year “three international conferences [were being held to help] accelerate the pace of change: the Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, the United Nations High Level Event on the MDGs in New York, and the Financing for Development follow-up meeting in Doha.” Recognizing that despite the advancements, there was still very much to achieve in reducing poverty and promoting peace and prosperity with effective cooperation partnerships, the HLF wrapped up with an action oriented document designed to “unlock the full potential of aid in achieving lasting development results.”
What is its relation with South-South Cooperation?
In the AAA the participant countries and organizations acknowledged the contributions made by all development actors, and in particular the role of middle-income countries as both providers and recipients of aid. They recognized the importance and particularities of South-South co-operation and acknowledged that much can be learned from the experience of developing countries and encouraged further development of triangular co-operation.
The AAA opened a new space for the development of South-South and Triangular Cooperation as key forms of development cooperation. At the same time it made evident the lack of knowledge that the development community was facing in understanding the dynamics and features of technical cooperation and knowledge exchange among developing nations. This necessity paved the way to the creation of the Task Team on South-South Cooperation in 2009.
