NN42, June 2009
A Safari Towards Aid Effectiveness?
Aid Effectiveness: Paris and Accra in Historical Context
By Phillip Jones, University of Sydney, Australia
Email: p.jones@usyd.edu.auKeywords
Aid Effectiveness; Paris; Accra
Summary
The language of Paris and Accra is now a well-rehearsed component of the discourse of aid. However noble the principles might be, the day-to-day realities of aid delivery and receipt insist that pragmatism, not idealism, prevails.
The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (March 2005) and the consequent Accra Agenda for Action (September 2008) set ambitious objectives and standards for the entire development co-operation effort. As Kenneth King has pointed out at the very start of this special issue, the language of Paris and Accra is now a well-rehearsed component of the discourse of aid ? country ownership, alignment of aid with country objectives, harmonisation of aid provision, a focus on results, and mutual accountability. Yet, as attempts mount to assess progress to date, there is growing unease. Noble as the principles might be, the day-to-day realities of aid delivery and receipt would insist that pragmatism, not idealism, prevails. Lead times and deadlines are simply too short to encourage the time and space needed to implement Paris and Accra faithfully.
Participants in development co-operation have had long exposure to the issues at the heart of Paris and Accra ? a good half-century or more of reflection on aid effectiveness is evident. But much of the impulse that prompted the Paris Declaration itself stemmed directly from commitments in 2000 to the Millennium Development Goals. Time-bound, grounded in quantifiable objectives, and enjoying unprecedented levels and breadth of commitment, the MDGs demanded more than business as usual. But more than this, I would encourage a glance back at developments through the 1990s that helped shape climates of opinion in 2000 and 2005 and that might help explain some of the artificiality of Paris Declaration principles when put to the test of ?real world? practice. I see two key starting points here.
First, there were the attempts in the mid-1990s to achieve wholesale reform of the United Nations system. When UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali conceded that UN renewal starting with the reform of the Security Council was too difficult, his attention turned to the UN development co-operation effort. Very briefly, what was achieved was agreement that development-focussed agencies and programs across the UN system would harmonise their work at country level. A UN Development Group (UNDG) was established in New York in 1997, and ?country co-ordinators? were appointed to lead UN harmonisation efforts at country level. The UN Development Programme assumed lead agency and chair status for UNDG, and generally speaking it was the UNDP resident representative at country level who took local responsibility to promote harmonisation of UN aid efforts.
Second, I would point to the World Bank which, despite its official status as a UN Specialised Agency, would have none of this, refusing to join UNDG (it has agreed to observer status only). Partly at stake was the Bank?s self-appointed status as global development leader, pace UNDP. More compelling was incoming Bank President James Wolfensohn?s inaugural policy shift, summed up inside the Bank as the ?challenge of inclusion,? leading to Comprehensive Development Frameworks to guide the actions of Bank and borrower alike. From 1997-98, the Bank?s language insisted on the principles of inclusion on two essential levels: (a) to incorporate in the development planning process at country level not only government but also local communities, non-government organisations, the private sector and even opposition parties, and (b) to reshape the Bank?s working relations with bilateral agencies, other UN development agencies, regional development banks, international labour, the private sector and NGOs. Both of these were attempts to shore up the Bank?s self-image of supremacy in development policy and assistance.
Thus, while UNDG was constructing ? along the lines of inclusiveness ? national level planning bodies to drive UN development co-ordination, the Bank set out on a parallel course, using its financial clout to ensure compliance, especially among highly-indebted countries, and claiming leadership status on a scale much wider than the UN system alone. World Bank and UNDP heads come and go, but the institutional strains remain in evidence. In this context it is instructive that it was the OECD?s Development Assistance Committee that emerged ? in the context of the MDGs in particular and their political reliance on a wide-ranging consensus right across the aid spectrum ? as a champion of the principles of aid inclusion and effectiveness that set it apart from much of the jockeying for position evident within the UN system.
Among all the pragmatic concerns that prevent wholesale adoption of Paris and Accra principles, there is one dimension where unity seems to prevail. This involves the shift from project-focussed aid to program-focussed aid, this shift being regarded as a key driver of governance reform. As soon as donors insist at country level on good governance, policy renewal and pro-poor government policies, the inescapable need emerges for donors to speak with one voice on the content of such reforms. This has been, in my view, the most significant shift across the aid industry over the past two decades, and which lies at the heart of what Paris and Accra are all about. Individual agencies might struggle for the limelight, and the myriad of development actors might continue to find the principles of harmonisation too difficult and even irrelevant when under the pressure of tight delivery deadlines. But external donors know that prospects for post-Washington Consensus reforms in country-level governance are doomed when agencies fail to send a consistent and unambiguous message on reform agenda. That is the real lesson of Paris and Accra, one that can usefully predict those aspects that will stick and those that will quietly fade from view.
Further Reading
Jones, P. (2005) The United Nations and Education (Routledge/Falmer).
Jones, P. (2006) Education, Poverty and the World Bank (Sense Publishers).
Jones, P. (2007) World Bank Financing of Education (Routledge/Falmer).
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