Annex: Accra Agenda for Action
Ministers of developing and donor countries responsible
for promoting development and heads of multilateral and bilateral
development institutions endorsed the following statement in Accra,
Ghana, on 4 September 2008 to accelerate and deepen implementation
of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2 March 2005).
This is a moment of opportunity
1. We are committed to eradicating poverty and
promoting peace and prosperity by building stronger, more effective
partnerships that enable developing countries to realise their
development goals.
2. There has been progress. Fifteen years ago,
two out of five people lived in extreme poverty; today, that figure
has been reduced to one in four. However, 1.4 billion people—most
of them women and girls—still live in extreme poverty,[15]
and access to safe
drinking water and health care remains a major issue in many parts
of the world. In addition, new global challenges—rising
food and fuel prices and climate change—threaten the advances
against poverty many countries have made.
3. We need to achieve much more if all countries
are to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Aid is only
one part of the development picture. Democracy, economic growth,
social progress, and care for the environment are the prime engines
of development in all countries. Addressing inequalities of income
and opportunity within countries and between states is essential
to global progress. Gender equality, respect for human rights,
and environmental sustainability are cornerstones for achieving
enduring impact on the lives and potential of poor women, men,
and children. It is vital that all our policies address these
issues in a more systematic and coherent way.
4. In 2008, three international conferences will
help us 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. Today at Accra, we are leading the way, united
in a common objective: to unlock the full potential of aid in
achieving lasting development results.
We are making progress, but not enough
5. Learning from our past successes and failures
in development co-operation and building on the 2003 Rome Declaration
on Harmonisation, in March 2005 we adopted an ambitious set of
reforms: the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. In the Paris
Declaration, we agreed to develop a genuine partnership, with
developing countries clearly in charge of their own development
processes. We also agreed to hold each other accountable for achieving
concrete development results. Three and one-half years later,
we are reconvening in Accra to review progress and address the
challenges that now face us.
6. Evidence shows we are making progress, but
not enough. A recent evaluation shows that the Paris Declaration
has created powerful momentum to change the way developing countries
and donors work together on the ground. According to the 2008
Monitoring Survey, a large number of developing countries have
improved their management of public funds. Donors, in turn, are
increasingly improving their co-ordination at country level. Yet
the pace of progress is too slow. Without further reform and faster
action we will not meet our 2010 commitments and targets for improving
the quality of aid.
We will take action to accelerate progress
7. Evidence shows that we will need to address
three major challenges to accelerate progress on aid effectiveness:
8. Country ownership is key.
Developing country governments will take stronger leadership of
their own development policies, and will engage with their parliaments
and citizens in shaping those policies. Donors will support them
by respecting countries' priorities, investing in their human
resources and institutions, making greater use of their systems
to deliver aid, and increasing the predictability of aid flows.
9. Building more effective and inclusive partnerships.
In recent years, more development actors—middle-income countries,
global funds, the private sector, civil society organisations—have
been increasing their contributions and bringing valuable experience
to the table. This also creates management and co-ordination challenges.
Together, all development actors will work in more inclusive partnerships
so that all our efforts have greater impact on reducing poverty.
10. Achieving development results—and
openly accounting for them—must be at the heart of all we
do. More than ever, citizens and taxpayers
of all countries expect to see the tangible results of development
efforts. We will demonstrate that our actions translate into positive
impacts on people's lives. We will be accountable to each other
and to our respective parliaments and governing bodies for these
outcomes.
11. Without addressing these obstacles to faster
progress, we will fall short of our commitments and miss opportunities
to improve the livelihoods of the most vulnerable people in the
world. Therefore, we are reaffirming the commitments we made in
the Paris Declaration and, in this Accra Agenda for Action, are
agreeing on concrete and monitorable actions to accelerate progress
to meet those commitments by 2010. We commit to continuing efforts
in monitoring and evaluation that will assess whether we have
achieved the commitments we agreed in the Paris Declaration and
the Accra Agenda for Action, and to what extent aid effectiveness
is improving and generating greater development impact.
Strengthening Country Ownership over Development
12. Developing countries determine and implement
their development policies to achieve their own economic, social
and environmental goals. We agreed in the Paris Declaration that
this would be our first priority. Today, we are taking additional
steps to turn this resolution into a reality.
We will broaden country-level policy dialogue
on development
13. We will engage in open and inclusive dialogue
on development policies. We acknowledge the critical role and
responsibility of parliaments in ensuring country ownership of
development processes. To further this objective we will take
the following actions:
a) Developing country governments will work more
closely with parliaments and local authorities in preparing, implementing
and monitoring national development policies and plans. They will
also engage with civil society organisations (CSOs).
b) Donors will support efforts to increase the capacity
of all development actors—parliaments, central and local
governments, CSOs, research institutes, media and the private
sector—to take an active role in dialogue on development
policy and on the role of aid in contributing to countries' development
objectives.
c) Developing countries and donors will ensure that
their respective development policies and programmes are designed
and implemented in ways consistent with their agreed international
commitments on gender equality, human rights, disability and environmental
sustainability.
Developing countries will strengthen their
capacity to lead and manage development
14. Without robust capacity—strong institutions,
systems, and local expertise—developing countries cannot
fully own and manage their development processes. We agreed in
the Paris Declaration that capacity development is the responsibility
of developing countries, with donors playing a supportive role,
and that technical co-operation is one means among others to develop
capacity. Together, developing countries and donors will take
the following actions to strengthen capacity development:
a) Developing countries will systematically identify
areas where there is a need to strengthen the capacity to perform
and deliver services at all levels—national, sub-national,
sectoral, and thematic—and design strategies to address
them. Donors will strengthen their own capacity and skills to
be more responsive to developing countries' needs.
b) Donors' support for capacity development will
be demand-driven and designed to support country ownership. To
this end, developing countries and donors will i) jointly select
and manage technical co-operation, and ii) promote the provision
of technical co-operation by local and regional resources, including
through South-South co-operation.
c) Developing countries and donors will work together
at all levels to promote operational changes that make capacity
development support more effective.
We will strengthen and use developing country
systems to the maximum extent possible
15. Successful development depends to a large
extent on a government's capacity to implement its policies and
manage public resources through its own institutions and systems.
In the Paris Declaration, developing countries committed to strengthen
their systems[16] and
donors committed to use those systems to the maximum extent possible.
Evidence shows, however, that developing countries and donors
are not on track to meet these commitments. Progress in improving
the quality of country systems varies considerably among countries;
and even when there are good-quality country systems, donors often
do not use them. Yet it is recognised that using country systems
promotes their development. To strengthen and increase the use
of country systems, we will take the following actions:
a) Donors agree to use country systems as the first
option for aid programmes in support of activities managed by
the public sector.
b) Should donors choose to use another option and
rely on aid delivery mechanisms outside country systems (including
parallel project implementation units), they will transparently
state the rationale for this and will review their positions at
regular intervals. Where use of country systems is not feasible,
donors will establish additional safeguards and measures in ways
that strengthen rather than undermine country systems and procedures.
c) Developing countries and donors will jointly assess
the quality of country systems in a country-led process using
mutually agreed diagnostic tools. Where country systems require
further strengthening, developing countries will lead in defining
reform programmes and priorities. Donors will support these reforms
and provide capacity development assistance.
d) Donors will immediately start working on and sharing
transparent plans for undertaking their Paris commitments on using
country systems in all forms of development assistance; provide
staff guidance on how these systems can be used; and ensure that
internal incentives encourage their use. They will finalise these
plans as a matter of urgency.
e) Donors recollect and reaffirm their Paris Declaration
commitment to provide 66% of aid as programme-based approaches.
In addition, donors will aim to channel 50% or more of government-to-government
assistance through country fiduciary systems, including by increasing
the percentage of assistance provided through programme based
approaches.
Building More Effective and Inclusive
Partnerships for Development
16. Aid is about building partnerships for development.
Such partnerships are most effective when they fully harness the
energy, skills and experience of all development actors—bilateral
and multilateral donors, global funds, CSOs, and the private sector.
To support developing countries' efforts to build for the future,
we resolve to create partnerships that will include all these
actors.
We will reduce costly fragmentation of aid
17. The effectiveness of aid is reduced when
there are too many duplicating initiatives, especially at country
and sector levels. We will reduce the fragmentation of aid by
improving the complementarity of donors' efforts and the division
of labour among donors, including through improved allocation
of resources within sectors, within countries, and across countries.
To this end:
a) Developing countries will lead in determining
the optimal roles of donors in supporting their development efforts
at national, regional and sectoral levels. Donors will respect
developing countries' priorities, ensuring that new arrangements
on the division of labour will not result in individual developing
countries receiving less aid.
b) Donors and developing countries will work together
with the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness to complete good practice
principles on country-led division of labour. To that end, they
will elaborate plans to ensure the maximum coordination of development
co-operation. We will evaluate progress in implementation starting
in 2009.
c) We will start dialogue on international division
of labour across countries by June 2009.
d) We will work to address the issue of countries
that receive insufficient aid.
We will increase aid's value for money
18. Since the Paris Declaration was agreed in
2005, OECD-DAC donors have made progress in untying their aid.
A number of donors have already fully untied their aid, and we
encourage others to do so. We will pursue, and accelerate, these
efforts by taking the following actions:
a) OECD-DAC donors will extend coverage of the 2001
DAC Recommendation on Untying Aid to non-LDC HIPCs[17]
and will improve their reporting on the 2001 DAC Recommendation.
b) Donors will elaborate individual plans to further
untie their aid to the maximum extent.
c) Donors will promote the use of local and regional
procurement by ensuring that their procurement procedures are
transparent and allow local and regional firms to compete. We
will build on examples of good practice to help improve local
firms' capacity to compete successfully for aid-funded procurement.
d) We will respect our international agreements on
corporate social responsibility.
We welcome and will work with all development
actors
19. The contributions of all development actors
are more effective when developing countries are in a position
to manage and co-ordinate them. We welcome the role of new contributors
and will improve the way all development actors work together
by taking the following actions:
a) We encourage all development actors, including
those engaged in South-South co-operation, to use the Paris Declaration
principles as a point of reference in providing development co-operation.
b) We acknowledge the contributions made by all development
actors, and in particular the role of middle-income countries
as both providers and recipients of aid. We recognise the importance
and particularities of South-South cooperation and acknowledge
that we can learn from the experience of developing countries.
We encourage further development of triangular co-operation.
c) Global funds and programmes make an important
contribution to development. The programmes they fund are most
effective in conjunction with complementary efforts to improve
the policy environment and to strengthen the institutions in the
sectors in which they operate. We call upon all global funds to
support country ownership, to align and harmonise their assistance
proactively, and to make good use of mutual accountability frameworks,
while continuing their emphasis on achieving results. As new global
challenges emerge, donors will ensure that existing channels for
aid delivery are used and, if necessary, strengthened before creating
separate new channels that risk further fragmentation and complicate
co-ordination at country level. We encourage developing countries
to mobilise, manage and evaluate their international cooperation
initiatives for the benefit of other developing countries.
d) South-South co-operation on development aims to
observe the principle of non-interference in internal affairs,
equality among developing partners and respect for their independence,
national sovereignty, cultural diversity and identity and local
content. It plays an important role in international development
co-operation and is a valuable complement to North-South co-operation.
We will deepen our engagement with civil society
organisations
20. We will deepen our engagement with CSOs as
independent development actors in their own right whose efforts
complement those of governments and the private sector. We share
an interest in ensuring that CSO contributions to development
reach their full potential. To this end:
a) We invite CSOs to reflect on how they can apply
the Paris principles of aid effectiveness from a CSO perspective.
b) We welcome the CSOs' proposal to engage with them
in a CSO-led multistakeholder process to promote CSO development
effectiveness. As part of that process, we will seek to i) improve
co-ordination of CSO efforts with government programmes, ii) enhance
CSO accountability for results, and iii) improve information on
CSO activities.
c) We will work with CSOs to provide an enabling
environment that maximises their contributions to development.
We will adapt aid policies for countries in
fragile situations
21. In the Paris Declaration, we agreed that
aid effectiveness principles apply equally to development co-operation
in situations of fragility, including countries emerging from
conflict, but that these principles need to be adapted to environments
of weak ownership or capacity. Since then, Principles for Good
International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations have
been agreed. To further improve aid effectiveness in these environments,
we will take the following actions:
a) Donors will conduct joint assessments of governance
and capacity and examine the causes of conflict, fragility and
insecurity, engaging developing country authorities and other
relevant stakeholders to the maximum extent possible.
b) At country level, donors and developing countries
will work and agree on a set of realistic peace- and state-building
objectives that address the root causes of conflict and fragility
and help ensure the protection and participation of women. This
process will be informed by international dialogue between partners
and donors on these objectives as prerequisites for development.
c) Donors will provide demand-driven, tailored and
co-ordinated capacity-development support for core state functions
and for early and sustained recovery. They will work with developing
countries to design interim measures that are appropriately sequenced
and that lead to sustainable local institutions.
d) Donors will work on flexible, rapid and long-term
funding modalities, on a pooled basis where appropriate, to i)
bridge humanitarian, recovery and longer-term development phases,
and ii) support stabilisation, inclusive peace building, and the
building of capable, accountable and responsive states. In collaboration
with developing countries, donors will foster partnerships with
the UN System, international financial institutions and other
donors.
e) At country level and on a voluntary basis, donors
and developing countries will monitor implementation of the Principles
for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations,
and will share results as part of progress reports on implementing
the Paris Declaration.
Delivering and Accounting for Development
Results
22. We will be judged by the impacts that our
collective efforts have on the lives of poor people. We recognise
that greater transparency and accountability for the use of development
resources—domestic as well as external—are powerful
drivers of progress.
We will focus on delivering results
23. We will improve our management for results
by taking the following actions:
a) Developing countries will strengthen the quality
of policy design, implementation and assessment by improving information
systems, including, as appropriate, disaggregating data by sex,
region and socioeconomic status.
b) Developing countries and donors will work to develop
cost-effective results management instruments to assess the impact
of development policies and adjust them as necessary. We will
better co-ordinate and link the various sources of information,
including national statistical systems, budgeting, planning, monitoring
and country-led evaluations of policy performance.
c) Donors will align their monitoring with country
information systems. They will support, and invest in strengthening,
developing countries' national statistical capacity and information
systems, including those for managing aid.
d) We will strengthen incentives to improve aid effectiveness.
We will systematically review and address legal or administrative
impediments to implementing international commitments on aid effectiveness.
Donors will pay more attention to delegating sufficient authority
to country offices and to changing organisational and staff incentives
to promote behaviour in line with aid effectiveness principles.
We will be more accountable and transparent
to our publics for results
24. Transparency and accountability are essential
elements for development results. They lie at the heart of the
Paris Declaration, in which we agreed that countries and donors
would become more accountable to each other and to their citizens.
We will pursue these efforts by taking the following actions:
a) We will make aid more transparent. Developing
countries will facilitate parliamentary oversight by implementing
greater transparency in public financial management, including
public disclosure of revenues, budgets, expenditures, procurement
and audits. Donors will publicly disclose regular, detailed and
timely information on volume, allocation and, when available,
results of development expenditure to enable more accurate budget,
accounting and audit by developing countries.
b) We will step up our efforts to ensure that—as
agreed in the Paris Declaration—mutual assessment reviews
are in place by 2010 in all countries that have endorsed the Declaration.
These reviews will be based on country results reporting and information
systems complemented with available donor data and credible independent
evidence. They will draw on emerging good practice with stronger
parliamentary scrutiny and citizen engagement. With them we will
hold each other accountable for mutually agreed results in keeping
with country development and aid policies.
c) To complement mutual assessment reviews at country
level and drive better performance, developing countries and donors
will jointly review and strengthen existing international accountability
mechanisms, including peer review with participation of developing
countries. We will review proposals for strengthening the mechanisms
by end 2009.
d) Effective and efficient use of development financing
requires both donors and partner countries to do their utmost
to fight corruption. Donors and developing countries will respect
the principles to which they have agreed, including those under
the UN Convention against Corruption. Developing countries will
address corruption by improving systems of investigation, legal
redress, accountability and transparency in the use of public
funds. Donors will take steps in their own countries to combat
corruption by individuals or corporations and to track, freeze,
and recover illegally acquired assets.
We will continue to change the nature of conditionality
to support ownership
25. To strengthen country ownership and improve
the predictability of aid flows, donors agreed in the Paris Declaration
that, whenever possible, they would draw their conditions from
developing countries' own development policies. We reaffirm our
commitment to this principle and will continue to change the nature
of conditionality by taking the following actions:
a) Donors will work with developing countries to
agree on a limited set of mutually agreed conditions based on
national development strategies. We will jointly assess donor
and developing country performance in meeting commitments.
b) Beginning now, donors and developing countries
will regularly make public all conditions linked to disbursements.
c) Developing countries and donors will work together
at the international level to review, document and disseminate
good practices on conditionality with a view to reinforcing country
ownership and other Paris Declaration Principles by increasing
emphasis on harmonised, results-based conditionality. They will
be receptive to contributions from civil society.
We will increase the medium-term predictability
of aid
26. In the Paris Declaration, we agreed that
greater predictability in the provision of aid flows is needed
to enable developing countries to effectively plan and manage
their development programmes over the short and medium term. As
a matter of priority, we will take the following actions to improve
the predictability of aid:
a) Developing countries will strengthen budget planning
processes for managing domestic and external resources and will
improve the linkages between expenditures and results over the
medium term.
b) Beginning now, donors will provide full and timely
information on annual commitments and actual disbursements so
that developing countries are in a position to accurately record
all aid flows in their budget estimates and their accounting systems.
c) Beginning now, donors will provide developing
countries with regular and timely information on their rolling
three- to five-year forward expenditure and/or implementation
plans, with at least indicative resource allocations that developing
countries can integrate in their medium-term planning and macroeconomic
frameworks. Donors will address any constraints to providing such
information.
d) Developing countries and donors will work together
at the international level on ways of further improving the medium-term
predictability of aid, including by developing tools to measure
it.
Looking Forward
27. The reforms we agree on today in Accra will
require continued high level political support, peer pressure,
and co-ordinated action at global, regional, and country levels.
To achieve these reforms, we renew our commitment to the principles
and targets established in the Paris Declaration, and will continue
to assess progress in implementing them.
28. The commitments we agree today will need
to be adapted to different country circumstances—including
in middle-income countries, small states and countries in situations
of fragility. To this end, we encourage developing countries to
design—with active support from donors—country-based
action plans that set out time-bound and monitorable proposals
to implement the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action.
29. We agree that, by 2010, each of us should
meet the commitments we made on aid effectiveness in Paris and
today in Accra, and to reach beyond these commitments where we
can. We agree to reflect and draw upon the many valuable ideas
and initiatives that have been presented at this High Level Forum.
We agree that challenges such as climate change and rising food
and fuel prices underline the importance of applying aid effectiveness
principles. In response to the food crisis, we will develop and
implement the global partnership on agriculture and food swiftly,
efficiently and flexibly.
30. We ask the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness
to continue monitoring progress on implementing the Paris Declaration
and the Accra Agenda for Action and to report back to the Fourth
High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in 2011. We recognise that
additional work will be required to improve the methodology and
indicators of progress of aid effectiveness. In 2011, we will
undertake the third round of monitoring that will tell us whether
we have achieved the targets for 2010 agreed in Paris in 2005.[18]
To carry forward this work, we will need to develop institutionalised
processes for the joint and equal partnership of developing countries
and the engagement of stakeholders.
31. We recognise that aid effectiveness is an
integral part of the broader financing for development agenda.
To achieve development outcomes and the MDGs we need to meet our
commitments on both aid quality and aid volumes. We ask the Secretary
General of the United Nations to transmit the conclusions of the
Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to the High Level
Event on the MDGs in New York later this month and the Financing
for Development Review meeting in Doha in November 2008. We welcome
the contribution that the ECOSOC Development Co-operation Forum
is making to the international dialogue and to mutual accountability
on aid issues. We call upon the UN development system to further
support the capacities of developing countries for effective management
of development assistance.
32. Today, more than ever, we resolve to work
together to help countries across the world build the successful
future all of us want to see—a future based on a shared
commitment to overcome poverty, a future in which no countries
will depend on aid.
15 These figures are based on a recent World Bank study
that found the poverty line to be $1.25 a day in 2005 prices. Back
16
These include, but are not limited to, systems for public financial
management, procurement, audit, monitoring and evaluation, and
social and environmental assessment. Back
17
The 2001 DAC recommendation on Untying ODA to the Least Developed
Countries (LDCs) covers 31 so-called Heavily Indebted Poor Countries
(HIPCs). The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) at its
2008 High Level Meeting agreed to extend the 2001 Recommendation
to cover the remaining eight countries that are part of the HIPC
initiative: Bolivia, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guyana,
Honduras, Nicaragua and Republic of Congo. Back
18
We will have that information available for the Fourth High Level
Forum on Aid Effectiveness in 2011, along with comprehensive second
phase evaluations of the implementation of the Paris Declaration
and the Accra Agenda for Action as of 2010. Attention will also
be paid to improving and developing communications on aid effectiveness
for long-term development success and broad-based public support.
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