Memorandum submitted by the UK Aid Network
COORDINATION FOR AID EFFECTIVENESS INQUIRY
ABOUT UKAN
The UK Aid Network (UKAN) is a network of UK
NGOs who work together to advocate for more and better aid, from
the UK in particular. We also work with colleagues across Europe,
and internationally, to influence the aid system more widely.
Members include ActionAid UK, Oxfam GB, Save the Children UK,
WaterAid and World Vision UK.
1. Introduction
1.1 UKAN welcomes this inquiry from the
Committee—2008 will be an important year for progress on
aid effectiveness, and the UK has a key role to play both by improving
the quality and effectiveness of UK aid and acting as a catalyst
for change in the wider aid system.
1.2 The Paris Declaration was a welcome
recognition by donors and recipients of aid that change is needed
if aid is deliver real results for poor people in the long term;
and the principles of ownership and accountability which lie at
the heart of the Declaration have been welcomed by civil society
organisations (CSOs). However, the Declaration itself does not
fully reflect the challenges of real democratic ownership and
accountability; and the targets, monitoring, and implementation
of the Declaration have been narrowly focused on a range of technical
processes which, while important, will not resolve the central
problems of aid effectiveness.
1.3 CSOs around the world are working together
to encourage donors and recipients of aid to live up to their
existing commitments and to make more ambitious commitments in
2008. We refer the Committee to a paper produced by the International
Civil Society Steering Group for Accra—From Paris 2005
to Accra 2008: Will aid become more accountable and effective?[95]—which
sets out CSO demands for Accra in more detail.
1.4 Harmonisation and improved coordination
of aid is important, both to reduce the administrative burdens
on recipients and to allow for more strategic interventions. However,
coordination can only be effective if it is based on recipient
country leadership and donors' respect for their priorities, policies
and processes. Coordination led by donors alone has sometimes
only served to reinforce the power of institutions like the World
Bank at the expense of real democratic accountability. CSOs believe
that accountability and transparency in the aid system are key
to achieving the objective of coordinated aid based on country
leadership.
2. Making the UK's Bilateral Aid More Effective
2.1 The UK, and some other donors, have
already made much progress in delivering more effective aid. But
there is no room for complacency—DFID should aim to be a
leader in developing and implementing best practice in aid policy
and delivery.
2.2 The UK has emerged as a donor willing
to take aid effectiveness and country ownership seriously. The
last decade has seen significant and welcome steps to make UK
aid more effective at poverty reduction, including by supporting
countries' own priorities and systems:
— The establishment of poverty reduction
as the clear and single objective of DFID spending. While
recognising the importance of cross-cutting issues like conflict
and climate change, it is essential that UK aid continues to focus
on poverty reduction above all.
— Ending economic policy conditions
on UK aid. DFID's conditionality policy recognises the importance
of developing countries determining their own economic policies.
Challenges of implementing the policy remain, however, particularly
where DFID is working with conditionality-heavy donors such as
the World Bank. DFID must continue to make progress on implementing
its policy a priority, and must also work to reduce the overall
burden of conditions.
— The use of budget support.
Budget support can build ownership and accountability by using
countries' budget processes and financial management systems.
Budget support is also particularly important for recurrent spending
like teachers' and health workers' salaries. Although DFID should
continue to use a range of instruments, continued and expanded
use of budget support, in appropriate countries, is essential.
DFID does need to consider how to ensure that the use of budget
support, particularly by multiple donors, does not lead to excessive
intrusion by donors into recipient policy making processes.
2.3 Although the UK has made great progress
in improving its bilateral programming, we believe that there
are a number of areas where further improvements are possible,
and necessary, including:
— Increased predictability of
aid. Developing countries need to be able to rely on long-term
support in order to plan and implement development strategies—DFID
should expand the use of long-term budget support compacts. Another
priority must be to make DFID decision-making more transparent—the
criteria upon which budget support (and other aid) will be disbursed
or withdrawn from particular countries should be clear and transparent
to recipient governments, parliaments and civil society.
— Effective technical assistance
(TA). DFID must make sure that all TA is demand-driven and
country led, with much greater use of country systems and a focus
on building capacity in country. There must be greater pooling
of TA—DFID should commit to providing all its TA through
pooled mechanisms by 2010. DFID must also increase the proportion
of TA supplied from developing countries—although DFID untied
all its aid over five years ago, the overwhelming majority of
DFID TA contracts (by value) still go to UK firms. It will also
be important for the UK to implement its 2006 commitment that
TA should not be used to impose specific policy choices on recipients.
— Improved transparency and accountability.
In contrast to domestic spending, those affected by aid often
lack the means to provide feedback on its impacts—DFID must
lead the way in developing effective accountability mechanisms.
Transparency is the first step in this process—DFID must
do better at communicating its policies, activities and impacts
to recipient governments, and to parliaments and civil society.
DFID should be subject to genuinely independent monitoring and
evaluation, both at country level and centrally.
SUGGESTED QUESTIONS
TO ASK
— How is DFID improving the predictability
of its aid? What proportion of DFID's bilateral aid is committed
for three years or more? What proportion is disbursed on schedule?
— How is DFID ensuring that its technical
assistance responds to the demands of recipient countries, and
that it is effective in building local capacity?
— How does DFID make information on
its activities available to governments, parliaments and citizens
in the countries where it works? What is being done to improve
the transparency of its operations at the country level?
— How will the government ensure the
independence of the newly established Independent Advisory Committee
on Development Impact? What is DFID doing at country level to
establish independent monitoring and evaluation of its activities?
3. Delivering Real Progress across the Aid
System in 2008
3.1 The Accra High Level Forum (HLF) on
Aid Effectiveness provides an opportunity to make the aid system
as a whole more effective. The evidence so far suggests that only
modest progress has been made since Paris, and the HLF will be
a chance to hold donors to account for their commitments and seek
to set more ambitious targets for 2010 and beyond.
3.2 The EU, which provides more than half
of global aid, will be a key player in Accra, and will play an
even more important role in the future. If European donors meet
their commitments, by 2010 around 66% of aid will come from the
EU, and the EC will be providing twice as much aid as the World
Bank's International Development Association. In 2005 the EU made
more ambitious commitments than other donors in Paris—this
provides a precedent for European leadership in the wider donor
group.
3.3 UKAN is working with other CSOs across
Europe to push the EU to set itself new and ambitious targets,
regardless of the steps taken by other donors. We make the following
specific recommendations for EU governments and institutions,
which are set out in detail in the CONCORD paper Delivering
Better Aid: An opportunity for European Union leadership in the
fight against global poverty:[96]
— The EU should respect real democratic
ownership of the development process, and allow partner countries
to be in the driving seat by:
— untying all EU aid to all countries;
— phasing out economic policy conditionality.
— The EU should radically improve its
accountability, particularly to developing countries and their
citizens by:
— making monitoring and evaluation
of aid truly independent;
— establishing a complaints mechanism
open to aid recipients;
— supporting in-country mechanisms
for holding donors to account.
— The EU should commit to good practice
standards of openness and transparency of their aid budgets and
activities.
— The EU should agree new, more ambitious
targets to make multi-year, predictable and guaranteed aid commitments
based on clear and transparent criteria.
3.3 The UK needs to do more to build consensus
on these issues in Europe, including through the negotiation of
specific European targets, in order to support wider change in
Accra. In some of these areas the UK is already in a position
to lead European (and other) donors by example (eg untying, conditionality)
but in others it needs to make significant progress (eg independent
evaluation, transparency).
3.4 The implementation of the Paris Declaration
has been hampered by the lack of an effective independent monitoring
and the absence of targets for individual donors. In Accra, the
UK should be pressing for the creation of independent monitoring
and accountability mechanisms both in recipient countries and
at the international level, and for targets to be set for individual
donors.
SUGGESTED QUESTIONS
TO ASK
— Will the UK be seeking new and more
ambitious targets for donors in Accra?
— What is the UK doing to promote the
setting of more ambitious targets for aid effectiveness at the
European level in 2008?
— Will the UK be supporting the establishment
of transparent and independent mechanisms for monitoring the implementation
of commitments made in the Paris Declaration and elsewhere?
February 2008
95 Available at www.betteraid.org Back
96
Available from www.concordeurope.org Back
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