Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-73)
MR ECKHARD
DEUTSCHER AND
MS BRENDA
KILLEN
7 MAY 2008
Q60 Sir Robert Smith: You mentioned
the high-level forum in Accra and how it should be a bigger process
than just a technical one. Quite a lot of the evidence, especially
from NGOs and the International Civil Society Steering Group's
report on expectations for Accra calls for donors to be held to
account for their commitments; in other words, there is general
agreement that the Paris Declaration is probably a good thing
but effective delivery is now the important thing. Do you want
to see more political involvement in Accra? What are your expectations
for the agenda?
Mr Deutscher: My expectations
are that we are trying to come to conclusions on issues like predictability,
untying aid, budgets and conditionality. We have to talk about
them. I repeat that in two weeks at the high-level meeting we
will pick it up. Maybe there will be different views, but we cannot
shy away from these problems; we need actions. We have to create
more possibilities to deal with the communication problem with
our partner countries. I think we have 30 in the donor community.
We have to do much more homework with the number of donors in
different countries. Here we have a lot of room for improvement.
Q61 Sir Robert Smith: As a committee
what levers do you have to make sure it is focused on implementation
and action?
Mr Deutscher: The role of the
committee is also to monitor the process. The committee is not
immediately involved, and I think that make sense. This is a shared
committee where partner countries also have their responsibilities.
My role as DAC chairman is to remind the members and inform them
of the process but also where the constraints and problems are.
We have to keep a consensus about the problems because I am always
saying that Accra and Doha are important but there is life after
them. My desire is to arrive at a new qualitative basis at the
beginning of next year.
Q62 John Battle: I got the impression
from Commissioner Peter Mandelson who was on BBC radio this morning
that Doha was really stalled until well into the new American
presidency, so there will not be much movement until 2009. Do
you think that most people have now given up on Doha?
Mr Deutscher: Maybe there is confusion.
Doha is not concerned with trade but with financing development.
This is the follow-up to Monterrey. As you know, we published
the older figures.
Q63 John Battle: I thought you said
that they should be kept together.
Mr Deutscher: Yes.
Q64 Chairman: There is one Doha but
two issues.
Ms Killen: There are too many
conferences in Doha!
Q65 Richard Burden: In a number of
your answers you have placed a lot of emphasis on the importance
of the processes that you and donor countries are developing gaining
the confidence of the developing countries themselves. To start
with a fairly blunt question, whilst developing country ownership
is no doubt desirable for all sorts of reasons is it necessary
for aid to be effective? If so, why?
Mr Deutscher: I am trying to identify
the broader philosophy of your question. Is your question: why
should aid be effective?
Q66 Richard Burden: Why should developing
country ownership of the process be a necessary prerequisite for
aid co-ordination to be effective?
Mr Deutscher: We can ask: what
have we done in the past 30 years? The basic thinking is that
we are running projects and multiplying a lot of projects in-country
and then an appropriate structure will be created and we have
effective development processes with economic growth and so on.
Obviously, this was a big error. Here we come to reflect on what
ownership means. Ownership means that definition of the development
directions in a political, social and cultural context is the
prerequisite of development and only then can it happen. It would
be a big error to think that donor countries can organise development;
no, they are supporters. The donors can support and help but they
have to listen. I think this is a big error compared with the
last decades of development. Donors think that we are pushing
some buttons here and there and then development can happen. I
believe that the cultural problem is greatly underestimated. We
cannot look only at economic efficiency but at the cultural position.
This is not a new thought, but we have not applied it sufficiently.
Maybe this means a new mix of priorities. I remind you that the
then president of the World Bank Mr Wolfensohn said that we also
had to include religious aspects in development efforts. I do
not know whether or not that is right. There was no follow-up
of that thought in the World Bank, but we should not underestimate
the cultural aspects.
Q67 Richard Burden: If developing
country ownership is important for the reasons you say, in practical
terms, in a number of areas, are we talking about country-by-country
ownership or regional ownership? For example, a number of the
issues in Africa would be regional issues. If you give ownership
of a particular programme or strategy to an individual country
then you are not giving ownership to the citizens of that area,
whose problems are not necessarily defined by their own government;
they might be regional issues. Are we talking of developing country
ownership being country-by-country ownership or in some cases
regional ownership, and who would decide that and through what
mechanism?
Mr Deutscher: I shall give you
an example. Three weeks ago in Japan after the G8 development
ministers' meeting there was a meeting on the African action plan.
There is a relatively long list formulated by NEPAD[9]
and the problem right now is that for the whole donor community
there is only one counterpart to respond to what the Africans
have formulated. There was an interesting debate. The African
counterparts had to say that, no, this was not a Christmas wish
list and what was being presented should be taken seriously. It
had to do with infrastructure which had to do with creating economic
growth, jobs, etc, etc. It means that for this to be taken seriously
on a regional level in this example it has been responded to by
the donor community. I think that respect for ownership in this
case means that it should be taken seriously and should not be
denigrated as a Christmas wish list. I quoted Bolivia where there
is an owned plan of development which is not in all respects congruent
with what donors want to see. We have to show respect for ownership
of Bolivia's development plan. I think this also means learning
of the processes by agencies and donors.
Q68 Richard Burden: Given the centrality
and importance of ownership which you acknowledge and the need
for developing countries, or groups of developing countries, rather
than donors, to be able to define what that means, how confident
can we be that a donor-led organisation like the OECD is the right
forum to be the custodian of the principles of the Paris Declaration
regarding ownership? If it is the right forum how would you respond
to the criticism of the International Civil Society Steering Group
which recommended a reappraisal of the concept of ownership? It
said it was all very well for the OECD, a donor-led organisation,
to talk about ownership and engage with developing countries but
all too often what happened was that a donor-led perspective engaged
with individual governments or sometimes groups of governments
and not the societies most affected by this. How do you respond
to that? Is the OECD the right forum and, if it is, how in practical
terms do you ensure that the processes you develop for consultation
go beyond governments and engage the civil society in developing
countries?
Mr Deutscher: To begin with your
last remark, I repeat that civil society organisations are very
important not only in the donor countries but also in developing
countries. There is a new concept of democratic ownership. I do
not know whether or not this is created by NGOs, but ownership
is not and should not be only the attitude of a government. So
far I think that NGOs or civil society organisations are also
important in partner countries to create a dynamic discussion
in the respective countries. I have frequent meetings with NGOs.
Two or three weeks ago I was approached in New York and we discussed
these concerns for a number of hours. You asked the very abstract
question whether the OECD was the right forum or not. When the
Paris Declaration is signed by more than 120 countries and organisations
and OECD DAC has amended it right now to do it—we are taking
this very seriously. This is a process. Let us look at it from
different perspectives and see what the process will bring us
and then decide. By "us" I mean international donors
and partner countries as well and several other stakeholders.
We are doing our job and we intend to do a good one.
Q69 John Battle: To extend the question
of democratic government a little further, if I was disappointed
by anything in the Paris Declaration it was that there was not
a reference to parliaments. Maybe in the past we have dealt with
governments who have become governing elites in Africa and we
have not paid enough attention to quite legitimate democratic
oppositions, for example, as well as civil society. We should
really turn to the poor to see whether or not they have experienced
any action. But parliaments ought to fit in in the same way as
our Select Committee. We are not a function of government; we
are between government and the people who elect us as a critic
of government and so act as a function of Parliament. That is
more important than the government of the day and it will last
longer. Do you think there is room for parliament as well as civil
society having stronger emphasis in future?
Mr Deutscher: You are taking the
arguments out of my mouth. One of my deep concerns is that not
only in this process but in the past decade parliaments have not
been sufficiently engaged. When I visit member countries I always
say to the ambassadors that I want to talk to the parliament and
parliamentarians and, when possible, not only with the development
committees but also the budget committee people. This shows, first,
respect for the democratic structures to which I would like to
respond; second, that there is a problem of money to finance development;
and, third, that under the globalised processes which have already
changed a lot we also have to change our political thinking. We
have to think in more globalised terms not only about what I call
the changed landscape but also the fact that clearly the fight
against poverty, climate change, migration etc is a joint effort
and cannot be done by only one nation. We need common efforts
which mean we have to reflect also on relations with multilateral
organisations and how they can be more effective and be controlled
politically. This is the job of parliaments. When I call, perhaps
a little too enthusiastically, on the parliamentarians, this should
be a two-way process; it means that parliamentarians should also
respond to the development processes. I was invited by the Council
of Europe to speak to parliamentarians. They are very engaged
in and concerned about the quality of parliaments in African countries.
In order to have more and deeper horizontal co-operation with
parliaments I can only call on them to do so.
Q70 Chairman: You mentioned both
the increase in the number of donors and proliferation in the
type of donor agencies. The World Bank tells us that, "Non-OECD
DAC countries alone are expected in aggregate to double their
current ODA levels to over $2 billion by 2010."[10]
Professor Mick Moore of the University of Sussex says that new
aid donors are growing fast and have made the field much more
diverse. He goes on to say: "The system is now out of control.
The Western donors' club [OECD DAC] can no longer co-ordinate
it."[11]
Mr Deutscher: I have read this
article written by the professor.
Q71 Chairman: The much more specific
question is: what can be done to encourage China and other donors
to co-ordinate? When we were in Ghana and talked to that government
as well as other donors they said that China did not regard itself
as a donor but as a commercial partner. It is invited to join
in the co-ordination but it does not do so; it does not participate,
nor does India or Brazil. What are the prospects of getting that
kind of co-ordination? To put it the other way round, what is
the possibility of it leading to a collision of interests that
undermines what the DAC is trying to do?
Mr Deutscher: Early this year
I started to have first contacts with the governments of China
and India. I was in Mexico already. I intend to go to Brazil and
South Africa. South Africa maintains its own development system,
as you know. We are starting to establish such contacts. In two
and a half weeks I shall go to China. This will be the first official
contact with the Chinese Government even when representatives
of that government have already visited Paris in December and
participated in what we call the director-general-level meeting.
We shall continue this work. I cannot imagine that countries like
China have no interest in aid effectiveness. I was assured by
Chinese colleagues that China regards development and aid effectiveness
as important. We have statistics and experiences on co-ordination.
Let us participate and see which corridor we can define together
with the Chinese and also the Indian Government. Obviously, in
India this is a recent development. The Indian Government has
established not only a development but an economic investment
approach. I am aware of the concept that the international development
business industry feeds only itself. This is not true. What are
the alternatives to offering only money? I think the problem is
knowledge. The Chinese Government is trying to create a knowledge
economy and it is not really dependent on money.
Ms Killen: I have attended some
of the regional preparatory events for the Accra high-level forum.
I was in Kigali last week where the African Development Bank pulled
together its African members to look at their priorities for Accra.
At that meeting there were very few donors and we were all told
not to speak. It was quite an interesting and lively discussion.
On the question of new donors, what emerged was that the onus
was now on African countries themselves to manage the complexities;
they should reach a common position and use the Paris Declaration
to deal with new partners and say that they want the aid but set
out the basis on which they want it. I hope that that theme will
be picked up when we have the Accra action agenda later this year.
Q72 Chairman: That begs the question:
do they have ownership of the Paris Declaration?
Ms Killen: Yes—which takes
us back to the questions you posed earlier.
Q73 Sir Robert Smith: And perhaps
part of China's perception that it is not a development but an
economic partnership?
Ms Killen: Yes.
Chairman: The Committee also plans as
part of a separate inquiry to visit China next month to discuss
exactly these issues. Thank you very much for your evidence; it
has helped us quite a bit. In the second half of this morning's
session we are taking evidence from the European Commission which
I suppose is collectively and individually your partner anyway.
9 The New Partnership for Africa's Development Back
10
World Bank, Aid Architecture: An overview of the main trends
in ODA flows, Executive Summary, February 2007 Back
11
Ev 78 Back
| 
