Saturday, July 04, 2009   13:09 GMT    
 - Africa
 - Asia-Pacific
     Afghanistan
     Iran
 - Caribbean
      Haiti
 - Europe
      Union in Diversity
 - Latin America
 - Mideast &
   Mediterranean
      Iraq
      Israel/Palestine
 - North America
      Neo-Cons
      Bush's Legacy
Agencia de Noticias Inter Press Service
Agencia de Noticias Inter Press Service
Subscribe
Agencia de Noticias Inter Press Service
Agencia de Noticias Inter Press Service
 - Development
      MDGs
      City Voices
      Corruption
 - Civil Society
 - Globalisation
 - Environment
      Energy Crunch
      Climate Change
      Tierramérica
 - Human Rights
 - Health
      HIV/AIDS
 - Indigenous Peoples
 - Economy & Trade
 - Labour
 - Population
      Reproductive Rights
      Migration&Refugees
 - Arts & Entertainment
 - Education
 - ExPress Freedom
 - Women in the News
 - Columns
 - In Focus
 
 - Readers' Opinions
 - Email News
  What is RSS?
   ENGLISH
   ESPAÑOL
   FRANÇAIS
   ARABIC
   DEUTSCH
   ITALIANO
   JAPANESE
   NEDERLANDS
   PORTUGUÊS
   SUOMI
   SVENSKA
   SWAHILI
   TÜRKÇE
IPS Inter Press Service News Agency

News in RSSFinancing for development (FfD) is about how domestic and international resources contribute - or don't, in some cases - to ensure that all countries are able to meet the Millennium Development Goals and eradicate poverty. It encompasses aid, trade, debt relief, international and national finance, domestic budgeting and global governance. At the Monterrey Conference in 2002, wealthy and poor countries pledged concrete actions towards funding development. Progress was reviewed in Doha. The U.N. Development Cooperation Forum that took place in July -- a parallel process of multi-stakeholders -- contributed to the Doha review. As time runs out to meet the MDGs, what was Doha’s contribution? As 2008 is a year of stock-taking, activists seized their chance. Gender was high on the agenda. Even though gender equality is essential to ensure poverty eradication, women's empowerment, and effective development, the FfD process has not yet led to any substantial change in the feminisation of poverty.

Monterrey Consensus
The United Nations organised the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) in 2002. More than 50 heads of state and 200 ministers of finance, foreign affairs, development and trade participated, along with representatives of the civil society, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation and the U.N. The outcome is known as "The Monterrey Consensus".

The Monterrey Consensus included commitments for "new development aid" from rich countries, as well as agreements on debt relief, the fight against corruption, public-private partnerships, and Official Development Assistance (ODA). Since its adoption, it has become a landmark in global development.
Major Donors Cut Assistance
Migrant Earnings to Be Counted as Foreign Aid?
Japan's More Is Not Enough
Paris Declaration
Three years later, more than 100 ministers, heads of agencies and other senior officials representing donor and recipient governments and multilateral aid organisations signed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

The Paris Declaration sets out an agenda to make aid more effective and efficient by reducing duplication, transaction costs, and misdirected aid.

In some quarters, the Paris Declaration is almost synonymous with aid effectiveness; it is expected that aid will be effective and achieve development outcomes when the principles are observed for government sector aid. However, there continue to be criticisms and alternative views, particularly from aid-focused non-governmental organisations.

Implementation of the Paris Declaration is also questionable; concrete targets set for 2010 (such as an increased proportion of aid to be untied; establishment of "mutual accountability" mechanisms in aid recipient countries; and for two thirds of aid to be delivered in the context of so-called programme approaches rather than projects) seem unlikely to be met, according to data on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) website.
The Paris Declaration
Special Report on Aid Harmonisation
2006 Survey
2008 Survey
Accra Action Agenda
Better known by its acronym AAA, it has been drafted through a broad-based process of dialogue at both country and international levels, carried out through the work of Working Party on Aid Effectiveness and Donor Practices (WP-EFF) and its joint ventures, regional preparatory consultations, the partner country contact group, the Advisory Group on Civil Society, and the non-DAC donor group (including China, India, the Gulf States).

The views of more than 80 partner countries, some 60 civil society organisations (CSOs), all DAC (Development Assistance Committee of the OECD) donors, and many non-traditional providers of development assistance informed the final draft AAA (dated July 25, 2008). It is expected that the AAA can support accelerated progress in aid effectiveness.
Accra Agenda for Action
DEVELOPMENT: Crucial Role for EU at Accra Meet on Aid
Q&A: "Where Women Can't Thrive, MDGs Are in Jeopardy"

POLITICS: U.N. Decries Aid Shortfall in Afghanistan
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations, which has expressed disappointment over the slow disbursement of development aid to crisis-stricken Afghanistan, has hurled one of its biggest political insults at Western donors: threatening to turn to a U.S. philanthropist for financial assistance.
MORE >>
 

POLITICS: U.N. Plan for Financial Crisis Derided as Weak
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - When the General Assembly adopted a proposed plan of action aimed at overcoming the global financial crisis, one of the political surprises was that all 192 member states gave their blessings to the wide range of proposals spelled out in an "outcome document".
MORE >>
 

DEVELOPMENT: Not Another Missed Opportunity, Civil Society Urges
By Ayesha Gooneratne
UNITED NATIONS - A coalition of civil society organisations called the Global Social Economy Group (GSEG) is pressing for the immediate and long-term financing needs of developing countries to take centre-stage at the U.N. Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis.
MORE >>
 

See picture details
ECONOMY: "Patching Up Bretton Woods Makes No Sense"
By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS - The world community must take immediate action to overhaul the current global financial system – that's what a vast majority of political leaders and policymakers from the developing world who are attending a three-day U.N. conference on the global economic crisis are saying.
MORE >>
 

DEVELOPMENT: Western Aid Declines, Financial Bailouts Mount
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - As the world's poorer nations warn about the gravity of the global financial crisis on their fragile economies, the United Nations has exposed the hypocrisy of Western donors who cry poverty even while they raise trillions of dollars to rescue their beleaguered financial institutions.
MORE >>
 

See picture details
ECONOMY: More Democracy the Cure for Broken System, U.N. Says
By Henry Parr
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations General Assembly kicked off a three-day conference on the world financial crisis Wednesday with calls for a substantial overhaul of the decades-long model under which the world's richest countries set the terms of global fiscal and trade policy.
MORE >>
 

DEVELOPMENT: China Lends Support to U.N. Finance Summit
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - China has lent its support to a U.N. finance summit where developing countries are pressing to air their grievances over how the global economic crisis has affected the world’s poorest. Yet, for the largest developing country the crisis remains a debacle with a silver lining - a matchless opportunity to accomplish its dream of regaining the regional and global clout it once held, and fast forward its ambitions.
MORE >>
 

See picture details
ARGENTINA: Huge Loan to Flow into ‘Open Sewer’ River
By Marcela Valente*
BUENOS AIRES - Local residents and environmentalists are eyeing with cautious optimism a major loan from the World Bank to the Argentine government to clean up the Matanza-Riachuelo river that runs through Buenos Aires - the country's most polluted waterway.
MORE >>
 

See picture details
Q&A: U.N.'s Enormous Potential Being Marginalised
Thalif Deen interviews MIGUEL D'ESCOTO BROCKMANN, President of the General Assembly
UNITED NATIONS - An international conference on the global financial crisis - hosted by the United Nations - is being marginalised by Western countries which have refused to send any of their political leaders to the meeting.
MORE >>
 

POLITICS: World Bank, IMF Heads Skip Summit on Global Crisis
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - When a major international conference on financing for development took place in the Qatari capital of Doha last November, the heads of both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) skipped the meeting.
MORE >>
 

See picture details
POLITICS: Will Women Be an Afterthought at U.N. Crisis Meet?
By Ben Case
UNITED NATIONS - A groundbreaking U.N. General Assembly conference on the global economic crisis and its impact on development, set to begin Wednesday, may sideline women's numerous concerns, civil society groups say.
MORE >>
 

See picture details
POLITICS: Is West Undermining Summit on Financial Crisis?
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - When a Western diplomat was asked whether his country would be represented by a head of state at next week's U.N. summit meeting on the global financial crisis, his response was tinged with sarcasm and contempt.
MORE >>
 

HEALTH: Killer Diarrheal Diseases Eclipsed on Donor Agendas
By Danielle Kurtzleben and Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON - Interest in reducing the harm caused by diarrheal diseases has waned among the global health and aid communities, said two new reports released Tuesday in Washington.
MORE >>
 

U.S.: Obama Boosts Foreign, Development Aid Spending
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - True to his promises to bolster Washington's "soft power" abroad, President Barack Obama released details of his fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget that included significant increases in development assistance and other civilian-oriented tools of U.S. foreign policy.
MORE >>
 

U.S.: Obama's Global Health Plan Disappoints Activists
By Ali Gharib and Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Global health activists expressed disappointment Tuesday over U.S. President Barack Obama's plans to spend 63 billion dollars over the next six years to fight diseases in poor countries overseas.
MORE >>
 

See picture details
Q&A: "Boosting Agriculture Is Not an Option But an Imperative"
Ernest Corea interviews KANAYO F. NWANZE, IFAD President
UNITED NATIONS - New support from donors will enable the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to help about 70 million poor smallholder farmers increase their productivity and incomes over the next five years, the Fund’s new president Kanayo F. Nwanze told IPS.
MORE >>
 

ECONOMY: Crisis Pushing Key Poverty Goals Out of Reach
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - The global economic crisis has created a "development emergency" that will put at least some of the U.N.'s key poverty-reducing 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) out of reach for many countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, according to a new report released Friday by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
MORE >>
 

POLITICS-US: Overcoming Toxic Legacy of Bush-Style Democracy
By Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON - A massive overhaul of U.S. development assistance is needed, says a new report from an influential Washington think tank.
MORE >>
 

DEVELOPMENT: IMF, Reform Thyself, Groups Say
By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS - Ahead of the annual meetings of the world's biggest international financial institutions this weekend, calls are growing for the United Nations to take new initiatives on financing for development in poor countries.
MORE >>
 

 

Next >>

 
IPS News Feeds News Feeds RSS/XML
Make IPS your homepage Make IPS News your homepage!
Free Email Newsletters Free Email Newsletters
IPS Mobile IPS Mobile
Text Only Text Only
International Conference -- Financing for Development

Aid is one part of the FfD agenda and civil society is mobilising to build up pressure to make it better. The new aid buzzwords are effectiveness, quality, ownership and harmonisation. In 2008, we witnessed the review of the new aid architecture agreed by donors in Paris in 2005. Accra hosted the aid effectiveness assessment in September 2008. From November 29 through December 2, Doha hosted the Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to review the Monterrey Consensus. In Doha, it was decided that the U.N. would hold a conference on the global financial crisis and its impact on development. The time and place is yet to be announced.

Terraviva
The South Speaks Out
Financial Meltdown

25 February - 7 March
Commission on the Status of Women

April 20-25
UNCTAD XII - Accra, Ghana

June 12-13
Development Cooperation Forum, Stakeholder pre-meeting - Rome, Italy

June 18-21
CIVICUS 8th World Assembly - Glasgow, Scotland

July 2-3
First Biennial Development Cooperation Forum - New York

Aug 31-Sep 1
CSO Forum on Aid Effectiveness - Accra

September 2-4
3rd High Level Conference on Aid Effectiveness - Accra

Nov 29-Dec 2
Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Monterrey Consensus - Doha, Qatar.


WEDO
CIVICUS
The Reality of Aid network
ECOSOC
Financing for Development
Betteraid.org
IPS is not responsible for the content of external sites
News in RSS
INDIA: PUSHING FOR CHANGE
    by Syeda Hameed
DEVELOPMENT FINANCING CONFERENCE: THE INEQUALITY-POVERTY NEXUS
    by Cecilia Alemany and Anne Schoenstein
A LIFE FREE OF VIOLENCE IS EVERY WOMAN'S RIGHT
    by Nicole Kidman
FINANCING GENDER EQUALITY: A CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE
    by Ines Alberdi
This page includes independent IPS news coverage which is part of a partnership with UNIFEM to mainstream gender in reporting about Financing for Development