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DEVELOPMENT: Coming Together To Aid the Poor

Miriam Mannak

ACCRA, Sep 2 2008 (IPS) - In what is turning out to be hard-fought negotiations between rich and poor nations, more than 1,000 government and civil society delegates are gathered in the Ghanaian capital to agree the best ways to deliver and administer aid.

The Sep. 2-4 Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF3) will aim to adopt the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) to follow up the Paris Declaration of 2005.

The AAA, which has gone through several drafts, reviews the Paris Declaration and features a series of recommendations to strengthen the 'ownership of development processes' by countries receiving aid and forge more effective partnerships between donors and recipients.

"The HLF3 is an important forum," Mary Chenery-Hess, the chief adviser of Ghanaian president John Agyekum Kufuor, told delegates at the Forum's opening.

"Three years have passed since the Paris Declaration was passed. With this document, donors committed themselves to scaling up aid while promoting good aid management and deliverance.

"Over the past years, some progress has been made, yet this progress has been too slow. We need to increase our efforts to meet the targets of and live up to the content of the Paris Declaration. We can't just talk about it, we must act."

The meeting takes place amid mounting concern that despite the Paris Declaration aid has not been able to make a big enough in world poverty. Some 1.4 billion people continue to live in poverty, earning less than $1.25 a day.

As a result there is a growing demand for rich donor countries to untie their aid, make it less conditional (on the purchase of their goods and services), and harmonise often-contradictory donor policies on aid.

Sources involved in the Accra discussions said developing countries have pushed donors to publish time-bound plans for untying aid, reducing conditionalities, and ensuring technical assistance is managed by recipient countries.

However, there is also a recognition that some aid has had a positive impact.

"In some parts of Africa, the occurrence of measles has been reduced by 91 percent," said Ann Veneman, executive director of the United Nation's Children's Fund.

"The distribution of malaria nets has increased in various regions. Mozambique has for instance seen a reduction of 65 percent in maternal mortality and the mortality rate among children younger under five years of age has decreased by 40 percent."

But the situation in many developing countries remains critical.

"The Paris Declaration has among other things the purpose to increase the quality of aid as well as the delivery of aid. Unfortunately, in 2007, less then half of the aid was dispersed on time. This needs to change in order to make aid more effective," said Veneman.

According to the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the world's major donors provided 103.7 billion dollars in aid in 2007 – an 8.4 percent fall over the previous year.

Oh Joon, South Korea's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the health of mothers and children should be a priority of aid.

"Of all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the improvement of maternal health is (lagging) most behind. We need to save women in order to save and protect our children."

The eight MDGs that 189 United Nation's member states have agreed to achieve by the year 2015 include halving extreme poverty, reducing child mortality, putting up a stronger fight against diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, and developing a global partnership for development.

Experts say greater and targeted aid can help achieve these targets.

"Aid – both the volume and the timing – should be accelerated, especially when it comes to post-war countries," Sudan's minister of International cooperation Dr Eltigani Fedai, told IPS.

"Aid needs to be delivered on time. People in these nations are waiting for the dividend of peace, and need to see the difference between war and peace."

"Procedures of receiving aid should be made easier for post-conflict countries," Fedai added. "The current procedures are complicated. Conditionality is an element which is difficult for post-war countries like Sudan to fulfill. I hope this event will bring change."

Ghana's Minister for Women and Children Affairs, Hajia Alima Mahama, said she has high hopes of the HLF3.

"The spirit of the Paris Declaration and its principles are actually realised, as the idea behind this Forum is to look at what has been done so far, and to make plans to improve the lives of people in impoverished countries," she said.

Like Fedai, Mahama feels that not enough has been done so far. "There are challenges ahead and we need to accelerate progress. Gender equality and women's rights and health are crucial in this. When you make sure women are fine, the community is fine as it is the woman who makes sure children go to school, are fed and are in good health."