Originally published on www.eurodad.org
The first United Nations Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) took place in the first week of July in New York. It was preceded by preparatory meetings in January 2008 in Cairo, and in mid-June in Rome. The main topic was reforming aid. Can it deliver where other institutions have struggled? Read the rest of this entry »
While governments are struggling to get an agreement on the third draft of the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA), the World Bank and the IMF are blocking the negotiations in a number of issues, including progress on conditionality – according to some rumours. They are not alone in this business, as they count on the active contribution by representatives from Japan, the US or even Canada at times.
In 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent a week in bed in the Amsterdam Hilton to promote world peace. Last weekend Robert Zoellick, Bert Koenders and others spent two days in a conference room there to clarify the roles of the World Bank. It’s too early to tell if the latter will end up more successful than the former. But further clear indications were given of the dire state of the current aid architecture.
The World Food Program ‘s new report on 2007 food aid flows not surprisingly focuses on the current food price crisis. But more of a surprise from the WFP is a frank recognition that chucking thousands of tonnes of food into developing countries can ravage its agriculture. Last year, one of the world’s biggest charities, CARE, refused to administer US$45m in US food aid on the grounds that it undermines rather than support poor livelihoods in Africa. Read the rest of this entry »
For the past decade, vertical funds have been the new “hook” in development aid. Does this mean that they are a fad that will soon be replaced by another trend, rendered as outdated as conditionality? Or are they simply the current expression of our constantly evolving knowledge on development aid? The debate on vertical funds is reaching an all-time high, with calls for certain vertical funds to be completely dismantled, and others who claim they are the only means in the fight against some of the most serious global issues in history. Read the rest of this entry »
The old Oriental and Equateur provinces in Congo DR are host to some of the most valuable equatorial forests and biodiversity hotspots in the world. But if you want to catch a glimpse of the area you will have to either cycle a few hundreds kilometres or jump on the back of one of the logging trucks working there. The World Bank and DFID embarked in 2005 on a “high priority” project to build a 1300 kilometres road in the area. Construction should have started two years ago, but donors are still stagnated in the planning phase, while, according to a Congolese MP, “people continue to die”.
Two years after the Paris Declaration was agreed it seems that no progress has been made overall - according to the OECD Paris monitoring survey due to be published at the end of this month. But that does not mean that the problem areas have not been identified. The big question is - will donors show us their commitments are credible by taking action to address these in Accra? Read the rest of this entry »
Few days ago, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the European Member States and the Commission to “phase out policy- oriented conditionality”. It is great news that an European institution echoes the repeated calls from Civil Society in the North and the South to put an end to economic policy conditions, which undermine ownership of the development process and have all too often imposed policy reforms which had disastrous effects on poor people.
Yesterday, the EU failed to agree to put in place timetables that would show how they would reach their aid targets. All were happy to “reaffirm their commitments” to reach 0.7% by 2015 but several shied away from showing their citizens how they would do this. Apparently France, Italy and maybe Germany were among the most reluctant. The issue will now be discussed again at the Council of the European Heads of State on the 19th and 20th June. Read the rest of this entry »
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