Quality of Development Aid - Accra Meeting 2008 – What are the Issues and How to Get There.

Posted by Mario Pessoa

The Facts

The Accra Agenda for Action

The Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness has just concluded its works in Accra, Ghana. More than 1,500 delegates from 85 countries reached an agreement denominated the "Accra Agenda for Action" (Download AAA.pdf ) on how to make foreign aid to developing countries more effective. The key elements agreed in the Agenda are:

Predictability – donors will provide 3-5 year forward information on their planned aid to partner countries;

Country systems – partner country systems will be used to deliver aid as the first option, rather than donor systems;

Conditionality – donors will switch from reliance on prescriptive conditions about how and when aid money is spent to conditions based on the developing country’s own development objectives; and

Untying – donors will relax restrictions that prevent developing countries from buying the goods and services they need from whomever and wherever they can get the best quality at the lowest price.

The 2008 Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration

The Accra Agenda for Action is a welcomed outcome of the High Level Forum considering the limited results achieved so far. The issues included in the Agenda are strongly related to a well crafted survey and comprehensive report prepared to evaluate the progress achieved since 2005. The 2008 Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration was prepared under the framework of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Working Party on Aid Effectiveness, and is based on the work of the Joint Venture on Monitoring the Paris Declaration.

The Survey concluded that: "Progress is being made, but not fast enough. Without further reform and faster action we will not meet the 2010 targets for improving the quality of aid. Meeting the targets will require not only accel­erating the pace of progress, but also changing significantly how we do business."

The results achieved in each one of the 14 targets and sub targets can be seen in the following table:

 

My personal views

Let's not be mistaken: The Accra Agenda for Action is positive development and the outcome of the Accra High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness goes in the right direction. The true question is: Are the right mechanisms in place to make aid markedly more effective and attain the objectives in the time frame considered. My view is that an even more creative approach is needed.

The still insufficient results achieved so far call for a new approach by donors and countries in the ways reforms are being implemented particularly in relation to public financial management issues. A more modest, focused, and less human resources and technology demanding approach is required. Instead of comprehensive and sophisticated diagnostic missions and overall encompassing action plans, technical assistance providers should focus their attention on the development of more basic and achievable targets that can make a difference in the short term.

For example, the implementation of a medium-term perspective in the budget could begin by the programs and projects related to the millennium development goals and other poverty reduction initiatives—it is a very good first step towards linking social priorities to budget allocation and evaluation of the results. Concentrating the effort on few programs, in sectors with some tradition in measuring social indicators, and in areas accepted as priorities by the vast majority of the countries, would generate quick results and enable comparability and easy exchange of information among the countries.

In the case of using countries’ PFM and procurement systems, a pragmatic approach could be to define by which criteria the systems would be appraised in order to be considered adequate for donors to provide aid through the country system. For example, a country’s PFM system could be acceptable if the PEFA indicators related to public access to key fiscal information (PI-10), recording and management of cash balances (PI-17), and quality and timeliness of in-year budget reports (PI-24) scored A or B; and a country’s procurement system if the PEFA indicator related to competition, value for money and controls in procurement (PI-19) scored A or B. It would give a clear signal for donors and countries and would incentive using a single approach to evaluate countries’ systems.

Mozambique is a good example of a country’s PFM system that has shown remarkable improvements in the last five years. Comparing the 2006 with the 2008 PEFA assessments for the previously mentioned criteria, it is possible to conclude that the SISTAFE system is adequate and can provide adequate information for donors.1/ A clear recognition of the improvements achieved by the authorities would be an incentive for other countries and donors to implement the most needed reforms.

Indicator	2006 PEFA Score	2008 PEFA Score
PI-10 public access to key fiscal information	C	B
PI-17 recording and management of cash balances	B+	A
PI-24 quality and timeliness of in-year budget reports	C+	B
PI-19 competition, value for money, and controls in procurement	C	B

Another action could be the creation of a shared webpage in which countries and donors would register the technical assistance requested and provided to facilitate communication and objectively address the perennial technical assistance co-ordination issue.

These and other actions should be examined carefully because time is short and the targets are very ambitious.

Further reading:

You can find more information on the IMF’s support of the Accra Agenda for Action and other documents of the Accra meeting in the following webpages:

• IMF Endorses Accra Action Plan to Reform Aid Delivery;
• The Accra high Level Forum;
• The 2008 Survey report.

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1/ Additional information regarding the evaluation of the Mozambique’s SISTAFE system is available by clicking here.