Challenges and problems
The aforementioned levels of accountability do not automatically complement each other. In some cases, they may even compete. Challenges are encountered especially in the following respects:
- In the past the (implicit) focus was on the accountability of aid recipients to donors. Conceptually, this changed primarily with the debates on aid effectiveness (Paris Declaration, etc.); however, the new concepts have yet to be fully implemented.
- This donor-oriented focus detracts from the effectiveness of development cooperation (risk aversion, by-passing of partners’ national systems, functioning “project islands”, donors’ implementation interests, etc.).
- Any emphasis placed by development policy on accountability in partner countries themselves is often confronted with structures in the various countries that do not function satisfactorily (weak roles played by parliament and the media, etc.). Partner governments do not necessarily have an interest in functioning accountable systems in their own countries, since they may be associated with demands for governance reforms.
- In some cases, mutual accountability is costly, entails numerous compromises and has shortcomings. This is true, for example, of coordinated national development strategies and of joint monitoring approaches and policy analyses.
Perspectives
It is possible in principle to identify ways of strengthening accountability in the development cooperation context. To begin with, functioning public financial management systems (including budgetary planning processes and value-for-money auditing) are a justified concern of partner countries and their actors.
The principles underlying aid effectiveness wisely focus on partner countries’ national systems; not the least important aspect of this is that it increases the importance of parliaments, civil-society actors, etc. Where the donors are concerned, there continues to be considerable room for improvement. Development cooperation can help to strengthen accountability systems and to reduce unintended effects likely to weaken them. External actors are primarily able to support the “supply” of accountability, but are less capable on the “demand” side.
Donors have a legitimate and serious desire for accountability in their own countries. That accountability is essential if political and societal backing is to be gained for the provision of public funds for development policy tasks. As a general rule, a distinction should be made in this context between sometimes complex and frequently abstract development cooperation systems and effect chains (in which donor administrations and the appropriate parliamentary bodies must have an interest) on the one hand and the legitimate need for transparency and information for a wider public on the other.
Results-based approaches to development cooperation can, in principle, strengthen mutual and national (in the partner country) accountability, since both forms are based on the partners’ implementation of policies and their activities; this may also concern M&E (monitoring and evaluation) systems, which are very important for accountability. There is a wide range of results-based approaches to development cooperation; in principle, they are also associated with risks (due, for instance, to misguided incentives or a fixation on activities that can be quantified).
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