Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness

[atseacliff]

Haven't had an opportunity to take in all the background documents for the 4th HLF in Buzan yet but I though I would highlight this website.  I'll be doing a bit of digging in days to come and others might like to do likewise.

http://www.aideffectiveness.org/busanhlf4/

[harnett]

Likewise haven't had time to study all in full but here's the latest take on developments from Publish What You Fund who are, (unsurprisingly) concentrating on the transparency issue:

"We’re hearing rumours that big aid donors such as the U.S. may be signing up to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) at the High Level Forum in Busan next week. At the same time, commitments to aid transparency and IATI have been watered down in the final stages of drafting the Outcome Document. With just four days to go before the meeting in Busan, this puts the future of the aid effectiveness agenda on a knife-edge.
 
If donors are to keep their Accra promise to open their books this time around, they must at least commit to publish to IATI by 2015.
 
Momentum has continued to build towards this moment with EuropeAid, Sweden and the UNDP publishing their aid information to the IATI Registry in the last month. Just this week AusAid launched their new Transparency Charter, the US Millennium Challenge Corporation published their data to the Foreign Assistance Dashboard, and the Inter-American Development Bank has revealed that it will become the 22nd IATI signatory at Busan.

Added to that, an estimable 55 000 people have now signed the Make Aid Transparent campaign, and we’ll be presenting this show of international public demand for aid transparency to ministers in the Transparency session on the second day of the Forum - (if you’re around, make sure to come by).

We’ve just arrived in Busan to work with our partners to make sure the necessary commitments are made. Donors have shown a remarkable lack of appetite for ambition and consensus – but we can at least hope for a firm commitment to aid transparency as a vital foundation for aid effectiveness."

Check out: http://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/news/2011/11/aid-transparency-commitments-weakened-bod5/

Also the Guardian has a decent introductory article on Busan here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/nov/25/busan-explainer-aid-effectiveness

[harnett]

And here's the expected news from China at Busan - at least they are honest!  I can't believe anyone really thought they were going to sign up - if the "hard won gains" of targeting aid against poverty are to be furthered then why embrace China which is clear about its own agenda in securing minerals and other trade deals, with aid part of the bargain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/29/china-pulls-out-aid-partnership-busan

[harnett]

Whoops - so China and India did enter the fold eventually, though the terms on which they entered were pretty watered down to reflect their own high levels of poverty (apparently).  Here's  a summary of the week's proceedings
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/dec/02/busan-shifting-geopolitical-realities?intcmp=122

[harnett]

And just for good measure here is the PEFA newsflash regarding their engagement at Busan:

The PEFA program at the 4th High Level Forum in Busan, Korea: 10 years implementing the aid effectiveness agenda…

We are pleased to inform you that the PEFA program is currently present at the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea (29 Nov – 1 Dec.).

PEFA participation in the HLF4 in Busan provides an important opportunity to review the progress made and lessons learned from use of the PEFA Framework for public finance assessments and reform. The discussion in Busan may shed some light on the key criteria that will help develop a more inclusive vision about what needs to be done in the future to foster effective public financial institutions and policies, and the PEFA program’s role in that respect.

2011 is the 10 year anniversary of the PEFA program. With 245 assessments undertaken in 126 countries and 116 publicized reports, PEFA demonstrates that the shift from donor leadership to country ownership can be effective and can foster greater agency effectiveness and build mutual accountability. The overall conclusion of the recently published, independent evaluation of the PEFA program is 'resoundingly positive’. Government ownership of the assessment has proven to lead governments to use the report and the indicators to set medium to long term targets for performance improvements in PFM reforms.

This participation presents an opportunity for a more strategic and partner country-led discussion over the PEFA program which can contribute to the orientations of the Program in its next phase. We will therefore invite participants in the HLF4 to offer answers to the questions:
· “How to strengthen donor partner support to public financial management reforms in developing countries – what role can PEFA play in further facilitating joint analytical work and reducing transaction costs?”

· “PEFA has proven to create an effective platform for ownership in the reform dialogue - what more needs to be done to assist partner countries?”

· “What does PEFA tell us about public finance management and how better to hold governments accountable - how can the reports be used by legislatures and civil society?


The PEFA Secretariat will be organizing the mini-debate/event "PEFA: Creating a public good for enhanced aid effectiveness in management of public finances? " on Thursday 1st December from 13:30 to 14:15 in the Knowledge and Innovation Space (KIS).  Panelists from different development partner institutions (World Bank, French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Swedish International Cooperation and Development Agency), partner countries (Peru, Senegal and Uganda) and other stakeholders (Intosai and International Budget Partnership) will be invited to discuss the lessons learned from the implementation and the achievements of the PEFA program over the last 10 years.
A debate will follow on how PEFA core principles, embedded in the aid effectiveness agenda  for Public Finances and the commitment to use country systems, could be embraced further in support to the new efforts to build effective institutions that can promote and sustain financial governance reforms.

Furthermore, the PEFA program is proud to make an important contribution to the debate with the recent Stocktaking Study on PFM Diagnostic Instruments, produced under the auspices of the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness with support from the PEFA Program. As an update to the 2004 PEFA’s mapping exercise “Assessing and Reforming Public Financial Management: A New Approach”, it identifies and describes the current, internationally used analytical/diagnostic tools in the Public Financial Management area - or in an advanced stage of development - and identifies knowledge gaps where custodians of assessment tools could improve collaboration and reduce transaction costs.  The study provides a number of entry points for the future, towards better alignment and harmonization of assessment work of PFM country systems and greater government leadership. More specifically, it makes concrete proposals for development partners, professional bodies and government counterparts on how to streamline the coverage of different PFM instruments, avoid overlaps and enhance collaboration at country level to strengthen government capacity in the diagnostic process.

In the next phase, PEFA should strive to support the work of partner countries and donor agencies to implement the post-Busan paradigm of development effectiveness and focus on country capacity to strengthen public financial management systems.

We look forward to fruitful discussion and invite you to contact us for any further questions, comments or suggestions and visit our website:  www.pefa.org. 

[harnett]

Here's an evaluation of progress on the Paris Declaration, presented at Busan:

http://www.odi.org.uk/events/presentations/907.pdf  It's a powerpoint presentation - quick to read - with links to more detailed evaluations and donor studies on the last slide

Sectorally, it focused on the health sector which was looked at in more detail in this Save the Children report produced for Busan:

http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/Healthier%20Returns.pdf

I haven't studied all in detail but at first glance both appear weak on corruption issues (which have certainly impacted on progress towards Paris goals - at least informally).  Health is typically the second sector I would look at with respect to corruption (after Public Works/Roads) and there is no doubt in my mind that budget support and the use of national  systems in a corrupt environment (coupled with competing donors and investors) fosters more corruption.  I've even got to the stage where I don't blame USAID and private intiatives such as GAVI bypassing some government systems, swallowing the exorbitant transaction costs of such interventions, and ensuring that the balance is at least concentrated on service delivery (often to the detriment of national systems).

On that note, harmonisation of aid is again championed in the reports (no problem with the theory) but there is really no road map to bring USAID, private institutions and the Chinese into the harmonised fold.

My other bugbear is the promotion of "civil society", which again is fine in theory but all too often in my experience is not any representation of civil society, but a selection of national NGOs led by and sometimes representing the educated elite of countries, often with strong kinship links to leaders in government and sometimes local staff in donor agencies.  Sure, promote civil society, but move away from those capital city based NGOs and tap into those organisations which genuinely represent the poor - but do they exist?

But to finish on a brighter note, the evaluation does chart progress since Paris, as the 3rd slide notes:

The central message

• The global campaign to make international aid programmes more effective is showing results.
• But the improvements are slow and uneven in most developing countries and even more so among most donor agencies, although the changes expected of them are less demanding.

[harnett]

Digging down into the OECD contributions to BUSAN, the following study leapt out as interesting: Development Resources Beyond the Current Reach of the Paris Declaration.  It makes a stab, self-admittedly "with limitations", at trying to estimate aid flows from governements, foundations, multilaterals etc. which fall outside of DAC.  Amounts totalling over £60 billion (over 50% of DAC assistance) -  are mentioned (just to sober us up regarding how far we have to go to achieve harmonisation).  The sections on China & Venezuela are interesting to me but there are plenty of other countries/organisations there that are of interest.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/48/6/47641381.pdf