Duncan Mboyah/AWC
During a roundtable forum dubbed Country Ownership — Whose Ownership? Whose Leadership? participants asked donors and development partners to refocus efforts on improving genuine mutual accountability.
Preliminary studies indicate that effective country ownership of development cooperation is almost certainly stronger and has been reinforced by the Paris Declaration.
According to Dr Bernard Wood, who evaluated some of the Paris Declaration projects, ownership remains heavily weighed in favour of central players rather than sector or local authorities.
Wood said that in all examined cases of donors’ performance, the Paris Declaration provides a significant reinforcing influence and platform for change.
During a roundtable forum dubbed Country Ownership — Whose Ownership? Whose Leadership? participants asked donors and development partners to refocus efforts on improving genuine mutual accountability.
They said country ownership should be guided by good practice in reviewing policy conditionality and leaving policy space for national development processes.
“It is important that politically independent resources are available to civil society rather than channelling all funding for civil society through national developments,” said Prof Josefa Francisco from Miriam College, Philippines.
She noted that the existing Accra Agenda for Action is flawed and unacceptable as it still follows the top-down Poverty Reduction Strategies that are not time bound.
Francisco said genuine ownership can only take place where there is even development and not where there is donor inequality.
She said that the people in rural areas, especially women are the right group that should own the funded projects if sustainability is to be realised.
Francisco called for a paradigm shift to mutually agreed stakeholders if the existing lack of transparency is to be eradicated.
“Include social economic commitments on the right development from grassroots level to multinational system through robust dialogue rather than imposing conditionality,” she advised.
The evaluation report recognises that to counter the growing risks of bureaucratisation and aid effectiveness fatigue, concrete measures are needed to re-energise and sustain high-level political engagements in the implementation of aid effectiveness reforms.
“Successful implementation of the reforms is likely in countries where understanding and involvement are extended beyond narrow circles of specialists,” Wood said.
He noted that changes in regulations and practices that delegated greater authority and capacity to field offices have been the most important enabling environment for successful implementation for the donors.
For the remaining Paris Declaration review period up to 2010, the report recommends that partner’s governments announce before the end of 2008, priority steps they will take in strengthening their leadership in aid relationships.
The delegates recommended that communities be facilitated to organise their own capacity building processes to prepare them for the ownership of projects once they are completed.
