Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for the majority of the world’s poorest countries. But it is Asia that gets most of the aid. That’s because the money is going to countries experiencing conflict.

More and more aid is going into tackling terror rather than combating poverty – ironically, itself a root cause of terrorism.

According to a report produced by the Reality of Aid Network, financial assistance to countries experiencing severe and prolonged conflict

“The world is confronted by an alarming paradox. The poorest countries – who are not to blame -are suffering from climate change that has come about [from actions] by the developed world.”

ROME – Ines Alberdi has worked for over 25 years on gender issues and in politics.
She comes to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) from her previous position as professor of sociology at Madrid University where she has taught political sociology and sociology of gender since 1993. Prior to that, she was director for research at the Centre for Sociological Research. Her main interest has been gender-based violence.

Birte Rodenberg, Policy Advisor of Action Against Aids, Germany.

The Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT), a coalition of women’s groups, held a forum for international women’s organisations in Accra in the leadup to the High Level Forum. Birte Rodenberg, Policy Advisor of Action Against Aids in Germany, who participated in the forum, spoke to IPS.

Venture out of the Accra Convention Centre and its Akwaaba! for High Level Forum participants and you could find a marketplace of ideas of a different kind.
The Makolo Market lies at the heart of Accra and here women and men struggle daily to make a living by selling all manner of goods.

The market is a labyrinth of passages that takes you through the various stalls amid shouts from sellers inviting customers to buy their wares.

In what is turning out to be hard-fought negotiations between rich and poor nations, more than 1,000 government and civil society delegates gathered in the Ghanaian capital Tuesday to agree the best ways to deliver and administer aid.

The Sept. 2-4 Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF3) will aim to adopt the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) to follow up the Paris Declaration of 2005.

The main focus by the delegates at the parallel forum was the ideology of conditionality of aid and the need for accountability and transparency between donors, countries and CSOs.

“It looked like this day would never come.” These were the sentiments of Emmanuel Akweke of IDEG in Ghana speaking at a press conference at the Civil Society Organisation (CSO) parallel forum on Aid Effectiveness.

The parallel forum was held to review the Accra Agenda for Action…

Aid is bypassing women. It’s not reaching them in Darfur, where they are raped and tortured in camps meant to protect them. And its cancellation in post-coup Mauritania is not helping matters.

“So much aid has been poured into Darfur but we, the ordinary people, do not see it,” said Agnes Nyoko-Peter, an executive of the South Sudan Women Christian Mission.

“Women and children continue to die even though we are told so much has been sent to help us.”

“China is, in matter of fact, a big player in aid on the African continent. Almost every country is receiving aid from China.”

China and India are new players on the aid turf in Africa – and the role of China is being increasingly scrutinised.

“China is, in matter of fact, a big player in aid on the African continent. Almost every country is receiving aid from China,” said Emmanuel Akwetey of IDEG Ghana.

Conditionality means that countries only receive aid when they meet certain criteria – an aspect of aid that has been controversial for decades with many members of civil society keen to see it revised.

To make aid more effective, donors should review and reduce the conditionalities attached to it, according to a CSO parallel forum on aid effectiveness.

The gathering took place during the two days before the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF3)…