Indicators on aid effectiveness underway

A negotiating team on aid effectiveness will this month submit ten indicators and targets tailored towards the implementation of recommendations arrived at during a conference on aid effectiveness held in the South Korea city of Busan last year.The indicators will provide the basis for a global monitoring framework for development assistance.Rwanda along with Mali has been negotiating on behalf of Least Developed Countries while South Africa is negotiating for middle income countries.Rwanda’s priorities for Busan include mutual accountability, the use of country systems, financing capacity development, the predictability of aid, effective information flows, innovative financing and private sector engagement.The agreed indicators include, development co-operation focused on results that meet developing countries’ priorities targeting to have all development partners comply with country results framework by 2015.Rwanda is already using an approach through which development partners channel aid through the national budget to finance priority areas.Other indicators include, untied aid, partnering to improve the environment for private sector envelopment, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and transparency on development co-operation information.The Post Busan Interim Group (PBIG) held monthly meetings in Paris for six months since December last year before they gathered in Korea. “The team will hand over to another yet to be elected steering committee.“We intend to draw our work to a close on June 10, 2012 and the global partnership framework will take up the role of aid effectiveness,” said Ronald Nkusi, a government representative in the meeting in an interview. According to Nkusi, a steering committee of global partners will be composed of 18 members with three co-chairs representing recipient of development aid, recipient and providers of aid, and providers of aid.All recipient countries will agree on which country or which person to represent them and who would not negotiate on behalf of a particular country but neutral for all aid recipient countries. Africa, Asia, Caribbean and pacific countries are big aid recipients.However, reports indicate that it’s not yet clear whether any of the donors from the BRICS groups of nations that include Brazil, India, China and South Africa will be part of this committee, given their insistence that their participation in the monitoring framework should be voluntary.The PBIG said there is a need for political will to ensure sustained momentum and continued commitment for effective development co-operation.Some of the recommendations made during the Korea meeting include, acceleration of efforts to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women through development programmes grounded in country priorities, sustenance of a high level political leadership to ensure that the commitments made in Busan are implemented, and increased focus on development results and build effective institutions.Rwanda was applauded for its efforts to implement a series of actions to boost aid effectiveness in Busan.A comprehensive aid coordination system was developed, including a Development Partners Coordination Group, a Budget Support Harmonisation Group and several working groups to ensure aid is effectively used and positively impacting the beneficiaries.Rwanda’ is s among the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, through prudent debt management by the government and substantial debt relief for HIPC completion in 2005.The country was thus selected as one of five pilot countries to implement the UN Women / European Commission programme on Integrating Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) into the aid effectiveness Agenda.In the last six years, there has been high level Fora on aid effectiveness where donor community, developing countries and civil society organisations meet to agree on the most effective ways to manage the aid process.The Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action are founded on five core principles based on what works for development, and is not.The Paris Declaration includes ownership, Alignment, Harmonisation, Results and Mutual accountability.