Ministers and senior government officials from around the world last Wednesday agreed on an action plan to make the system of aid more effective. This came after days of hard negotiations that pitted some of the world’s poorest nations against donor giants.
But a negotiator for developing countries, who did not want to be named, told IPS/TerraViva that the text agreed on was entirely devoid of any time-bound measurable goals because of objections from the United States and Japan.
“Whatever we said, they basically said ‘no’ to it,” he said about the final text of the Accra Agenda for Action — a document that has gone through at least five drafts and was due to be adopted by ministers at the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Ghana on Thursday.
A key paragraph that was deleted from the final text read: “— in this Accra Agenda for Action [we] are agreeing to a set of accelerated actions to meet these goals by 2010”.
“What we have is nice, slightly fuzzy and positive language, but there is no monitorable timetable-bound commitment.”
Developing countries wanted rich donor nations to agree to reduce conditional aid and, by 2010, to phase out aid that is tied to the purchase of goods and services.
They also wanted donor countries to make the process of aid much more transparent, so that all aid figures are freely available.
Total aid from rich governments and their agencies amounts to $120-billion annually, with private contributions adding another $20 to $25-billion.
But neither donors nor recipients are happy with the system of aid. Donors say a lot of aid goes missing as a result of corruption, while recipient nations say they dislike conditions attached to the money.
Emerging from Wednesday’s meeting, which ended with a round of applause by negotiators, Levi Oguike, deputy chairperson of Nigeria’s National Planning Commission, said the agenda was predictable.
He said developing countries were not entirely happy with it: “A recipient country can never be comfortable with aid. You always want to be a donor.”
Nor were some developed countries satisfied. Stefano Manservisi, Director General of the European Commission, told IPS/TerraViva: “It’s a good, balanced text, but it doesn’t push hard enough. The situation requires more than just corrective balance.”
Manservisi said he would have liked to see countries pledge themselves to uniform financial-managements systems such as auditing — a key demand of donor countries.
Malawi’s Minister of Finance, Goodal Gondwe, said: “The present crop of African leaders are educated and know what policies to follow to bring about development in their respective countries.
“We are also aware of corruption and are doing everything possible to curb it.” — IPS/TerraViva
Additional reporting by Miriam Mannak and Francis Kokutse