Promoting Mutual Accountability in Aid Relationships

1. Promoting Mutual Accountability in Aid Relationships Paolo de Renzio Overseas Development Institute

2. “This hall has heard enough high-sounding declarations to last us for some decades to come. We all know what the problems are, and we all know what we have promised to achieve. What is needed now is not more declarations or promises, but action to fulfil the promises already made.” Kofi Annan

3. Background • Follow-up to Paris Declaration • Results of PRS Review • Little comparative knowledge of country experiences in managing aid relationships • Shifting the focus to donor accountability

4. Civil Society Civil Society Parliament Parliament POLICY CYCLE - PRS - Budget Who ‘owns’ what? Who is accountable to whom? DONOR COUNTRIES RECIPIENT COUNTRIES POPULATION POPULATION DONOR AGENCY GOVERNMENT From consultation to influence From conditionality to accountability

5. Why Mutual Accountability? • Aid effectiveness requires country ownership, including in donor coordination, BUT... • Contradictions: (a) power imbalance, (b) broken and distorted accountabilities, (c) variety of actors involved, (d) risk-sharing. THEREFORE... • Need for: (a) more recipient country voice, power and capacity to challenge donors, (b) better mechanisms for promoting shared goals and reciprocal commitments and monitoring

6. Some definitions... • Paris Declaration • Donors and recipients carry out ‘mutual assessments of progress in implementing agreed commitments and more broadly their development partnership’ • DFID ‘working definition’ • ‘Two or more parties have shared development goals, in which each has legitimate claims that the other is responsible for fulfilling, and where each may be required to explain how they have discharged their responsibilities, and be sanctioned if they fail to deliver’

7. What is required • Information • Monitoring mechanisms • Incentives (rewards/sanctions) • Reputation • Regulation • Competition

8. Existing Int’l Mechanisms and Proposals • Cotonou Agreement • Paris Declaration • ECOSOC (‘In Larger Freedom’) • Global Monitoring Reports • Africa Partnership Forum/MRDE • ActionAid and DRI proposals

9. Some comments on Int’l Mechanisms • More information being made available... (but is it being used?) • Weak monitoring systems... (are donors interested in being accountable?) • Only reputational incentives... (no existing regulator or market for aid) • Lack of ‘mutual cartelisation’... (lack of capacity or lack of interest?)

10. Country-level Models of MA

11. The 4 ‘Cs’: Factors promoting MA • Confidence (developing trust) • Credibility (vision and strategy) • Coherence (speaking with one voice) • Capacity (technical and political)

12. Impact of MA • On Government/donor relationships • On donor behaviour • On government policies • Are these mechanisms sustainable?

13. Links between int’l and country processes • Paris Declaration is only significant international mechanism at country level • Limitations: • Knowledge is limited • No sharing of experiences • Nature of monitoring process being designed

14. What can donors do? • At the international level • Generation and dissemination of information • Paris monitoring process • Encourage independent monitoring • Reform DAC Peer Review process • Look into ’regulation’ and ’competition’ in the aid system • Promote ’mutual cartelisation’

15. What can donors do? (cont...) • At the country level • Generation and dissemination of information • Encourage independent and recipient-led monitoring • Adopt and promote more coherent and responsible donor behaviour • Invest in capacity for aid management

16. What can donors do? (cont...) • At home • Review existing policies and procedures against mutual accountability principles

17. THANK YOU... pderenzio@odi.org.uk