Ten million dollar Agenda for Inaction?
September 2nd, 2008Posted by Lucy Hayes
Negotiations have been going on all day in Accra at the High Level Forum on aid effectiveness but the stories seeping out are not encouraging. Japan and the US – the latter generally supported by the World Bank – seem to be in particular blocking progress. With the prospect of an Accra agenda for Inaction being announced on Thursday which ignores the demands of civil society and developing countries, it is hard not to ask how much this event is costing….
My back of the envelope calculations amounts to a conservative estimate of ten million dollars!!! (1,500 people, many in US$300 hotels (not mine of course), many people with over 100 dollar per diems, flights averaging 1,500 dollars, conference venue etc etc) and you can see how quickly it all adds up). All this for what could just result in some warm words and no actions to reform aid. A press briefing is going on beside where I am sitting. A number of the journalists have asked – what are the main issues being discussed? But none of the spokespeople could come back with a straight answer! I don’t think that it is a lack of discussion that is a problem, negotiations have been going on for hours, often around just one word – but just not enough commitment for moving forwards.
There are lots of tired and stressed looking people coming in and out of negotiating rooms. The danger of course is that the EU will cave in on their bottom line and that the developing countries will give up banging their heads against a brick wall. If that happens, two or three countries will go home happy, and the whole thing will have been a monumental waste of time.
The optimist in me is hoping that the EU – who are having their coordination meeting as I tap away – will agree that it is not ok for the ‘unholy alliance’ of the US, Japan and the Bank to scupper this whole business…
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:44 am
Is there a risk that the whole show falls apart on Thursday? If the “unholy alliance” keeps pulling things in one direction, if developing countries do not see any of their demands taken up in the final text, and if the EU is torn in the middle and does not manage to persuade the US to come to terms, what is going to happen?
It is true that there is too much pressure on the 1,500 people present in Ghana – including the tired and stressed looking negotiatiors – to let everything fall apart. But I wouldn’t personally like to be sitting at the dinner tonight and the lunch tomorrow where negotiators and Ministers need to reach a final agreement. Probably it is advisable that participants go to the dinner armed with digestion pills.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:04 am
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August 26th, 2009 at 10:52 am
That is a lot of money, but will it be nearly enough???