Signs Accra Could Result in Agenda for Inaction

Monday, 11 August 2008 17:09

The latest draft of the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) has been stripped of any specific time-bound commitments to which donors can be held to account and the document has being seriously watered down.  The Ministerial Communiqué is being discussed by a so-called “Consensus group” made up of a mixture of representatives from donor countries, developing countries and multilateral organisations.  But rather than leaving things open for negotiation in Accra, some donors – particularly the US and the World Bank – appear to be pushing for agreement on a lowest common denominator text at this stage.

Eurodad believes that the draft has been weakened in several places. Donors are backtracking on a number of areas including: on commitments to reduce aid conditionality, on commitments to make aid more predictable, to use country systems, to reform technical assistance and on mutual accountability.  Yet again, donors seem to be unwilling to practice what they preach and be held account for their commitments in the same way they are calling on developing countries to do so.  In the current draft developing countries are encouraged to design country-based action plans that set out time-bound and monitorable proposal to implement the Paris Declaration and the AAA, but donors are not mentioned. And despite the many concerns about the current monitoring process of the Paris Declaration, even the minor commitment to independent monitoring has been removed in the latest draft.

European governments (and all other members of the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness) have until Tuesday 5th August to register their objections to the draft Communiqué that has been circulated.  This is an opportunity for the French Presidency to show its leadership and ensure strong coordinated comments from the EU that would give some potential for a useful outcome at Accra.

The CSO International Steering Group on aid effectiveness (see www.betteraid.org), on which Eurodad sits, will release a joint response to the latest draft on Monday.