In Tanzania in 2000, just over half of children did not go to school – a decade later, underpinned by aid, every child has a place. Every day the lives of almost 500 children – the equivalent of 16 primary school classes – are saved by mosquito nets and malaria medicines paid for by aid. Reducing aid dependence and developping the mobilisation of domestic ressources are essential, but pulling the plug on aid would almost certainly result in vast increases in poverty, the collapse of burgeoning health and education systems, and major reverses in the progress that has been made.

 

Yet while aid saves lives daily, there’s a lot to be improved. There’s still not enough transparency about what aid is given, too often assistance is tied to economic policy conditions, and aid from all sources is wasted when it’s unpredictable and uncoordinated.

And so it’s crucial that the fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness map out a way to make global development aid work better.  At the end of this month, Ban Ki Moon, Hilary Clinton and ministers from around the world with gather with 3000 others in Busan, South Korea to agree a path for new and more effective global aid partnerships. But making aid work better is going to need new political energy and commitment.

In the “Paris declaration” of 2005, donors and recipient countries made a deal: countries getting aid would do a better job managing it - setting their own strategies for poverty reduction, improve their institutions, and tackling corruption. In return, donors would change their behaviour – they would improve coordination and predictability of aid flows, and allow developing countries to manage aid and drive their own development. And both agreed a global monitoring system which would keep track of progress and revise and improve future aid.

Six years on, the OECD’s latest monitoring report (available here) shows that countries receiving aid have done well on keeping their promises. Donors have not. Out of thirteen targets donors and recipients agreed, donors made significant progress on only one: they now communicate better with each other.

The response of donor countries to this poor record? An attempt to change the rules. Donors are now considering reducing or abandoning global aid monitoring systems meant to improve the quality of their overseas aid. But this would weaken pressure to make aid more effective, and make it extremely difficult to continue to uphold the Paris principles in practice.

And with donors feeling pressure at home to show quick fixes and ‘value for money’ for aid spending, many are now trying to shift all responsibility for making aid work to Southern countries. Indeed, some have even suggested withholding their aid until recipients demonstrate ‘results’ based on donor’s needs rather than their own needs and priorities. This threatens years of progress on improving aid and fighting poverty and improving aid.

The Busan meeting is an unprecedented opportunity to fix what’s wrong with aid. If done right, a new global agreement on aid effectiveness will plot a path that will defeat our common enemies: hunger, disease and poverty.

 

The author

Luc Lamprière is the Director of Oxfam France since 2007. He worked as a journalist in France, Korea, Japan and in the United States where he was a correspondent for Libération. He also worked as a consultant in Mexico, Sudan and Kenya.

Oxfam France is a member of the Oxfam international confederation: www.oxfamfrance.org