Ghana's Cabinet passes national aid policy

Cabinet is expected to fully pass the national aid policy document to harmonise and promote aid effectiveness, and to improve country ownership and leadership of aid management, Mary-Anne Addo, Director, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, has disclosed.

The framework, expected to receive final passage by end-July this year, will become the nation’s short-term aid policy blue-print which will provide guidelines for attracting aid to support developmental agenda from 2011 to 2015.

The aid policy framework has 10 thematic areas, including policies and strategies which focus on country systems and coordination of aid management to ensure accountability and transparency in aid inflows.

“Global Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) is US$120billion. We need a value for the money framework to make sure this is spent as effectively as possible.
“Aid effectiveness is about making aid make a difference; keep it simple, stick to the essentials -- ownership,” Ms Addo said.

Concerns have been raised by stakeholders, civil society organisations and policy analysts of the need for government to develop pragmatic strategies to wean itself from aid and concessionary loans and become self-dependent.

Ms. Addo, who is the Director, External Resource Mobilisation (Multilateral) Division at MoFEP, made this disclosure at a two-day capacity building seminar on Aid effectiveness for select financial journalists and information officers aimed at equipping them with practical understanding of the 2005 Paris Declaration (PD) and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Accra (AAA) on Aid Effectiveness at Akosombo in the Eastern Region.

It was also targetted at exposing participants to current trends in development cooperation, provide journalists with an overview of different donor aid modalities, and enlighten them on the use of country systems. The sessions will also provide a platform for participants to deliberate and contribute views for an upcoming High Level Forum (HLF- 4) in Busan, South Korea, in November this year.

Ms. Addo, presenting a paper on under the topic “The Aid Architecture Reform Agenda: The Journey from Monterey through Paris and Accra to Busan”, noted that development aid to partner countries did not fully achieve desired results due to how aid is delivered and managed.

She said several partner and donor countries, international and civil society organisations, meeting in Paris at the Second High-Level Forum (HLF-2) on Aid Effectiveness in 2005, committed themselves to reforming aid delivery and management to achieve greater effectiveness and results.

The stakeholders, she said, agreed on the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness which included Partnership Commitments to strengthen ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results, and mutual accountability.

“Since aid effectiveness was about value for money, benchmarks are needed for donor and partner countries -- which were not clearly spelt out at that time. The PD and the AAA were therefore a step forward in ensuring greater aid effectiveness and results since they provide those benchmarks.

“Partner countries, since the Paris Declaration,” she noted, “have developed better understanding of aid effectiveness; but the development agenda is still threatened by over bureaucratisation.” She therefore called for political engagement and mutual trust on the part of both sides to achieve results.

Touching on fragmentation of donor assistance, Ms. Addo said the practice increases transaction cost and affects implementation of projects. According to the director, the practice would not be a problem if donors did not insist that partner countries adopt donor-country systems to deliver aid.

She called for a true partnership in which donors support the recipients while recognising and respecting their country systems.

Ms. Addo suggested the establishment of a common arrangement to simplify procedures, and in addition urged donors to share information among them to help manage results for mutual accountability.

Mrs. Stella Williams, External Resource Mobilisation Division, welcoming participants indicated that development cooperation is being shaped by the Paris Declaration and the AAA, which are focusing on achieving the MDGs.

She said the sheer scale and complexity of the modern global aid and development agenda makes the drive for aid and development effectiveness one of the most important global public service initiatives currently being undertaken.

“This process has not delivered all the expected results or included the concerns of all stakeholders, which is essential for national cohesion and stability. There is, however, the will to improve national ownership of projects and accountability.”

But she warned that they can only be realised if all stakeholders are conversant with the development cooperation agenda and application of the principles in the PD and the AAA.

“Journalists are key partners in developing understanding for all stakeholders by disseminating development effectiveness lessons, which can be shared across various partner countries.

“Discussions will increase development cooperation issues for the development agenda. There is an open forum for journalists to contribute their views towards the HLF-4,” she remarked.