CSOs on the Road to Busan: Key Messages and Proposals March 2011

Purpose of “CSOs on the Road to Busan”  Agree and articulate a shared CSO platform of key messages and clear proposals for the outcome of the Busan High Level Forum with commitments, which are ambitious, specific and measureable, and are based on development effectiveness, human rights and social justice.  These messages and proposals are derived from the work of both the BetterAid Platform and the Open Forum on CSO Development Effectiveness.  While the BetterAid Platform is acknowledged as the CSO platform for coalescing CSOs and projecting this agenda to the Working Party and the Busan HLF, this document serves as the reference point for both shared strategies to promote CSOs proposals, and a division of labour within and between the BetterAid Coordinating Group (CG) and the Open Forum’s Global Facilitating Group (GFG) to implement these strategies relevant to their specific mandates.

What are the sources for CSO key messages and proposals?  BetterAid policy background papers on development effectiveness and aid architecture;  Open Forum’s consultations on enabling conditions for CSO development effectiveness, synthesized for the 2010 Global Assembly and the Draft Framework for CSO Development Effectiveness;  Open Forum’s advocacy strategy and key demands following the September Istanbul Global Assembly;  BetterAid Coordinating Group (BACG) meeting, October 2010, in Paris, small group and plenary discussion of proposals for key messages and proposals; and  Feedback from the BACG and Open Forum Global Facilitating Group on draft messages in January 2011.

Framework for Key Messages  Over-arching goal of development effectiveness for BetterAid/Open Forum: Deeping the impact of aid and development cooperation on the capacities of the poor and marginalized people to realize their rights and achieve the Internationally Agreed Development Goals.  CSO proposals focus on three inter-dependent areas for reform essential for a meaningful & ambitious Busan Declaration on Development Effectiveness.  Completing and deepening current aid effectiveness commitments;  Operationalizing development effectiveness; and  Promoting an equitable and just development cooperation architecture, with systemic changes in global governance of international development cooperation.  Each require negotiated, specific, time-bound and measureable commitments.  WP-EFF Menu of Options Framework:  Core “aid effectiveness and/ or “results” agenda (unfinished business and framework towards comprehensive implementation by 2015 and beyond); and  Aid in the broader development context (aid quality in the broader context of development effectiveness).

A. Complete and deepen current aid effectiveness commitments by... 1.Taking stock of commitments with all aid actors: 1.1 An inclusive assessment of Paris and Accra commitments. 2.Carrying forward the Paris and Accra commitments on aid effectiveness: 2.1 Promote democratic ownership of development policies and actions. 2.2 Regular, broad and inclusive multi-stakeholder country-level policy dialogue on development strategies, policies and programs. 2.3 Strengthen commitment and realize program-based approaches, with using country systems as the first option by donors in bilateral government-to-government aid. 2.4 End donor policy conditions attached to aid negotiations and disbursements. 2.5 End all formal and informal practices of aid tying. 2.6 Make technical assistance fully demand-driven, responsive to country needs. 2.7 Deliver on aid predictability (three to five year funding tranches). 2.8 Ensure support for private sector does not undermine agreed development goals and human rights standards, but supports their realization.

A. Complete and deepen current aid effectiveness commitments by... 3.Implement full transparency as the basis for strengthening accountability: 3.1 Create and strengthen clear inclusive accountability frameworks at global and country levels, based on country-led processes and respect for the human rights obligations of each development actor. 3.2 Adhere to and implement the highest standards of openness and transparency, by implementing IATI and recognizing civil society initiatives to improve CSO accountability and transparency.

B. Operationalize development effectiveness by... 4.Giving centrality to human rights, eradicating the root causes of poverty and inequality. 4.1 Commit to rights-based approaches to reforms in development cooperation and its practices. 5.Promoting and implementing gender equality and women’s rights: 5.1 Place gender equality and women’s rights at the centre for achieving development effectiveness. 6.Implementing the decent work agenda as the cornerstone for socially inclusive and sustainable development strategies. 6.1 Implement economic development strategies based on the recognition of social rights, with social inclusion, social protection, and social dialogue. 7.Ensuring the full participation of CSOs as independent development actors in their own right. 7.1 Recognize and adopt the Istanbul Principles for CSO Development Effectiveness as the basis for assessing CSO contributions to development for donor and government policies that enable these contributions. 7.2 Engage CSOs working through the Open Forum to agree on minimum standards for government and donor policies, laws, regulations and practices that create an enabling environment for CSOs.

C. Promote an equitable and just development cooperation architecture by... 8.Proposing fundamental reforms in the global governance of development cooperation. 8.1 Propose an inclusive multilateral process to consider a binding agreement on development effectiveness, negotiated within the United Nations and the framework of UN human rights conventions and covenants. 8.2 Promote inter-institutional cooperation and collaboration between the OECD Working Party on Aid Effectiveness and UN mechanisms, such as the Development Cooperation Forum, to strengthen the institutions for policy dialogue.

Some unresolved or outstanding issues... 1.Greater focus and measurable outcomes for CSO proposals, particularly on unfulfilled Paris/Accra commitments? 2.Drawing attention to declining aid resources for development and their distortion for foreign policy purposes? 3.Creating greater attention to the CSO development effectiveness agenda in the document and the profile of our proposals? Consider Open Forum principles and standards as minimum conditions that can be adapted and enhanced in country or organizational contexts? Engagement with donors and governments through the Open Forum or Open Forum only as one entry into these discussions? 4.More clearly calling for the UN Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) as the only legitimate forum for policy dialogue on aid and development cooperation? 5.More clearly calling for a binding Convention on Development Effectiveness?