Promoting Mutual Accountability in Aid Relationships Paolo de Renzio Overseas Development Institute

“This hall has heard enough high-sounding declarations to last us for some decades to come. We all know what the problems are, and we all know what we have promised to achieve. What is needed now is not more declarations or promises, but action to fulfil the promises already made.” Kofi Annan

Background  Follow-up to Paris Declaration  Results of PRS Review  Little comparative knowledge of country experiences in managing aid relationships  Shifting the focus to donor accountability

Who ‘owns’ what? Who is accountable to whom? POPULATION DONOR COUNTRIESRECIPIENT COUNTRIES DONOR AGENCY GOVERNMENT POPULATION Parliament Civil Society Parliament Civil Society POLICY CYCLE - PRS - Budget From conditionality to accountability From consultation to influence

Why Mutual Accountability?  Aid effectiveness requires country ownership, including in donor coordination, BUT...  Contradictions: (a) power imbalance, (b) broken and distorted accountabilities, (c) variety of actors involved, (d) risk-sharing. THEREFORE...  Need for: (a) more recipient country voice, power and capacity to challenge donors, (b) better mechanisms for promoting shared goals and reciprocal commitments and monitoring

Some definitions...  Paris Declaration  Donors and recipients carry out ‘mutual assessments of progress in implementing agreed commitments and more broadly their development partnership’  DFID ‘working definition’  ‘Two or more parties have shared development goals, in which each has legitimate claims that the other is responsible for fulfilling, and where each may be required to explain how they have discharged their responsibilities, and be sanctioned if they fail to deliver’

What is required  Information  Monitoring mechanisms  Incentives (rewards/sanctions)  Reputation  Regulation  Competition

Existing Int’l Mechanisms and Proposals  Cotonou Agreement  Paris Declaration  ECOSOC (‘In Larger Freedom’)  Global Monitoring Reports  Africa Partnership Forum/MRDE  ActionAid and DRI proposals

Some comments on Int’l Mechanisms  More information being made available... (but is it being used?)  Weak monitoring systems... (are donors interested in being accountable?)  Only reputational incentives... (no existing regulator or market for aid)  Lack of ‘mutual cartelisation’... (lack of capacity or lack of interest?)

Country-level Models of MA ORIGINS Led by crisis in government/donor relations Led by recipient government RES PON SES Rules- oriented Mozambique MoU regulating GBS Donor performance assessment framework Afghanistan Rules of donor engagement Strong aid database management Process- oriented Tanzania Independent Monitoring Group TAS and JAS Vietnam Setting of priorities and project approval Division of responsibilities

The 4 ‘Cs’: Factors promoting MA  Confidence (developing trust)  Credibility (vision and strategy)  Coherence (speaking with one voice)  Capacity (technical and political)

Impact of MA  On Government/donor relationships  On donor behaviour  On government policies  Are these mechanisms sustainable?

Links between int’l and country processes  Paris Declaration is only significant international mechanism at country level  Limitations:  Knowledge is limited  No sharing of experiences  Nature of monitoring process being designed

What can donors do?  At the international level  Generation and dissemination of information  Paris monitoring process  Encourage independent monitoring  Reform DAC Peer Review process  Look into ’regulation’ and ’competition’ in the aid system  Promote ’mutual cartelisation’

What can donors do? (cont...)  At the country level  Generation and dissemination of information  Encourage independent and recipient- led monitoring  Adopt and promote more coherent and responsible donor behaviour  Invest in capacity for aid management

What can donors do? (cont...)  At home  Review existing policies and procedures against mutual accountability principles

THANK YOU...