1. Mutual Accountability: Meaning and Challenges Tony Killick

2. THREE STRANDS IN PUSH FOR MUTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY 1. Concerns about aid effectiveness Stress on co-ordination Harmonisation- alignment Work of the OECD/DAC Rome & Paris 2. (Related) Decline of faith in older modalities (projects, expert-driven TA) Reinforced by PRSP movement/MDGs

3. 3. Loss of confidence in conditionality-based relationships; desire to develop alternatives 3. Loss of confidence in conditionality-based relationships; desire to develop alternatives Stress on owership & dialogue the rhetoric of partnership Mutual accountability as application of logic of partnership

4. CHALLENGES: mixed incentives (a) For recipients * Benefits of better aid/lower transactions costs (but how to enforce?) * Opportunity for ownership/leadership But: * Danger of ganging up, extended control * Distortion of accountability

5. Mixed incentives (b) For donors More effectiveness and influence, improved dialogue/access, better information BUT: * Gets in way of some objectives * Complicates their accountability * Reduces policy autonomy, pushed in potentially unwelcome directions (inc. decentralisation)

6. AND: * Raises issues of inter-agency relations (e.g. who leads?). Peer pressures may be unwelcome. * May be inconsistent with HQ policies, political sensitivities BASIC QUESTION: Is language of partnership more than rhetorical?