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Points of View
Aid Donors: The Challenge of Aid Harmonization |
 The movement to harmonize development assistance to poor countries points to a paradigm shift in how aid donors conduct business with their development partners. The interviews and resources presented here provide an overview of the enormous challenges—and opportunities—that aid harmonization is presenting to both international multilateral and bilateral donors.
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"Beyond donor coordination, a real division of labor is needed for aid
harmonization. More "silent partnerships" and delegated cooperation according to
comparative advantages of donors are needed. To harmonize, coordinate, align and
participate in joint approaches, decentralization and delegation of authority
from donors’ headquarters to the field offices is required. Partner countries
receiving aid will be expected to have operational development strategies with a
long-term vision and a medium-term approach in how to achieve specific
development targets. Ownership and capacity building are key to budget and
program-based support. To improve transparency and guarantee control of aid
through national parliaments, aid flows should be reported on budget. For all of
this, information and communication technologies can provide helpful tools."
Dr.
Michael Hofmann, Director General, Global and Sectoral
Policies
Multilateral and European Development Policy;
German
Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
(BMZ)
"...Scaling up of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) needs to go hand in hand
with efforts to enhance aid effectiveness. Simply increasing ODA without
improving aid effectiveness is...counterproductive." (Read
full interview)
Kazuo
Sunaga
Minister
Permanent Mission of Japan to the United
Nations
“The MDGs are ambitious goals, particularly for the poorest countries where
there has been limited progress or often retrogression since 1990. For those
countries, it’s really important that there’s no wait-and-see attitude, but a
strong upfront signal of commitment from donors that says “we will back you when
you put forward your strategy.” Otherwise, there is too little incentive for the
poorest countries to think that there will be enough assistance forthcoming for
them to achieve the MDGs.” (Read
full interview)
John
W. McArthur
Deputy Director of the UN Millennium Project
"By far the biggest problem is lack of political buy-in from donor countries to
move from harmonization rhetoric to changing systems and procedures… Without
incentives, it is very difficult for donor organizations to become learning
organizations that can actually transfer knowledge and learning from one context
to another." (Read
full interview)
Paolo
de Renzio, Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure (CAPE)
Overseas
Development Institute, London
"The challenge for Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) is to balance donor
expectations to recipients’ capacity to deliver the results. We have to bear in
mind that development at best is a risky process. MDBs are ideally constituted,
structured and positioned to manage donor expectations and helping recipients to
deliver results." (Read
full interview)
James
Rockett, Resident Director
North American Regional Office, Asian
Development Bank
"Harmonization is a tool to achieve greater aid effectiveness. It is a way
for donors to act together without any precise rules...It’s a change in the way
donor aid has been delivered for the past 60 years.” (Read
full interview)
Chris
Hall, Program Coordinator
Harmonization and Alignment Policy Review and
Dissemination Group (OPCPD), World
Bank | |
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 How did Development Gateway members respond to our Aid Harmonization Survey questions?
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| How does donor support for the MDGs stack up? Charts and graphs measuring aid flows and public support- click here. |
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