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Search by Keywords: Advanced Search Sign-up here! Subscription is free and allows you to receive email newsletters, alerts, and to access a comprehensive member directory and network with other development professionals. Sign-up here About this Report This Special Report provides a forum for a wide array of perspectives about donor aid to the developing world, with a focus on aid harmonization and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Participating in this Special Report are our online communities focused on: Afghanistan Reconstruction Aid Effectiveness Capacity Building for MDGs Culture & Development E-Government E-Learning Environment Food Security Gender and Development Governance HIV/AIDS ICT for Development Indigenous Issues Iraq: Relief and Recovery Microfinance Non-Governmental Organizations Population and Reproductive Health Poverty Trade Urban Development Water Resources Management     Our next Special Report "Empowering the Next Generation: Youth in the Developing World" coming in December 2006. Become a Development Gateway member, and you will be notified of our upcoming reports. Sign-up! See previous Special Reports here. Special Report The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available From Our Members What Helps or Hinders Donor Cooperation in Developing Countries? Multilateral and bilateral donor cooperation is a relatively recent concept. What practices promote donor cooperation? What are the larger issues facing the donor community? A Development Gateway survey asked its users: What helps or hinder donor cooperation in developing countries? Brenda Anugwom - Nigeria My opinion about aid agencies or donors, as they are popularly called, stems from their archaic and slow manner of doing things. How can a donor take months to deliver to the people they are donating to? A continent like Africa where all its countries are developing needs to build capacity to strengthen their economies but this is often denied by the 'so-called' donors because of their archaic ways of doing things. I suggest the agencies try to improve on this and focus on what good building capacity would do for a nation—and act fast! Lockias Chitanana – Zimbabwe Accountability and transparency are reflections of the maturity of the political management cycle. Where this cycle has compromised the result is the weakening of the rule of law and the general practice of democratic tenets. This then defines the boundaries of accountability and transparency in the developing nations. I have deliberately used accountability here because I see a symbiotic relationship between it and transparency. Where there is an entrenched culture of accountability in the political business cycle, it is likely to trigger the development of systems, strategies and regulations in the Public Sector that anchor transparency. It is imperative that issues of macro-political accountability are dealt with so that an environment is created where the culture of transparency can grow. There can be no half measures here! Abduljaman Damahan – Philippines Because 70% of the poor live in rural areas, the MDG agenda must focus on the rural poor if the world community is really sincere about reducing world poverty. For effective aid delivery to developing nations, I am in favor of multi-sectoral participation of stakeholders, NGOs, private consultants and civil society with the participation of Independent monitoring team. Funds must not be given directly to the government because the funds will only be misused and diverted to the personal pocket. Binod Lama Yolmo - Nepal We are Yolmo indigenous minority community in Nepal. The World Bank had a program providing assistance to indigenous people in different parts of the world. All the indigenous people and their associations appreciated the offer. Unfortunately to be eligible to receive the assistance, indigenous people should be experienced in writing a proposal, which is absolutely senseless. Indigenous people like the Yolmo have no resources or manpower to prepare a nice proposal. We prepared a proposal in the simplest way and it was not accepted by the World Bank. Now the question arises: is the fund only for those indigenous people's organizations that already have the expertise to get a grant. Amera Yunus – Pakistan Most donor and recipient societies are widely divergent in their cultural, religious and economic backgrounds. This can be a barrier to effective planning and implementation of aid programmes. For example when ICT-related projects were first launched in Asian countries, the status of the extended families in Asian communities was not taken into account. In these countries, if you are going to provide a mobile connection or a computer in one home, then other families in the community will automatically want the same. On a more positive note, most donor and aid agencies are becoming increasingly aware of these differences and are taking effective steps to overcome the barriers. Nyaga Andrew - Tanzania These things help: trust; peace and security in the country concerned; citizen participation; good political situation; need for the world to have equal development plan; availability of technical assistance. These things hinder: poor infrastructure; bad governmental policy; instability of security; neo-colonialism; lack of development; different ideology from donors; civil war; corruption; selfishness; and tribalism among leaders of some countries. Cleophas Torori – Liberia A win-win situation that involves the alignment of development assistance around national policies and programmes, typified, for example, by the harmonization of the budget calendar of government and the financial calendar of donors results in significant gains in the delivery of aid to developing countries; on the contrary, separate and parallel donor systems and procedures, divergent reporting, M&E systems, coupled with fragmented and uncoordinated projects with heavy dependence on technical assistance in executing them severely impedes effective delivery of aid. In Kenya, the increasing alignment of development assistance around the economic recovery strategy buttressed by renewed commitments from Rome and Paris is helping to galvanize aid delivery to better achieve the MDGs. Jane Thomas – U.K. In 20 years of development work, while I have witnessed some truly wonderful awe-inspiring mutual help and co-operation between NGOs, it is far more common to see NGOs completely ignore each other, except perhaps for The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available polite greetings at 'co-ordination meetings'. Out in reality, away from the NGO offices, I have seen many more examples of NGOs just stomping over each other, figuratively stabbing each other in the back, deliberately trying to squeeze other NGOs out, and other truly unfortunate behaviour. In this way a tremendous amount of money and other resources are wasted and opportunities missed. Whatever the cause, the lack of real co-ordination is a major problem to be overcome. Cornelius Hopmann – Nicaragua The not-talked-about secondary objectives, i.e. both sides of the game –donor agencies and receiver agencies--pursue their own institutional objectives, like gaining a greater international profile, convincing other parties like members of national parties or the true donors, winning the next election and so forth. Maybe because these objectives are considered “unethical” in a donor-receiver setting, projects are not openly negotiated and hence produce permanent, uncontrollable noise. If aid were managed more like a business with gains for both sides, it would help. Michael Demian – U.S. Donor aid is often hindered by various factors from both sides. Although a country may be in desperate need of aid, often times, the amount of aid received is not nearly enough due to that country not meeting various requirements imposed on by the donor agency. A country can improve its status in order to obtain more aid by focusing efforts on transparency, and effective management of funds. This can be achieved through bilateral partnerships with foreign governments, private firms, and non-profit entities via knowledge transfer and training. In order for the MDGs to be achieved, more emphasis needs to be put on bilateral aid transfers to developing countries, without the stringent requirements set forth by donor agencies. This would also foster international partnerships for both the public and private sectors, thus contributing to economic growth, sustainability, and local capacity building. Rockford Lang – Canada Individual donor interests and agendas hinder cooperation. Project executing agencies taking the initiative to meet with in-country donor agencies to identify pst and existing projects in a specific sector helps to build upon past accomplishments. Levon Galstyan – Armenia The main problem is cooperation between donors in joining efforts to support targets. Developing countries face many problems and donor resources must be more concentrated and targeted. More cooperation between donors and CSO (civil society organizations) is also needed. CSOs must be considered implementers and supporters for donors because they include state organizations and also businesses. Stephen McGaughey – U.S. What 'hinders' are the separate agendas of the leading aid and assistance organizations and the 'culture of approvals' that drive the organizations to meet annual lending and other activity goals. Also, at the local level the organizations are essentially competitors for limited public and private capacity to implement programs, policies and projects. What helps is that the knowledge on the use of funds is open to public scrutiny. Sunday Adimula - Nigeria Donor cooperation is helped when developing countries or agencies do not divert aid to private 'pockets' and when community participation is ensured by giving aid in support of actual community needs, instead of felt or assumed needs. Strong political will is also needed on the part of developing nations' government to ensure that aid achieves the desired purpose. Efefiong Akpan - Nigeria Understanding that there are talented people aside from those in government who have potentials and need help! Emmanuel C. Roldan - Philippines There are a lot of factors that help or hinder donor cooperation in delivering aid to developing countries. But for me, what helps most is knowing the expressed needs of the target groups and synchronizing aid to these needs. The main hindrance is the high standards of requirements and complicated processes set for local partners/implementers and target groups. Purushothaman Pillai – India Aid should be directed so that many people can participate. Funds are so scarce that other means and services should be activated. We have to see what can also be done without money. SpecialsBody3Sec24 The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available Email this page Sign-up Quick Poll From Our Members How did Development Gateway members respond to our Aid Harmonization Survey questions? How can development results be assured to achieve the MDGs? What tools and mechanisms best support aid harmonization? Security & Development: Why Aid Effectiveness Matters (NEW) Kazuo Sunaga Minister Japan Mission to UN Read Global Financing For the MDGs: What's Possible? John W. McArthur Deputy Director UN Millennium Project  Read Aid Harmonization: A New Paradigm for Donors? Richard Manning Chairman OECD/DAC  Read Building Know-How in Africa: Where are the Results? Soumana Sako Executive Secretary African Capacity Building Foundation Read Civil Society: Helping to Shape Policy Kumi Naidoo Secretary-General CIVICUS Read Points of View: Aid Donors Read interviews with multilateral and bilateral donors and an aid policy thank tank about the complexities of donor aid harmonization. Read Points of View: Aid Recipients What do countries think about aid harmonization as a development tool? Read interviews from Laos and Nicaragua. Read Points of View: Civil Society How are civil society and the private sector working with the public sector on the blueprint to disburse US$3.5 million in tsunami aid in Indonesia? Read In Numbers How does donor support for the MDGs stack up? Charts and graphs measuring aid flows and public support- click here. Partners

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