Reflections from Accra….

……on the CSO preparatory events, in the lead-up to the 3^rd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, Accra September 2-4.

by Bill Morton

I arrived in Accra on a warm, humid evening. It was 8 pm, and my taxi driver was using every trick in the book to battle the jam-packed streets. I asked him why, at this hour of the day, the traffic was so bad. He explained patiently, hinting that I should really know better than to ask such a question. This was, after all, was the start of the weekend. People were doing what they always do at this time: leaving the bustling capital of two million people, and heading out to the villages and rural areas. Some would attend weddings, or funerals, or other ceremonial events, and others would simply spend time with their extended families.

For a moment, I wished I too was heading out of town. Instead, I would be here in the capital for a week, along with hundreds of international and local people, to attend several meetings in the lead-up to the largest ever international meeting devoted entirely to the subject of aid: the 3^rd High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.

Now, four days on, several groups have completed meetings in preparation for the High-Level Forum. Each has discussed existing international commitments on aid, in particular the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, agreed on in 2005 by donor and developing country governments. These meetings have been designed, in particular, to ensure that civil society viewpoints are adequately considered at the HLF, and that these viewpoints will be reflected in the new agreements that are reached.

Discussion at the meetings has been lively and frequently provocative. On occasion, passions jave overflowed into anger. This is hardly surprising: the vexed question of who benefits from aid directly affects peoples’ livelihoods. Will the High-Level Forum (HLF) produce outcomes that will improve living conditions for the 1.4 billion people currently living in poverty? Or will it simply reinforce the stranglehold that donor countries and institutions exert over aid policy and decision making, and over the considerable resources commanded by the international aid system?

Grassroots women’s groups at the International Women’s Forum, for instance, questioned whether the Hihg-Level Forum will make any difference to women in Darfur who are battling poverty and insecurity. Will new commitments in Accra increase their security and result in more resources for fighting HIV/AIDS, for ensuring access to clean water, and for addressing maternal mortality? On the question of aid policy, the Women’s Forum made a clear statement: the ultimate test of whether aid is effective is not whether developing countries manage their aid funds better, or whether donors coordinate their actions. Effective aid, according to those attending the Women’s Forum, should lead to the elimination of poverty and to gender equality, human rights and environmental sustainability.

This message was strongly endorsed during the two-day Civil Society Parallel Forum, the main lead-up event to the HLF. Attended by over 500 people from 325 civil society organizations (CSOs) from 88 countries, the meeting examined the role of civil society organizations as development actors in their own right. It underlined that international and national efforts to advance aid effectiveness will fail unless CSOs are central actors in the process. Some participants suggested this is recognized in the draft “Accra Agenda for Action” (AAA) that is likely to be agreed on at the HLF, and that will include new commitments on improving aid effectiveness. Overall, however, stakeholders at the CSO Parallel Forum were highly critical of the AAA. They agreed on a joint statement summarizing their concerns and demands.

The joint statement provides an enlightening snapshot of how CSOs from around the globe view the HLF and official commitments on aid effectiveness. It highlights the lack of progress made by donor and developing country governments in meeting existing agreements such as the Paris Declaration, and calls on them to respond to these shortcomings with urgency. The statement outlines a number of “minimum” demands. These include broadening the definition of “ownership” so that citizens, civil society and elected officials are central to the aid process at all levels; ending tied aid, and reforming conditionality. Perhaps most importantly, however, the meeting agreed that aid is only one factor – and often not the most important – in advancing development. In fact, developing countries and their people share a vision of a world where aid is no longer needed. Their primary concern is for justice: in the areas of trade, climate change, south-north resource flows, debt, and gender equality, as well as in relation to aid.

Now, as I sit in my hotel room, Ghanaians have returned from their villages for the working week .They are going about their daily lives, forging livelihoods in a country that is hailed as a development success, but where inequality is increasing and where thousands struggle to get by. Over the next couple of days many of them will hear that the HLF is occurring on their doorstep. They may not hear, however, that the 80 civil society representatives permitted to attend the Forum, who will take forward the messages from the lead-up events, are vastly outnumbered by the 800 “official” delegates from donor and developing countries. The CSO Parallel Forum gave them clear instructions: to make sure the voice of civil society is heard at the HLF. They will need to do just that. Otherwise, the meeting will result in more of the same, and as usual, it will be those who are supposed to benefit from aid that suffer the consequences.

The North-South Insitute is contributing to these meetings in a number for ways.

View our Policy Note on “Reforming aid and development cooperation: Accra, Doha and beyond”.

As well if you want to know more about the CSO Parallel Forum, visit betteraid.org

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