The Government of Canada released its 2009 budget on January 27. As in previous years, NSI attended the pre-budget “lock-up”, with a view to assessing the Government’s commitments on development cooperation and aid.

Over the last few years, the Government’s budgets have provided only limited information on plans in these areas. This year’s Budget, however set a new, and unfortunate, benchmark: information on Canada’s aid program was not just limited: it was non-existent.

This omission reflects the nature of this year’s Budget. It is not, in fact, a budget at all. Rather, it is the Government’s “Economic Action Plan” for recovery from the global recession. Its main feature is a $40 billion economic stimulus package (with an emphasis on tax relief and infrastructure spending), and the “Extraordinary Financing Framework” that will provide up to $200 billion to support financing and expand credit for Canadians and business.

Anything not part of this recession recovery package does not get a mention in the Budget. So, important areas of Government expenditure that are usually routinely included – such as defense and foreign affairs, as well as development cooperation and large areas of health– are completely absent.

From a development cooperation point of view, this omission suggests that the Government does not acknowledge that impacts of the global recession may be most severe in developing countries. Rather, the Government’s response to the crisis appears to be inward-looking and limited to the national interest. While the budget statement recognizes that emerging markets will experience a more pronounced slowdown than previously thought, this is mentioned as background information only. There are no proposals for Canada’s role in addressing this slowdown.

The only hint of the Government’s agenda on aid levels comes not in the Budget but in the Throne Speech, which states that “Canada’s international assistance will continue to increase”. This broad statement most likely suggests the Government intends to fulfill previous commitments to double overall aid between 2001 and 2010, through 8% increases to the budget over the next two years. As the Canadian Council for International Cooperation has pointed out, however, the 8% increases may not, in fact, be enough to achieve the doubling of aid. Even if they do, this will leave Canadian aid at around 0.33% of GNI, well below many other OECD donors, and well short of the international target of 0.7%.

What happens to Canadian aid levels over the next couple of years is certainly important, but it is the bigger picture that matters most. What is called for is a long term plan for Canada’s aid program that indicates what will happen to aid levels after 2010, and – equally importantly –how aid will be effectively used. The Government has made some steps in the right direction, by unyting Canadian aid, and by supporting a stronger role for civil society in the development process. It is now time to build on these moves, and to articulate a comprehensive policy that will re-establish Canada as a leader in development cooperation, and that will win confidence: both of Canadians, and of those in developing countries that receive our aid.

-Bill Morton

Fraser Reilly-King
& John W. Foster

As the credit crisis cascades through world economies it threatens to put millions out of work, throw another 40 million into extremepoverty in the South, and exacerbate the already extensive food and fuel
crises. It also detracts attention and resources from the most urgent challengeof all: climate change.

While the Group of 20 (G-20) meeting in Washington added some new faces to theexclusive club of the G-7/8, and their current dominance of world economicdecision-making, it left aside representatives from more than 170 governmentswhose peoples bear a hefty share of the impacts of Wall Street’s excesses.

How can the voices and needs of the rest of humanity be integrated into global economic governance? Luckily, the G-20 is not the onlyforum this month.

This week, officials and civil society organizations fromaround the world will meet in Doha,
Qatar, under the auspices of the United Nations to review progress on the Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey
Consensus (FfD). Quite the mouthful, we know.

The agenda for Doha sounds like a good starting point for tackling today’s current global financial
crisis. The meeting has a comprehensive agenda which the G-20 lacks, and an inclusiveness and legitimacy of which the push for multilateralism-by-numbers –be it G-7, G-8, G-13 or G-20 – is bereft.

Six years ago, in response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997, world leaders met in Monterrey,
Mexico. There they examined the UN’s Millennium Development Goals to determine what countries
could do to address both the dramatic shortfall in resources required to achieve the goals, encourage
better resource mobilization at home, and deal with already chronic shortfalls in global economic governance. The Monterrey “consensus” which resulted involved not only the UN and its member states but the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization as well.

This was more than just a big push to reverse the decade-long decline in aid – although countries did commit (yet again) 0.7% of their gross national income to official development assistance (ODA). The role of domestic policy autonomy to use tariffs, taxes and apply domestic revenues to development was to be
strengthened. It noted the potential of foreign direct investment and private capital flows, as well as trade, as engines for growth. It highlighted the importance of debt relief and debt cancellation as mechanisms for freeing up resources and creating policy space for countries, no longer bound to the conditions tied to that debt relief, to pursue their own development goals. Finally it pointed to the need for greater coherence between finance, debt, aid and trade policies, within international bodies, and for a greater voice for developing countries in the institutions that help guide those policies and that system.
Developing countries in turn committed themselves to “sound policies, good governance at all levels and the rule of law”.

Today the UN is moving ahead with its high-level taskforce to assess the global financial crisis and its institutions, chaired by economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Last week it announced that next September’s General Assembly will focus on the global financial crisis. This year, the UN’s Development Cooperation Forum met for the first time, providing a more representative forum for discussing aid and development issues than the the more restricted OECD Development Assistance Committee.

Fundamental to the success of these initiatives is whether finance ministries and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund buy into a more comprehensive approach. Initial indications bode poorly. It appears that the heads of the Bank and the Fund, who were both active in Monterrey,
have both opted-out of attending Doha. Similarly, as heads of government, global agencies and ministers move to Doha, it is Development Minister Bev Oda who will head the Canadian delegation. If Monterrey
merited the participation of the Canadian Minister of Finance, shouldn’t Mr. Flaherty be packing his valise?

But, should it be the question of one or the other – the G-20 or the UN? In the lead-up to the
original Monterrey FFD conference, former Mexican President Zedillo and European Union Commissioner Delors proposed a global economic “security council” within the United Nations, an idea that had been broached by the Carlsson-Ramphal Commission a few years earlier. Such a body, composed on a basis similar to the G-20 but accountable to the whole family of nations in the UN, could have
the legitimacy and the political resources required to tackle today’s global challenges. The UN’s new Development Cooperation Forum is playing a similar role alongside the traditional forum for
discussion about aid – the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee.

Crises that confront virtually every nation require global, not partial, responses. Canada should be in the vanguard to this 21^st century multilateralism, using it to develop solutions that will serve all.

If it doesn’t, the world may be faced with not just a crisis of food, fuel and finance, but a much longer-term crisis of multilateralism.

Fraser Reilly-King is Coordinator of the Halifax Initiative Coalition.

John W. Foster is Principal Researcher at The North-South Institute. Dr. Foster is attending the Doha FFD Conference and the Civil Society Forum in Doha.

The opinions expressed
are their own.

]]> http://northsouthinstitute.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/destination-doha-test-for-a-new-multilateralism/feed/ 2 nsi2006 http://northsouthinstitute.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/the-conference/ http://northsouthinstitute.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/the-conference/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:15:23 +0000 nsi2006 http://northsouthinstitute.wordpress.com/?p=81 ]]>

NSI Researcher Pablo Heidrich recently travelled to Venezuela to attend the Annual Conference of the Latin American Association of Political Economy which took place in Caracus from October 7^th – 11^th. The conference theme for this year was very timely: “Southern Solutions for a Global Crisis”. These writings contain impressions on some of the presentations heard during the conference, discussions with some of the participants and what was seen, heard or smelled while in Venezuela.

Day 2 and 3

The conference starts for real today. We have 40 participants from 12 countries, mostly from Latin America. Here are a few lines for each of the more interesting ones.

Claudio Katz (Buenos Aires Univ.): the current crisis is not due to lack of regulation but rather to the excessive accumulation of profits in one particular economic sector — the financial one. Such over-accumulation of profit is created through the over-production of goods for consumption, financed in turn by super-profitable consumer debt. It is a systemic crisis and as such, a lesson in capitalism for the people. How it will affect average workers should be the main issue, not how to save the financial sector. Socialism is the way to go now, more urgently than ever, as capitalists will otherwise recover from this crisis by making us all pay for their bail out.

Eric Toussaint (CADTM, Belgium – Comité pour l’Annulation de la Dette du Tiers Monde /Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt): now is the time for developing countries to default on their foreign debts. The US-led system is weakened and has no capacity to react. Recall that 12 Latin American countries defaulted on their foreign debts in the 1930s. Brazil renegotiated and got a 40% discount, Mexico obtained a 90% discount from what it owed since 1910, etc. This is also the best time to move forward with nationalizations, repeal of international economic treaties, etc. Mercosur and Andean Pact must be reversed, as they represent subordinated capitalist delusions, ALBA should be promoted instead.

Pedro Paez (Ecuador’s Minister of Economic Coordination): His government envisions a multi-year program to build a people’s economy anchored on public enterprises, cooperatives and some private businesses, linked internationally by the Andean Pact, other bilateral agreements, and ALBA, too. The Bank of the South is a fundamental piece in this project, now so much so that building a people’s economy is the only way to maintain a democratic structure in Ecuador’s politics. If the Bank of the South remains stalled, a tight network of Latin American central banks might be a second best.

Haiman El Troudi (Venezuela’s People’s Minister of Economic Planning): Measures by OECD countries to contain crisis are a cartoonish expression of their lack of understanding of capitalism. Neo-liberalism hopes to save itself by regressing into classical liberalism, a paradigm already proven wrong in the 20th Century. Since Latin America has experienced several financial crises recently, we have a clear understanding of what specific crisis stage the OECD countries are going through and thus, how much time we have left to make our own reforms, strengthen our own systems and prepare for their backlash once they recover.

Jorge Marchini (University of Buenos Aires): We ought to move forward from celebrating the downfall of Wall Street and its vociferous neo-liberalism and from fretting about the possible consequences on our margins of manoeuvre. Instead, we should go deeper in our understanding of the future architecture of global finance in order to both protect our recent social gains, and also to further our autonomy from the dominant Triad i.e. how to maintain fiscal income stability in times of volatile international prices, how to curtail capital flight, how to rein in the international banks with branches in Southern countries, and other similar issues should be guiding most of our attention.

Delfa Narciza Mantilla (Asociaciones Civiles del Ecuador): The crisis of one paradigm does not necessarily strengthen another, it is their own praxis that can carry the day or not. Ecuador’s situation today illustrates this well, as policy changes for the specific material interests of the majority is what is supporting an overall change in the direction of economy. We wasted years or decades pondering over dilemmas imported from the North on what path to follow, just to understand that what the people really want is food, water, sewage, jobs, housing and freedom of expression. Whatever is materially useful in this direction ought to be taken up, the rest might as well go with Wall Street bonds.

There were several other presentations worth summarizing but being a blog, it ought to be a finite amount of text.

Journalists from Venezuelan, Cuban and Ecuadorian TV and radio stations kept on asking for interviews during the breaks, collecting sound-bites and offering more air time if we stayed longer. The Venezuelan government people also asked several of us if we wanted to stay longer as the President had noted his interest in meeting us Saturday evening, after the closing of the event. They did not seem to hear the answer when it was not yes, so they just kept asking…

Day 4

Flight back to Miami. US Homeland Security takes a particular delight in freezing the lines handling the flights from Caracas and Bogota while a rare flight from Habana (via Mexico) is given preferential passage. Cubans are escorted in groups by smiling US guards while we watch them and wait for over 2 hours to be “handled”. Our luggage from Caracas is also thoroughly checked for drugs since Venezuela is, according to the US, not cooperating any more on drug controls.

Given these issues, I miss some flights but eventually arrive in Ottawa.

-siempre Pablo

NSI Senior Researcher Pablo Heidrich recently travelled to Venezuela for the Annual Conference of the Latin American Association of Political Economy which took place in Caracus from October 7^th – 11^th. The conference theme for this year was very timely: “Southern Solutions for a Global Crisis”. These writings contain impressions on some of the presentations heard during the conference, discussions with some of the participants and what was seen, heard or smelled while in Venezuela.

Day 1

Staying at the Hotel ALBA, named in honour of the regional block Venezuela is building and now already includes Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Honduras and some of the smaller Caribbean island-nations. ALBA (which stands for Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America) was chosen as the name for this recently “nationalized” Hilton hotel. In fact, it was a government-built hotel being managed by Hilton, whose lease Chavez chose not to renew. However, there was a referendum late last year and so, the non-renewal of the Hilton’s lease was repackaged as a “nationalization”. A cheap one, indeed, since some of the other have cost billions of dollars.

The conference does not begin in its pre-arranged location but in a different one, the auditorium of the new National Academy for Economic Planning. The reason, we are told, is that our conference has already created a lot of interest and many of the students want to attend.So, we are taken by bus to that institution’s campus. Once there, a rumour provides the real reason, Chavez himself will likely attend and the university auditorium is a more “appropriate” venue than a conference room for 50 at the top of some high-rise.

Besides rumour, however, nothing is ever formally confirmed. After some 3 hours waiting and polite but persistent strategic seating changes among the intelligentsia in attendance, we assume Chavez is ready to appear. First, some 300 students come in and fill the back of the auditorium, a couple hundred more are bused in just in case and told to take the day off and picnic in the park nearby. Secondly, a chorus of some 20 people takes-up position on one side of the auditorium and starts testing their harmonies. They are dressed in Venezuelan flags, Chavistas red berets and fluorescent-blue Nike shoes (specially made for them, I am told). Thirdly, some very large guys come in jeeps and take positions around the auditorium, while two stunningly beautiful young women in very tight military uniforms stand by the platform, next to the chair where Chavez is likely to sit.

The conference begins suddenly and just five minutes into it, as the People’s Minister for Economic Planning is giving us the opening speech, he picks up a cellphone call in front of the microphone and evidently talks to Hugo Chavez. He hangs up and tells us that the President is coming to listen in and participate in our discussions. An uproar of happiness and enthusiasm comes from the crowd and the Minister struggles to continue his formal speech.

Just 10 minutes later, Hugo Chavez does arrive with a rather average entourage of bodyguards and secretaries. He greets every person in the opening panel of the conference, thanks them for coming to Venezuela, and is sincerely polite with each and every one there. He then looks straight at the public calling his name, clapping strenuously, and smiles slightly, almost shy in the face of the multitude’s visible affection for him. The chorus comes in singing the national anthem. Right after, some people in the audience ask to sign the International Socialist, a request that Chavez fatherly ignores.

After thanking and expressing his interest in listening to addresses of the conference participants, he proceeds to talk for 2 hours and 18 minutes. It is a political speech on the virtues of progressing towards socialism, while capitalism is facing its ultimate fate: crisis, chaos and dissolution. While very heavy on Marxist theory, his discourse is anchored on material benchmarks, nationalizations of various industries, building of this or that hospital, very specific measures to reduce capital flight, prevent internet shopping, and channel credit away from consumption, etc. He can’t hide two contradictory thoughts through his speech. One is his visible joy at the Wall Street tumble taking place, and the other, his obvious worry about what this might mean for Venezuela’s economy.

So, Chavez ably uses one to give strength to the other, converting contradiction into logical cohesion. Chavez believes that this crisis is the most powerful endorsement of his route to socialism, as capitalism has shown that it can’t deliver. For example, nationalizations have made utility and productive enterprises stronger in Venezuela than they are in the rest of the region, where they depend on banks and stock markets for credit and function. Therefore, the more nationalized the economy is, the more insulated from global crises. His diversification away from US and towards China, Iran and Russia will also lower the vulnerability of Venezuela. Even having moved the national reserves from New York to Switzerland a couple of years ago is proving to have been a good, even profitable, decision.

After such long speech, punctuated by his attractive aids bringing him note cards with Bloomberg or Reuters cables he reads the news dispatches aloud to illustrate the depth of the crisis, sidetracks to tell of conversations with Fidel Castro, and crescendoes his discourse with new slogans (i.e. “a socialist country is the only defence against the crisis”), Chavez announces he must leave for another meeting and soon after, we are taken back to our hotel, too. After all, 5pm is a good time to perhaps have some lunch. No more speeches or presentations for that day.

-siempre Pablo

NSI Senior Researcher Pablo Heidrich recently travelled to Venezuela for the Annual Conference of the Latin American Association of Political Economy which took place in Caracus from October 7^th – 11^th. The conference theme for this year was very timely: “Southern Solutions for a Global Crisis”. These writings contain impressions on some of the presentations heard during the conference, discussions with some of the participants and what was seen, heard or smelled while in Venezuela.

Day 0

Leaving Ottawa for Chicago, Latin America already shows its borders. Spanish is spoken in O’Hare International Airport at least as much as French is in Ottawa. From Chicago, I fly on to Miami, where Latin America truly begins. Spanish is the language spoken here. English is spoken here, as well, as airport shop signs occasionally point out for those in doubt.

Caracas receives travelers in its 70s-style airport, and along a highway to the city which is slowly being eaten away by tropical forest. The taxi driver takes advantage of his resting spot against a pole to chat with me, and provide a first impression of life under Chavez. He goes from his thanks for a nearby new bridge, to puzzlement and dismay over the price of food and the problems of finding goods even at official prices. He is careful not to ever mention Chavez by name or in a way, make his government directly responsible for any policy mishaps.

My two neighbours on the Miami to Caracas flight were Venezuelan. One was a small town bakery-owner, returning from a 35-day vacation in Portugal, and a 5 day shopping spree in Miami. He laughed at how he could spend 5 whole days shopping, and replied that he was bringing back 8 suitcases, having left with just one. (for his whole family of four.) The other neighbour was Venezuelan with Canadian residency, returning for a relative’s funeral. He migrated to Canada as “he could no longer recognize his own country”. While the touring baker is witty and indirect in his depiction of domestic issues and troubles, the immigrant is bitter, direct and loud in his denunciations. Eventually, their conversation moves on to where one might buy the cheapest mp3 player, and how to beat currency controls (Venezuelans can only take US $ 4,000 per year our of the country) and, of course, baseball.

The first week of September 2009 was a particularly busy one for Accra, Ghana’s bustling capital and home to over 2 million inhabitants. It played host to the biggest ever international meeting devoted entirely to the subject of aid: the 3^rd High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.

For government aid agencies, international institutions, and civil society organizations, the HLF represented an important “moment” in ongoing attempts to make aid more effective. Expectations were high: would the meeting deliver the ambitious agenda for change called on by some, and go well beyond the commitments made in the 2005 “Paris Declaration” that was agreed on at the previous HLF? Or would the less progressive actors take advantage of the meeting’s agreement on a “consensus” outcome, and manufacture a result amounting to little more than tinkering at the edges of reform?

Civil society groups interested in these issues converged on Accra in unprecedented numbers. Largely excluded from previous official aid processes and agreements, they were determined that this time would be different. They held several meetings prior to the HLF to consider aid issues in detail, and to ensure their messages were carried to the main event. Discussion at these meetings was always lively and frequently provocative. On occasions, passions overflowed into anger. This was hardly surprising: there are 1.4 billion people currently living in poverty, and the vexed question of who benefits from aid affects the livelihoods of many of them.

At the International Women’s Forum, for instance, grassroots women’s groups questioned whether the HLF would make a difference to women in Darfur. Would it bring security, more resources for fighting HIV/AIDS, and access to clean water? After much debate, the Forum agreed on a joint statement summarizing its position. Tellingly, the statement suggested that 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, the meeting said, should lead to the elimination of poverty, and to gender equality, human rights and environmental sustainability.

The Civil Society Parallel Forum endorsed the Women’s Forum declaration, and for two days carried out its own detailed discussions. Attended by over five hundred people from 325 civil society organizations from 88 countries, the meeting examined the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) 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.

The Parallel Forum gave particular attention to the final draft of the “Accra Agenda for Action”, the Paris Declaration addendum that would be finalized at the HLF. Overall, participants were highly critical of the AAA. Like the Women’s Forum, they agreed on a joint statement summarizing their concerns. The statement includes a number of “minimum” demands: the definition of “ownership” must be more inclusive, tied aid must be ended, and much greater efforts must be made on reforming conditionality. Most importantly, the statement highlights 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.  

CSO representatives presented their statement at the High Level Forum, which was attended by Ministers from developing and developed country governments, along with over 900 other officials from governments and development institutions. Against this number, a mere 80 civil society representatives were allowed to attend. Incredibly, however, this was a vast improvement on the previous HLF, when only 14 CSOs witnessed the signing of the Paris Declaration. In fact, many agree that the process of the HLF – in particular its inclusion of a wider range of stakeholders, such as parliamentarians and CSOs – represents an important step forward. It certainly stands in stark contrast to traditional processes for international agreements on aid, most of which take place within the exclusive confines of the OECD.

No matter how good or bad the process, it is the outcome from the HLF – the Accra Agenda for Action – that really matters. It is this that will determine international efforts on aid effectiveness in the lead up to the next HLF in 2011. In some respects, the news is good: the AAA includes important additions to the Paris Declaration. It recognizes, once and presumably for all, that aid effectiveness is not just a matter for governments. It states that developing country governments will work more closely with parliaments and local authorities, and that all actors will deepen their engagement with CSOs. This is a major win for CSOs, who have worked hard over the last two years to ensure their centrality to the aid effectiveness process.

Equally importantly, the AAA also acknowledges the importance of South-South cooperation. This recognizes the key role now played by the so-called “new donors”, such as China, Brazil, India and South Africa, and the opportunities they bring for aid-recipient countries. The AAA includes a strong statement on the principles that South-South cooperation aims to observe, including the importance of non-interference, and respect for independence, sovereignty and cultural diversity. North – South cooperation would do well to also respect these principles.

Overall, however, the final AAA can only be seen as a disappointment. This is partly because it is a negotiated agreement, arrived at by consensus, and accommodating the positions of the least progressive, but most powerful actors (such as the USA, Japan and the World Bank). The final, consensus-based AAA replaces earlier, more ambitious versions (one of which, for instance, stated unequivocally that “donors will not impose conditions”). The result is a victory for the lowest common denominator, rather than for real change. There is little improvement in areas that are of great concern to developing country governments and their citizens, including tied aid, technical cooperation, and aid predictability. The AAA also dashes hopes that donor countries would finally live up to the rhetoric of the Paris Declaration, and genuinely allow developing countries to take ownership of their development.

And so, where to from here? Given the AAA’s shortcomings, it is hard to be optimistic about prospects for the next HLF. But perhaps there are other, more encouraging signs for the future. South-South cooperation is opening up new opportunities for supporting development. The more progressive donor countries are ignoring their recalcitrant peers, and choosing to go it alone in pioneering new approaches. Some developing country governments, with growing financial reserves and confidence, are more strongly controlling the terms under which they are prepared to accept aid. And there is increasing agreement that you cannot fix aid effectiveness without fixing the development system. This may lead to a long overdue break with traditional, donor-dominated mechanisms for determining international aid policy (such as the OECD) – and the emergence of new structures, where developing countries have proper representation, and a fair share in decision making.

Links

Official site of the Accra HLF, including the Accra Agenda for Action

betteraid.org  Civil society viewpoints on the Accra Agenda for Action

Advisory Group on Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness: including Synthesis of Findings and Reccommendations

Reforming Aid and Development Cooperation: Accra, Doha and beyond (North-South Institute Policy Note)

South Centre critiques of aid effectiveness and the AAA

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

.

On the afternoon of February 26th, I attended the 2008 Budget “lock up”.

Here’s how I see it….

Summary This year’s budget is disappointing. As in previous years, the government maintains the original Liberal government commitment to increase the annual budget in order to double aid by 2010/11. However there is only one new commitment of additional funds (for Afghanistan). Canada’s ODA/GNI will drop slightly this year, and remains below the OECD country average. At current projections, the government will not meet its commitment to bring Canada’s ODA/GNI to the OECD average by 2010.

Here is some more detail….

Maintaining previous commitments for budget increases

This year’s budget maintains previous governments’ commitments to double international assistance by 2010/11 (from 2000/1 levels). This means approximately 8% growth in this year’s budget.

The government will also meet its commitment (made at the G8) to double aid to Africa from 2003/4 levels, and will do this in 2008/9 (the first G8 country to do so).

Additional increases? Just the one….

The only new increase in addition to the growth associated with doubling aid is an extra $100m in 2008/9 to Afghanistan, for reconstruction and development (including training to the Afghan National Police, and Army). This will bring Canada’s assistance to Afghanistan to $280m for 2008/9 and to $1.3b over 10 years.

Special announcements

The budget makes special announcements on a number of issues, all to be funded from the previously-planned doubling of aid by 2010/11. These include:

• $450m over 3 years for the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria
• creation of a new “Development Innovation Fund” to support scientific innovation for development solutions. This will be administered by IDRC, with $50m allocated over the next two years
• continued support for initiatives announced in the previous budget, such as the Advanced Market Commitments for vaccines, and tax incentives for corporations that donate medicines for use in developing countries

ODA levels: The numbers

Thanks to our friends at CCIC, we have some numbers on ODA levels and ODA/GNI. While ODA is rising, ODA/GNI is falling marginally. The estimated figures are:

2007/8: Total ODA $4.39b, ODA/GNI 0.3%

2008/9: Total ODA $4.61b, ODA/GNI 0.3%

2009/10: Total ODA $4.85, ODA/GNI 0.29%

This means that Canada’s ODA/GNI will remain well below the projected OECD country average of 0.42% in 2010.

No new targets

As expected, there were no new targets for aid increases past 2010/11, let alone in relation to reaching 0.7% ODA/GNI.

From February 3-6 about 200 people attended the “International Forum on Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness“, held in Gatineau. Here’s a brief report, with some observations at the end.

Quick background The Forum was part of an important international process that Canada is leading: the “Multistakeholder Advisory Group on Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness”. This group is mandated through the OECD-DAC, and will advise the DAC in the lead-up to the 2008 Accra High Level Forum, which will review the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

The Paris Declaration sets out a range of measurable commitments, in which donors and developing country governments agree to improve aid effectiveness. However it does not address the role that civil society plays in enhancing development and aid effectiveness. At the same time, civil society has so far been largely absent from official discussions on aid effectiveness. The Forum and the work of the Advisory Group therefore comprise important steps in ensuring civil society is part of policy discussions and decisions on aid.

Purpose of meeting. There were two main purposes: to feed back and discuss results of extensive regional consultations carried out by the Advisory Group (AG) during 2007; and to identify main messages that the AG can feed into the Accra process and take to the DAC.

Main messages. As expected from a large and very diverse group, discussions ranged far and wide. Nevertheless, some important messages emerged:

• civil society organizations (CSOs) are legitimate development actors in their own right. As such, CSOs have an essential role to play in aid effectiveness, and must be included in policy processes such as Paris/Accra. This needs to be recognized by the official development architecture.
• the notion of “country ownership”, which is central to the Paris Declaration, needs to be reformulated. Currently, it places too much emphasis on government ownership of the development agenda. Notions of ownership need to be anchored in genuine national processes that are inclusive of civil society actors. The term “democratic ownership” better describes the type of ownership civil society aspires to
• current discussions on aid effectiveness must give more emphasis to the realization and promotion of gender equality and human rights
• CSOs recognize that alongside donor and southern governments, they also need to develop their own processes for assessing and improving their aid effectiveness. They will be addressing these issues in parallel to the Accra process

Observations In some respects the outcomes of this event were somewhat disappointing. Thinking on civil society’s role in aid effectiveness did not advance noticeably past previous work undertaken by the Advisory Group or beyond results of the 2007 regional consultations.

At the same time, however, the event was important precisely because of its “multistakeholder” nature: it was a rare opportunity for southern and northern CSOs and governments to address the role of civil society in the same arena. In addition, the event represented an important part of a larger process: ensuring that civil society becomes a permanent participant in overall discussions on aid policy, and that its vital role in the development process is appropriately acknowledged.

What reforms need to be made to the global political and economic order to promote global equality and intergenerational equity? Do intellectuals and policymakers from the ‘South’ or ‘Third World’ advance perspectives on the changes necessary to advance these principles that are fundamentally different or even at odds with the views that empowered development elites from the rich countries articulate? If so, what are the specific points of divergence and the barriers to the advancement of ‘Southern Perspectives‘? How can Southerners realize their visions for change?

This weekend, The North-South Institute is holding a conference at Wilton Park, GB that aims to address these questions in great detail. The participation of several dozen high level people in the development business ensures that this will be an intellectually stimulating and enriching event. I am writing a report on the proceedings and look forward to sharing my more informal thoughts here. En route to another wonderful and challenging learning experience….

—Adam