Related Links Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness Paris Declaration (Arabic) Déclaration de Paris (French) Paris Declaration (German) Paris Declaration (Japanese) Paris Declaration (Moldovian/Romanian) Paris Declaration (Portuguese) Paris Declaration (Russian) Paris Declaration (Spanish) International community holds itself accountable for better use of aid (English - March 2005)

Principles. The Paris Declaration is grounded on five mutually reinforcing principles:

• Ownership: Partner countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies and strategies, and coordinate development actions.
• Alignment: Donors base their overall support on partner countries’ national development strategies, institutions, and procedures.
• Harmonization: Donors’ actions are more harmonized, transparent, and collectively effective.
• Managing for results: Managing resources and improving decision making for development results.
• Mutual accountability: Donors and partners are accountable for development results.

Commitments. The Paris Declaration contains 56 partnership commitments to improve the quality of aid. For example, under ownership, partner countries commit to exercise leadership in developing and implementing their national development strategies, and donors commit to respect partner countries’ leadership and help strengthen their capacity to exercise it.

Indicators and Targets. The Paris Declaration also sets out 12 indicators to provide a measurable and evidence-based way to track progress, and sets targets for 11 of the indicators for the year 2010.

Click here to read the Paris Declaration with its indicators and targets, and a list of signatories.

Monitoring. A first round of monitoring of the 12 indicators was conducted in 2006 on the basis of activities undertaken in 2005 in 34 countries. It suggests that important efforts are still needed if we are to achieve the commitments agreed in the Paris Declaration and realize the full potential for improving development effectiveness at the country level. The results of the 2006 Survey are available here. In the run-up to the Third High-Level Forum, a second survey is being organized from 2 January 2008 to 31 March 2008. 56 countries are currently taking part in this survey, which is designed to do two things. First, the results of the survey will provide an important contribution for assessing progress at the Third High-Level Forum. Second, and even more significantly, the survey will contribute to tangible improvements in the way aid is delivered in partner countries taking part in the survey.