Roundtable Topic 9: The International Aid Architecture

This page comprises information on background resources for Roundtable 9, compiled by the United Nations Development Programme. It does not necesserily represent the views of the Third High Level Forum organizers.

To access detailed information on the background resources for Global funds listed below, please visit the UNDP Aid Effectiveness Portal.

Background Resources: Global Funds

IDA, “Aid Architecture: An Overview of the Main Trends in Official Development Assistance Flows”, February 2007
The World Bank defines Global Funds as “partnerships and related initiatives whose benefits are intended to cut across more than one region of the world and in which the partners: (a) reach explicit agreement on objectives; (b) agree to establish a new (formal or informal) organization; (c) generate new products or services; and (d) contribute dedicated resources to the program.” 

Menocal, Alina & Simon Maxwell & Andrew Rogerson, “Background Paper”, Commonwealth Secretariat and La Francophonie Workshop: The Future of Aid: User Perspectives on Reform of the International Aid System, Dhaka, 20-21 March 2006
This study comments that the prolific growth of Global Funds “is connected to the widespread political appeal in donor countries of well-focused, single-issue responses to powerful advocacy campaigns, as against more diffuse, less tangible approaches based on recipient ownership.”

Rogerson, A., Hewitt, A. & Waldenberg, D., “The International Aid System 2005-2010 - Forces For and Against Change”, London: ODI, 2004
Most global funds take the form of highly targeted vertical programmes, providing finance directly to governments using a template programming approach. This approach is widely seen as at odds with the dominant paradigm for effective aid under the Paris Declaration. The principle of ‘additionality’ used by many of the funds (i.e., they only support activities that would otherwise not have taken place) is inherently contradictory to complementarity, both to national development efforts and other donor programmes. 

World Bank, “Integrating global partnership programs with country-led national programs: synthesis of findings and recommendations”, December 2006
This study looks at the ability of global programmes – e.g., Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria (GFAMT), Global Environment Facility (GEF), Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), Education for All Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI) and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) – to align with country priorities and systems.  It finds large variations depending on the characteristics of individual funds. EFA FTI is an example of a well-aligned mechanism, while the global health funds are struggling to fit within country-level coordination mechanisms. The challenge is greater in ODA-dependent, low-capacity countries, where recurrent funding for health systems is more difficult to secure. The report concludes that the proliferation of new global programmes needs to be controlled, and where they are necessary they should be designed with a view to fitting better within the overall development landscape.

The Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, "The Learning Group of Global Programs on Aid Effectiveness"

This document synthesizes best practices and challenges by global programs to implementing aid effectiveness practices through the Paris declaration principles. Since 2006, global programs in education, environment, health, agriculture and urban affairs have been jointly meeting to share lessons on how to improve aid effectiveness, in response to country needs. This document reports on progress and constraints faced by global programs in implementing the Paris Declaration and aims to stimulate further discussion – among global programs and with donors and partner countries – on increasing the effectiveness of their assistance at the country level through implementation of the Paris Declaration. The note builds on meetings of the Learning Group of Global Programs held in May and December 2007, on summary notes from participant programs, and on supplementary in depth dialogue. As Richard Manning, former DAC Chair, has pointed out, the purpose of the Paris Declaration – and of the DAC and the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness – is to change behavior, rather than to produce polished documents to sit on a shelf. To that end, the note ends with a summary table pointing to potential areas for action.