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Partnership Commitments The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, adopted in 2005, defines the principles and commitments by which donors and partner governments intend to ensure that aid is as effective as possible in contributing to the Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed goals. The Declaration identified five Partnership Commitments: Provided below are responses to queries that have been received by the Secretariat: Ownership: How is ownership defined in the context of the Paris Declaration, and has it changed since the Monterrey Consensus or the Rome Declaration? The Paris Declaration was formulated based on the recognition that development can be successful, sustained and fully effective only when the partner country takes the lead in determining the goals and priorities of its own development and sets the agenda for they how they are to be achieved. The Monterrey Consensus and the Rome Declaration also recognized the role that ownership played, however the Paris Declaration has prompted a progressively wider approach to thinking about ownership; the difficulties in creating and implementing development strategies that need to be both nationally owned and donor driven, and is taking the governance agenda in new directions. The Paris Declaration also underscores the important link between alignment and ownership. Ownership can only be strengthened when donors start aligning with the country's strategies and start using the country systems for managing and delivering their aid. Are the principles of the Declaration broadly understood beyond those officials who are immediately involved? The stakeholders engaged in implementing the Paris Declaration work consistently to strengthen national development strategies at the country level, and in working towards, greater acceptance of the Partnership Commitments. Although the Paris agenda is now widely understood by partner country ministries involved in aid delivery and by most donors, civil society organizations are just becoming involved. Several partners and donors have expressed the need for greater clarity in defining the indicators that are used to monitor the implementation of the agenda. In most partner countries that endorsed the Paris Declaration, national coordinators have been assigned to monitor implementation and tailor the indicators to local conditions. Are there any broad lessons that have emerged in this regard? Several lessons have emerged on strengthening ownership, and include a wider approach to thinking and operationalizing ownership at the country level, which includes building intensive support for demand-driven capacity building, enhancing capacity to exercise leadership, strengthening systems for service delivery, and ensuring the inclusion of different stakeholders, such as civil society, local governments, parliaments, and the private sector. Additionally, there is growing convergence among partner countries and donors around some of the priority areas, including human rights, gender equality, women’s empowerment, and good governance. The difficulties of demonstrating ownership in the context of fragile states, conflict-ridden environments, and disaster- prone areas are also recognized. Alignment: What are the different ways in which alignment is defined at the country level? Alignment of donor aid flows to support and strengthen partner country national development strategies, and using partner country systems, are key components of aid effectiveness. Country systems can be the country’s national and sector strategies, implementation structures, result measurement systems, financial management and procurement systems, and social and environmental assessment mechanism. While donors align more easily with the country’s strategies, result measurement systems, and environmental safeguard instruments, alignment of donor support to country systems in public financial management, procurement, and project implementation reflects a more gradual and selective use of country systems. Issues of aid predictability and untying aid flows are being addressed with significant progress in some areas. Has the Paris Declaration served to enhance alignment of aid to national development strategies? Enhancement of alignment continues to be work in progress. Compared with the results of 2005, current surveys indicate that donors are increasingly basing their activities on partners national development and sectoral strategies, medium-term expenditure plans, and budgets, and there is significant progress in this regard. New approaches to conditionality, moving from pre-set conditions to agreed bechmarks, reflect one area of progress toward alignment, although partner and donor country perspectives often vary. Results also show that donors are contributing to building capacity in partner countries in meaningful ways, but coordination of these efforts can be improved. Harmonization: Why is Harmonization necessary? In a fast-changing and dynamic aid environment for partner countries and donors, harmonization of policies, procedures and practices becomes even more important. Poor nations tend to have lower human, institutional or financial capacity, so thar dealing with a plethora of donors, and aid flows becomes a challenge with high transaction costs. It is therefore important not only for the partner country but also for the donors themselves to harmonize the manner in which they provide aid to a partner country’s policies and programs, so that aid is handled and managed effectively. Harmonizing the procedures and rules that guide delivery of aid contributes to enhancing aid effectiveness and reducing the administrative burden on recipient countries. Harmonization between donors and partner countries predates the Paris and Rome Declaration, what is different about it today? Although harmonization predates the Paris and Rome Declarations, the operational implications of the Declarations have evolved in a dynamic aid environment that demands recognition of the need for harmonization and deeper extent of country led and country driven ownership. Additionally, the Rome Declaration did not have time bound follow up mechanisms. The Paris Declaration formulated and agreed to a set of 12 indicators, against which donor and partner countries would be assessed for progress on Harmonization, by 2010. Harmonization at the country level should go hand in hand with regulation reforms at headquarter level, and incentives for staff (budget, performance assessment) provided by management. There is growing evidence that if harmonization is not well organized at country level, and if it is not accompanied by the right guidance from headquarters, harmonization could become a burden on staff of both donors and recipient government, reducing the quality of aid delivery. Managing for Development Results: How do you define managing for development results, and how was it derived? Managing for development results (MfDR) means managing aid in a way that lead to desired results, and using evidence to improve decision making. It is a strategy that uses sound information for policy making; it involves practical tools for planning, risk management, monitoring and evaluation. MfDR signifies a shift from focusing on inputs and immediate outputs to performance and achievement of outcomes and long-term impacts, for partner countries and donors alike. In 2002, at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, the international community agreed that it would be important to provide more financing for development – but more money alone was not enough. Donors and partner countries alike wanted to know that aid would be used as effectively as possible, and they wanted to be able to see that it was, in fact, making a difference. This threw into sharp focus the need to measure results throughout the development process, as well as the need to demonstrate that development results were achieved. Soon afterward, the World Bank convened an International Roundtable on Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing for Results (2002), at which development practitioners grappled with concepts, approaches, and practical issues related to getting development results. At the Second International Roundtable on Managing for Development Results, in Marrakech, Morocco (2004), more than 60 representatives of partner countries met with representatives of bilateral and multilateral development agencies to discuss the challenges of managing for development results (MfDR). Participants endorsed a set of core principles on how best to support partner countries’ efforts to manage for results, and agreed on a costed and time-bound action plan for improving national and international statistics – without which baselines cannot be established and progress cannot be measured. The Third Roundtable on Managing for Development Results in Hanoi, Vietnam (2007), focused on country-to-country learning. Representatives from 45 countries, 32 development agencies, and 30 civil society and private sector partners shared experiences and charted a course for continuing efforts. What are the principles that govern MfDR? At the Second Roundtable on Managing for Development Results, in 2004, the international community agreed on five principles of Managing for Development Results: Focusing the dialogue on results at all phases of the development process Aligning programming, monitoring, and evaluation with results Keeping measurement and reporting simple Managing for, not by, results Using results information for learning and decision making
The MfDR Core Principles form the foundation of managing for results. They are applicable at all levels and within a variety of interventions (national, sector, program, project and organization). They influence the use of specific strategies and tools at various phases of national and development programming. Has progress been made against the Paris Declaration commitments on managing for results? Progress against the Paris Declaration commitments on managing for results is moderately encouraging. A majority of partner countries are taking steps to improve their monitoring systems. However, few have yet to establish “largely developed” results- oriented frameworks at the country level. Work, is however, under way to strengthen critical capacities in planning and budgeting, monitoring and evaluation, and in particular in statistical systems. The availability of good and updated databases is essential for MfDR. The need for political leadership, greater conceptual clarity, and appropriate incentives is also widely recognized. Mutual Accountability: How is mutual accountability defined in the Paris Declaration? Why is it important? Mutual accountability may be defined as the need for both donors and partner countries to put in place monitorable mechanisms, agreed between both sides, to reinforce incentives and to meet the commitments articulated in the Declaration. The Paris Declaration recognizes that stronger and more balanced accountability mechanisms are required at all levels for aid to become more effective. In particular it calls donors and partner countries to jointly assess the impacts of country development plans supported by donors, and to jointly assess progress in implementing agreed commitments on aid effectiveness. The Paris Declaration also invites initiatives by partner countries to establish their own targets for improved aid effectiveness within the framework of the agreed partnership, commitments and indicators of progress included in the Paris Declaration. What progress has been made in this area since the Paris HLF? Since this is a new initiative, progress towards mutual accountability commitments remains less advanced than that shown in the other principles. However, several countries have set up elements of mutual accountability through, for instance, independent monitoring mechanisms (Tanzania), and there are good practice examples of progress in the larger agenda of domestic accountability. These include establishing forums for debate, improving parliamentary engagement and civil society voice, strengthening the evidence base, and increasing the transparency of aid.
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