International Donors Gather to Improve Aid Effectiveness for Poor

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - More than a thousand representatives from developing countries, the international donor community, civil society organizations and global funds are meeting in Accra, Ghana this week to review progress on improving the effectiveness of aid delivery around the globe and to chart a course for future action.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) Vice-President Ursula Schaefer-Preuss and other senior ADB officials will be attending the Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (Third HLF), which aims to find ways of ensuring aid is made transparent, accountable and results-oriented.

Vice-President Schaefer-Preuss will be highlighting the progress made by the Asia-Pacific region in cutting poverty levels over the past decade, as well as stressing the need for the international donor community to continue to work closely together to avoid overlap and duplication of resources.

“The international donor community needs to streamline the way it does business, to maximize the benefits of our assistance for poor families,” said Ms. Schaefer-Preuss.

Ms. Schaefer-Preuss noted a number of positive steps that ADB has taken to make aid delivery more effective in the Asia-Pacific region, including the use of common procedures, program-based approaches and joint missions which emphasize the specific needs of a country.

During the HLF, she will launch the ‘Marketplace of Ideas’ concept that includes a poster focusing on ADB’s help for developing member countries in localizing the principles of the Paris Declaration of 2005 which set out the agenda for improving aid.

Over the course of the week participants will discuss country ownership of the development process; creating broader partnerships that include nontraditional donors, such as the private sector; establishing an appropriate “division of labor” among donors in a country; and the implications of the aid effectiveness agenda for gender equality, environmental quality, fragile and conflict-affected states, and middle-income countries.

Late in the week, Ministers of Finance and the heads of development agencies are expected to endorse the Accra Agenda for Action, a set of commitments designed to accelerate implementation of the aid effectiveness agenda.

The Asian Development Bank is a sponsor of the Forum.

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