High level forums on aid effectiveness

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Four high level forums on aid effectiveness were held between 2003 and 2011 as part of a "continuous effort towards modernising, deepening and broadening development co-operation and the delivery of aid" ^[1] coordinated through the OECD. They took place at Rome (2003), Paris (2005), Accra (2008) and Busan (2011). (The phrase "aid effectiveness" appeared in the titles of the latter three forums; the Rome forum was retrospectively seen by the OECD as having been the first of the series.)^[2]

The main theme of the forums was improvement in coordination of aid between donor and recipient states. Its most famous product was the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness which set out five fundamental principles for making aid more effective, namely: ownership (by the recipient country), alignment (of donor aid with recipients' objectives and systems), harmonisation (of donor systems), managing for results, and mutual accountability. The Declaration established 12 targets (later expressed as 13 quantified targets) for the fulfilment of these principles by 2010. The official review in 2011/12 found that only one of the 13 targets had been met, although "considerable progress" had been seen in some of the other areas.^[3]

The fourth and final high level forum, at Busan in 2011, resolved to "broaden our focus and attention from aid effectiveness to the challenges of effective development".^[4] To this end, it mandated the creation of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation whose process superseded that of the high level forums on aid effectiveness.