DAC and OECD actions

Leaving WP actions aside, we turn to those taken by key stakeholders. The DAC and OECD continued to play a lead role in many respects. Both launched a series of events and actions to support members’ commitments implementation efforts. Noteworthy among these was the commissioning of a study by the DAC to draw lessons from the Accra experience.¹⁹ It recommended: more support to strengthen partner countries’ role and adopt a more inclusive approach; expansion of membership of the Consensus Group and Steering Committee, providing more information on the negotiating process; addressing asymmetries in information access and imbalances in drafting team membership; and agreeing clear rules for negotiations and reporting progress to a broader audience. These recom-mendations were timely and taken on board by the co-chairs.

19 OECD WP-EFF source no longer available.

Inadequacy of incentives was a major obstacle to meeting commitments by DAC members, as recognised in the 2008 survey, which found “little overall indication that the incentives underlying donor practices … have not altered significantly since the signing of the Paris Declaration”

(OECD WP-EFF, 2009g). To help deal with this issue, a “Tool Kit for Donors” was prepared to encourage adoption of good practice principles.

More significant were two initiatives dealing with longer-term issues: a DAC Reflection Exercise to ascertain “how best to sustain and increase the relevance of the DAC” in the face of current and future anticipated changes (OECD DCD/DAC, 2009a), which led to a revision of its mandate, calling for strengthening statistics, peer reviews and aid effectiveness measures. It also urged DAC to engage actively in global governance reform, improve policy coherence and integrate global public goods into development strategies. The DAC was also to reach out to key development stakeholders, carry out in-house reform to improve perfor-mance and expand advocacy for public support to development cooperation.

The other event focussed on how to “Make Aid Make a Difference”, where partner countries, DAC members and aid agencies discussed aid architecture issues. Participants agreed to strengthen coordination among actors, avoid creating new entities, and act to reduce the aid fragmentation and poor use of local expertise that were undermining partner countries’

abilities to deliver better results. More attention was to be paid to the collective impact of aid providers’ activities and refrain from creating project implementation units instead of supporting local systems (OECD DCD/DAC, 2009b).

The DAC also scheduled periodic “Senior Level” meetings to consider aid effectiveness and other policy issues. One meeting considered how to support countries in conflict and fragility situations and accelerate progress towards the MDGs. Such support rested on four pillars:

improving the impact of aid; taking actions to sustain livelihoods and generate peace dividends for the poor; fostering institution-building, state accountability and a voice for all; and enhancing conflict prevention and peace-building efforts.

Several actions were suggested. For example, to improve aid impact:

provide more predictable aid, reduce disparities and invest in

under-resourced sectors. For institution- and state-building: support core state functions; strengthen health and education systems; and address corruption by creating incentives for integrity and respect for the law. For conflict prevention: invest in national and international capacities to understand the causes of conflict; strengthen prevention capacities; and support regional and global initiatives to protect fragile countries from economic shocks.

Another meeting discussed how the private sector could contribute to Busan outcomes (OECD DCD/DAC, 2009c; OECD DCD/DAC, 2009d).

As the date of the Busan HLF approached, DAC members discussed how to articulate a common position regarding managing for results, engaging non-DAC aid providers and extending the agenda to include topics beyond aid (OECD DCD/DAC, 2011b; OECD DCD/DAC, 2011e). A change of mindset was necessary in handling the results issue (OECD DCD/DAC, 2011f). There was mounting pressure from taxpayers seeking justification for aid disbursements. Responding to this pressure could lead to a

“perverse” effect, in that aid providers would focus, instead, on actions that produce easy-to-measure and quick results. Multilateral banks made progress by developing common-results frameworks, but aid providers were still using disparate methods, driven by their own requirements, and lacked incentives for change.

The most significant recommendation was to shift all results frameworks towards becoming partner-country owned, supported by development partners. This required investments in institutional and statistical capacities to produce data for results-management, and to take note of varying speeds of partner countries’ efforts. Aid providers were urged to develop common indicators for measuring progress in institutional capacities and accountability mechanisms. The complex situation of fragile states called for due regard to peace-building and state-building priorities, and to setting realistic time frames (short and long-term). For non-DAC aid providers, a statement welcoming new partnerships was a positive step forward, intended to dispel emerging economies’ concerns that closer ties might imply adopting OECD standards. In this way, “a comfort zone” was created to encourage them to join discussions on aid effectiveness.

Coinciding with DAC meetings, the parent organisation, OECD, issued its

“Strategy on Development” as part of its celebrating 50 years of operations (OECD, 2011a). It outlined a broader approach to development

and set out key elements of the strategy, aiming at increasing OECD contributions to “more sustainable growth by building on its collective expertise in a wide range of policy areas. This would allow greater sharing and strengthened partnerships with more developing countries, resulting in a more inclusive approach to development”.

The strategy called for strengthened partnership for knowledge-sharing and policy dialogue; adoption of a more comprehensive approach; and fostering policy coherence at the level of members, OECD, and emerging and developing countries. A series of actions were suggested. For example, enhancing partnerships required mutual learning with developing countries and promoting peer-to-peer learning; and benefiting from the knowledge of local actors and other field-based providers to avoid duplication and learn from SSC experiences. The strategy was a step forward in enriching OECD expertise and relevance to developing countries. Speaking at a special launching luncheon, I welcomed this important paper and felt certain that actions along these lines would be warmly welcomed by partner countries.

Another OECD event at its Development Centre reviewed a paper on

“Results-Management and International Development Cooperation”.

It discussed how to measure results – on what and for whom (OECD Development Centre, 2011). Public policy for results-management was based on transparency and accountability, strategic management and knowledge management. Results-management was shaped by public concerns about foreign assistance impact, whole-of-government approaches, the shift from input/output to development outcomes, and pressures by partner countries. Supply and demand issues for results-information, based on technical and political considerations, required more work to identify how to strengthen results-management as a policy principle and practice.

Important questions presented themselves: How to agree on specific indicators of progress? How do different users consume information? How could results measurement by development partners help partner countries? Was it possible for development partners to agree on a common set of output indicators in reporting results? Implicit in these questions is the nagging “attribution” factor. How much of the outcome of an initiative could justifiably be attributed to development assistance without considering the complexity of other factors behind that outcome? A more

appropriate response, therefore, was to refer to “contributions to”

outcomes, instead of attributing these entirely to development assistance.

These OECD and DAC measures were both significant and timely. The extent to which their outcomes were put into effect remained to be seen.

Meanwhile, there is more to the world of aid effectiveness than the OECD/DAC! What initiatives did other key players take to enhance implementation of commitments? Let us consider those taken by partner countries.