Not enough progress has been made in making aid work for poor people. The official evidence confirms this. We know that donors have the power to unblock many of the obstacles to improving aid. The official evidence confirms this too. If donors do not make concrete commitments to change the way they do business when they meet in Accra, the outcome will be more inaction, and more ineffective – or worse – harmful aid for poor people.

Civil society organisations (CSOs) would like to raise a number of objections to the final draft of the Accra Agenda for Action (25th July) and are calling on ministers from donor and developing countries, and heads of donor agencies to insist that these issues are discussed at the highest levels in Accra and addressed in the final outcome document.

Firstly we would like to object to the claim that the “views of some 60 CSOs have fed into this draft”. CSOs – primarily through the CSO International Steering Group for Accra (ISG) – have repeatedly put forward our views but these on the whole have been ignored. Indeed, the latest draft of the AAA reflects even fewer CSO views than previous drafts. We have set out our key demands again below, and also refer the Working Party and Consensus Group to our previous contributions to the drafting process.

1. An agenda for action needs time-bound commitments

An agenda for action must include specific time-bound commitments so that progress can be monitored and donors and governments can be held to account. This has been a key point raised by the ISG with the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness throughout the process. However the latest draft has removed ALL timeframes. We suggest a number of areas below where specific and time-bound commitments are particularly urgent.

CSOs welcome the inclusion of language emphasising the central place poverty reduction and human rights in development policy and the importance of cross-cutting issues such as gender equality, decent work and environmental sustainability. The AAA should explicitly recognise the need for coherence with international agreements on human rights, gender equality, environmental sustainability and decent work as frameworks for aid relationships.

The AAA must also lay the foundations for future reforms to the aid system, and identify areas where more work will be needed in the coming years to agree more ambitious commitments.

2. Donor commitments to ownership without radical reform of conditionality are meaningless

Democratic ownership must be at the heart of an effective aid system. It is imperative that the AAA agrees a new way to measure ownership, which recognises that ownership must be driven by countries’ own citizens. Indicators of ownership must measure the participation of citizens, civil society and parliaments in deciding, planning, implementing and assessing national plans, policies, programmes and budgets. Donors must also recognise that their actions can impede democratic ownership, particularly through conditionality.

CSOs have repeatedly stressed the importance of reducing conditionality in our inputs to this process. We welcome the commitment to communicate and make public all conditions linked to disbursements. However this is not sufficient – the sheer number and the extent of aid conditions must be reduced. Policy conditions which link disbursements to particular policies interfere with democratic ownership and must be phased out. Other burdensome procedural conditions must be reduced.

We are disappointed to find that the latest draft of the AAA has fallen back even from the modest language included in the previous draft. Donors must agree to monitor and reduce the overall number of conditions, and recognise the particular problems caused by intrusive policy conditions. Donors and partner countries must agree to work together to develop transparent and mutually-agreed aid compacts which set out a limited number of key commitments focused on poverty-reduction outcomes, and which also set out the commitments of donors to deliver predictable, effective and efficient aid resources.

3. Donors must respond to partner countries’ priorities

CSOs support partner countries’ demands that donors should make aid more predictable and make better use of country systems. These steps are essential if partner country budget processes are to be effective and accountable.

We are disappointed that proposed language to maximise the proportion of aid committed on a rolling 3-5 year basis that was included in previous drafts of the AAA have been dropped. Although more transparency around donors’ future aid commitments is welcome, the HLF will not be credible if it does not deliver new commitments from donors to increase medium-term predictability of aid - donors must agree a target to significantly increase the proportion of aid that is committed for at least 3 years by the time of the next HLF.

Progress since Paris on the use of country systems by donors has been disappointingly slow. Although it is welcome that the current draft includes a re-affirmation of the Paris commitments on this, donors must go further and make the use of country systems their ‘default’ option.

4. Scandal of ongoing tied aid must be addressed

The reluctance of donors to commit to untie all their aid is shameful. Rich country leaders cannot claim to be concerned about the world’s poor on the one hand and then devalue aid for poor people by promoting their own economic interests on the other. Tying food aid and food transport to rich country interests cannot continue. In the current food crisis, this continued practice is immoral. Tying technical assistance goes against all that has been learnt about what makes it work for developing countries. CSOs have repeatedly called on donors to untie all aid by December 2010. These demands have been disregarded. This has also been a priority of developing country governments.

Donors must commit to producing individual plans to untie all aid, including food aid and technical assistance, by September 2009, with a view to untying all aid before the next HLF.

5. Concrete donor commitments to reform technical assistance are imperative

Between one-third and one-half of all aid is given as technical assistance. Much technical assistance has been shown to be ineffective. CSOs and developing country governments have repeatedly called for the reform of technical assistance in the discussions leading up to Accra.

Donors must commit to making 100% of their technical assistance demand-driven and aligned to national strategies, and developing countries should judge whether this commitment has been met. But rather than move towards such a commitment, the draft text of the AAA on this issue has in fact been watered down over the last two months. The proposed commitment in the current draft to make technical assistance “designed to support country ownership” is meaningless.

6. Without mutual accountability and transparency, aid reform will fail

Donors have recognised that mutual accountability is one of the areas where least progress has been made, and yet the current draft of the AAA makes even less strong commitments to this agenda than the Paris Declaration.

There can be no real mutual accountability at the country level unless donors also agree to be monitored and held to account at the international level. Donors must agree to strengthen existing international monitoring mechanisms to build a credible system of mutual accountability by 2010. This together with a commitment to supporting and being receptive to independent monitoring and evaluation is the minimum that must be agreed in Accra.

Mutual accountability must be based on transparency, and this has been a key priority for CSOs. Although we welcome the inclusion of language on this in the draft AAA, much more is needed than general statements of intent. Donors should agree specific time-bound commitments to provide more accurate and timely information to developing country governments and to citizens in donor and partner countries. Donors and governments need to publish information which allows citizens to participate in decision making.

The AAA should commit donors and developing country governments to work together with civil society, social partners and parliaments to develop and implement best practice standards to ensure that there is full transparency of aid by 2010, both at the international/donor level, and at the country level.

7. A real Agenda for Action needs action plans for donors and developing countries

Donors state that they are committed to “genuine partnerships” with developing countries. CSOs object to this claim when there are no indications in the current draft of the Accra Agenda for Action that donors are prepared to be held accountable for their commitments.

Donors must commit to putting in place action plans that set out time-bound and monitorable proposals for how they will live up to their Paris Declaration commitments by changing policies and practices in their headquarters and in their country offices. “Encouraging” developing countries to commit to time-bound action plans without committing to their own action plans flies in the face of donors’ commitments to mutual accountability.

25th July 2008