The Paris Declaration

The international debate on development aid is dominated by a discussion how to get more development for the aid money available. The backdrop is a recognition that developing aid often is ineffective and cause undue administrative burdens on the recipient countries. A typcal African country received 200 development assistance missions each year and sends 10,000 reports on activities during one quarter.

In 2005, more than 100 countries signed the The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. The desire was to increase the effectiveness of development assistance through a commitment to five mutually reinforcing principles:

• Ownership: Partner countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies and strategies, and coordinate development actions.
• Alignment: Donors base their overall support on partner countries’ national development strategies, institutions, and procedures.
• Harmonisation: Donors’ actions are more harmonised, transparent, and collectively effective.
• Managing for results: Managing resources and improving decision making for development results.
• Mutual accountability: Donors and partners are accountable for development results.

The principles are an attempt to reduce the requirements for developing countries and increase their ownership of the development.

The Paris Declaration focuses on the relationship between the donors and the governments of the developing countries. In this context, IBIS is involved in extensive work to ensure cooperation and inclusion of civil society is given a high priority. In the case of ownership, IBIS understands this as democratic ownership. An ownership which is depending on an active, participating and included civil society in both donor and recipient countries.

The Paris Declaration