Advancing International Development Assistance
Although the total amount of worldwide funding for Official Development Assistance
(ODA) has increased annually, ODA-related efforts have not been as effective as they
could have been due to a lack of coordination, insufficient awareness of partner nations’
actual needs and interference from various political sources.
To remedy this, the international development community began a series of
reforms targeting assistance strategies and methods. These reforms called upon
the international community to allocate resources effectively and intelligently and
to strengthen project management methodologies to ensure the effectiveness of
assistance projects.
Managing for Results and Focusing on
Partner Nations
In September 2000, the United Nations took the
lead by announcing the Millennium Declaration, setting
forth eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The
MDGs, set to end in 2015, serve as the guiding principles
for major assistance organizations in terms of effective
resource allocation.
Targeting the effectiveness of assistance projects,
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) also organized four High Level
Forums on Aid Effectiveness (HLF), starting in 2003. In
2005, one of these HLFs produced the Paris Declaration
on Aid Effectiveness, which established five major
operational guidelines and 12 associated indicators.
The declaration stressed that for assistance projects to
successfully achieve the principle of managing for results,
they need proper coordination and resource allocation,
as well as a focus on partner nations. In 2008, the Accra
Agenda for Action followed up on the Paris Declaration
on Aid Effectiveness with four major points of emphasis:
“predictability in development activities,” “working through
national institutions and systems of partner nations,”
“coordinating with the development goals of partner
nations” and “minimizing conditional assistance.”
Emerging Forms of Assistance Emphasize
Results
In recent years, the world has faced numerous natural
disasters, skyrocketing oil and raw material prices, and
financial crises in Europe and the United States that led
to a global economic recession. In response, the world’s
major powers have implemented austerity measures,
which have resulted in budget cuts for international
assistance funding. With the priorities of global powers
reshuffled, international assistance has also taken
new forms. “Partnerships” responsible for international
investment aid have become increasingly diversified,
creating new donor groups such as those involved in
“South-South cooperation.” Civil organizations and private
sector groups have also joined in on assistance efforts,
increasing the channels and forms of assistance available.
In an attempt to coordinate the different types of
assistance projects and donors from all parts of the
world, the OECD held its Fourth High Level Forum on
Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4) in Busan, Korea, in November
2011. The conference continued to stress the spirit of the
Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and reasserted the
principles of aid effectiveness, but also went further by
emphasizing that, while still falling within the framework of
the Paris Declaration, future development work must strive
for aid effectiveness with a focus on building the capacity
of partner nations to sustain themselves independently.
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