The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness was drawn up and adopted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2005. As well as calling upon donors or aid agencies to act as responsible stakeholders, the declaration emphasizes a fundamental requirement for projects to focus on the needs of recipients, with the objective of building the capacity of these recipients. In recent years, the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) has published a White Paper on Foreign Aid Policy and promulgated the International Cooperation and Development Act in accordance with this consensus on trends in international development assistance.

The TaiwanICDF is the largest executing agency carrying out Taiwan’s foreign aid work. To comply with international trends, we are making vigorous efforts to carry out organizational transformation at the TaiwanICDF, for which reason we have placed medium- to long-term strategies at the heart of our own development. We hope that our endeavors can, and will, meet the same standards practiced by other providers of international development assistance.

Drawing on Taiwan’s Comparative Advantages, Responding to Partners’ Needs

Our assistance projects generate substantive benefits by placing recipient countries at the center of our work and encouraging these partners to take the initiative. After recipients have determined their own priorities and development themes, we proceed to employ Taiwan’s comparative advantages upon the international stage. This approach represents an effective response to meeting partners’ chosen needs; it assists them to build capacity and puts the Paris Declaration’s guidelines on ownership into effect.

Furthermore, in keeping with the declaration’s guidelines on alignment, our project inputs and associated processes are designed to match the norms and mechanisms of recipient countries rather than impose Taiwan’s own regulations or systems upon them. This approach allows us to implement effective assistance projects.

Integrating Public and Private Sector Resources, Strengthening Cooperative Partnerships

The proper coordination of aid resources, one of the priorities of international development assistance, allows donors to enhance the transparency of assistance projects by establishing partnerships and cooperating with recipients during the course of such projects. This is a principle that we at the TaiwanICDF pursue closely during the planning and implementation of our own projects. We place special emphasis on the participation of recipient countries and ensure that planning and implementation is indeed a joint endeavor. At the same time, we are also reducing projects that would otherwise waste resources due to a partner’s lack of participation. These practices echo the Paris Declaration’s guidelines on harmonization.

When recipients participate in projects and help to coordinate resources, results are no longer the sole responsibility of a donor. In keeping with the Paris Declaration's guidelines on mutual accountability, this means that both parties, together, are responsible for the success or failure of a project. At the TaiwanICDF, we will continue to integrate the resources of multiple stakeholders into our assistance projects, including those of government departments or organizations, international organizations, private sector enterprises, non-profit organizations and other parties as needed. We will also consolidate our commitment to mutual accountability by establishing monitoring frameworks in cooperation with recipient countries. We hope that such actions will expand the impact and transparency of our projects and enhance their effectiveness and substantive effects.

• Update: 2023/09/06
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