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The Third High-Level Forum on Aid effectiveness has commenced. The Accra conference will seek to build on the ‘achievements’ of the Paris Declaration (PD) of 2005 and evaluate its impact. There is indeed much to discuss in Ghana with consternation that the PD’s high technical standards for aid effectiveness have been ‘politicised’.

This paper, whilst tracing the various aid modalities that have crystallised into the new aid architecture, primarily focuses on critically evaluating the PD and the pressing issues in aid effectiveness for Accra and beyond. Indeed concerning the PD, the authors assert that limited progress had been made in implementing its principles and outline a number of key areas that need attention:

• mutual accountability: progress is weak in terms of mutual assessment
• fragile states: a longer-term investment in ownership needs to be deployed
• democratic ownership and inclusive ownership: the inclusion of parliaments, sub-national levels of government and supreme audit institutions is still a pending task
• conditionality: the sheer number of conditionalities, the lack of coordination between donors and the opacity of aid negotiations are worrisome.

And what will be at the top of the agenda in Accra, in Doha and in the coming years? The paper highlights a number of issues, including:

• policy capacity and policy space: for capacity, these are issues like South-South technical assistance, and research funding for independent Southern institutes. In terms of policy space, the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) entails a commitment to revise conditionalities
  
• untying aid: the effectiveness of aid could increase significantly if donors did not oblige recipient countries to procure goods and services from the donor
  
• predictability: the PD indicator centres its attention on in-year predictability, while experts and CSOs call for medium-term predictability (three to five years)
  
• cross-cutting issues: the PD and particularly its emphasis on programme-based approaches has diverted attention from cross-cutting issues such as gender equality, human rights and the environment

The authors conclude by stating that Accra should take the partnership dimension seriously as the most essential basis for global governance of aid – to tackle head-on the overt political nature of aid relationships.

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