The High Level Forum (HLF4) on aid effectiveness takes place between 29 November – 1 December in Busan, South Korea. It will be a key opportunity for donors, ministers and representatives from civil society and the private sector from across the world to come together to discuss to what extent previous global commitments on aid effectiveness made in Paris and Accra have been met and what actions are needed to make aid even more effective in the future.
Andris Piebalgs, the European Commission Development Commissioner, will present the European Union's new proposals to make its aid more effective at the forum: EU Joint Programming and an EU Transparency Guarantee.
The EU will also underline the need to focus more on how aid is delivered on the ground, and encourage partner countries to take forward new 'Country Compacts', NOA.al News Agency reports.
What is Joint Programming?
EU Joint Programming involves EU donors working together on aid delivery and then dividing the work needed in the most efficient way, according to their strengths.
It is an enhanced approach to development cooperation whereby the EU and its Member States analyse each country they work in to identify the areas most in need of support, which donor should work in which sector, and then how much money should be allocated as a result.
Joint Programming will help to increase impact and the results of aid - because aid delivery is more closely monitored – and improves coordination amongst donors, as well as increasing transparency and predictability.
What is the EU Transparency Guarantee?
The EU Transparency Guarantee is a new proposal which means that EU Member states will publicly disclose all information on aid programmes so that it can be more easily accessed, shared and published.
It will also make information available on all aid to partner countries, to enable them to report them in their national budget documents and help increase transparency towards parliaments, civil society and citizens.
What are 'Country Compacts'?
Country Compacts are flexible agreements put in place between different development partners, in order to better respond to those individual countries' priorities and specific needs on the ground at the time.
Other aid effectiveness issues which the EU is expected to focus on in Busan:
Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation
This is expected to be an arrangement to include partner countries as well as their development partners, including emerging economies, the private sector and civil society organisations from across the world.
Climate change
This year's UN climate change conference at Durban is taking place at the same time as the Busan Forum. The EU places importance on applying aid effectiveness principles to climate change finance in order to ensure that this finance supports partner countries' efforts in helping developing countries to cope with the effects of climate change as much as possible.
Fragile States
Fragile states are often the countries that are most off track in meeting the Millennium Development Goals. The EU will endorse a new global framework to prioritise aid effectiveness in fragile states, including by developing new cooperation agreements to make sure that no peace process or political dialogue on conflict fails due to lack of finance. It would also involve the development of new tools to assess the specific needs required in fragile situations, including conducting joint risk assessments and using national systems where possible.
Development in the private sector
Development and the private sector will be another key issue for discussion at HLF4. The EU has been active in widening development partnerships, including the private sector.. This way we can enhance the role of aid in making development as effective as possible. These partnerships should be strengthened further during HLF4, ensuring an inclusive outcome document as a basis for the future Global Partnership.
International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)
Last month, EuropeAid – the Directorate General responsible for the European Commission's aid delivery and development policy - fulfilled its pledge to implement the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).
The IATI was put in place to make public information on aid spending and activities more available and more accessible, worldwide.
This is so that aid information is useful to all stakeholders, particularly those in developing countries. It will also make that information simpler and easier to understand, to compare, and to use.
The initiative brings together donors, partner countries, civil society organisations and other users of aid information to agree common transparency standards for aid flows.
The IATI was signed in September 2008 as part of the Accra Agenda for Action on aid effectiveness
This initiative will be followed over the next few months with the roll-out of the Transparent Aid system (TR-AID), which will help to present the data in an easily-accessible format, such as through pie charts and graphs.
