The United Nations Development Cooperation Forum’s (DCF) High-Level Symposium took place in Vienna on the 12th and 13th of November, focusing primarily on mutual accountability.
Southern governments were strongly represents, far more so than Northern governments, with France and Germany being entirely absent. Parliamentarians and CSOs were invited to join to give panel presentations and participate actively in discussions.
In September of 2008, nearly 2,000 people gathered in Accra, Ghana, for the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF). They represented a wide range of development actors from low-income countries, middle-income countries, fragile states, donor countries, international aid organizations, global funds, civil society organizations, and parliaments. To move the aid effectiveness agenda forward, they ended the HLF by endorsing the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA)
The World Bank has printed an Action Plan for Aid Effectiveness to follow up on the AAA.
The manager’s amendment to the Kerry-Lugar-Menendez-Corker initial aid reform bill, S.1524, passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this afternoon by a vote of 14-3. This was described by Senator Menendez as “one of the most significant pieces of foreign assistance legislation that has passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in decades." -For more information click here.
In September, Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated that a commitment of 0.7% of Gross National Income to overseas aid would ‘in future become law’. The Liberal Democrats have accused him of effectively abandoning his promise.
In the Queen’s speech yesterday however, 0.7% was presented as a draft bill, making it highly unlikely to pass through parliament before the next election.
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An article titled “A New Approach to Post War Reconstruction” by Fredric Galtung and Martin Tisne from Tiri, has been published in the Journal for Democracy.
One year on from Accra in 2008, when the International Aid Transparency Initiative goals and principles were decided, the IATI conference in the Hague proved to a productive and useful event.
IATI has posted the progress of the Iniative on its website, and outlined the plans for the year ahead.
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