In February 2003, leaders of the major multilateral development banks and international and bilateral organizations, and donor and recipient country representatives gathered in Rome for the High-Level Forum on Harmonization (Rome-HLF). They committed to take action to improve the management and effectiveness of aid and to take stock of concrete progress before meeting again in Paris, February 2005, for the Joint Progress Toward Enhanced Development and Effectiveness: Harmonisation, Alignment and Results (Paris-HLF).

The challenge for the multilateral and bilateral donors, as well as partner countries, is to harmonize their operational policies, procedures, and practices and to align their support with country-owned poverty reduction strategies or other development frameworks. The work involves group efforts to identify those elements that all agree are good practices, and then individual efforts by each institution or country to align their policies and procedures as close to those good practices as they can, with much more attention to enhancing country systems for all development expenditures. This practical reform agenda covers a broad range of activities: country strategies, analytic work, technical assistance, operations, and regional and global activities. Many country-level harmonization activities are summarized in the Country Implementation Tracking Tool.

Harmonization has the potential to not only reduce the costs of aid, but to increase the benefits of aid, indeed to increase the impact of all government expenditures. The cumulative effect could change the way development business gets done in the 21st century.

Paris High-Level Forum (2005)

The Paris High-Level Forum was hosted by the French Government on February 28 - March 2, 2005 and attended by development officials and ministers from ninety one countries, twenty six donor organizations, representatives of civil society organizations and the private sector. In the concluding statement - the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the Ministers as well as the Heads of multilateral and bilateral development institutions committed their countries and institutions to far-reaching and monitorable actions to significantly increase aid effectiveness. Special reference is made in the document to the need for harmonization in emergency and complex situations such as the tsunami disaster and fragile states.

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is presented in three sections, viz. the Statement of Resolve set out in Section I, the Partnership Commitments stated in Section II and twelve Indicators of Progress listed in Section III. Before September 2005, the five preliminary targets to be achieved by 2010, will be reviewed, and specific quantitative targets for the remaining seven indicators will be adopted. Two rounds of monitoring of these commitments are envisaged before meeting in a developing country in 2008 to review progress in implementing this Declaration.

Commitments from the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness include:

• Developing countries will exercise effective leadership over their development policies, strategies, and to coordinate development actions;
• Donor countries will base their overall support on receiving countries' national development strategies, institutions, and procedures;
• Donor countries will work so that their actions are more harmonized, transparent, and collectively effective;
• All countries will manage resources and improve decision-making for results;
• Donor and developing countries pledge that they will be mutually accountable for development results.
  

In February 2003, leaders of the major multilateral development banks and international and bilateral organizations, and donor and recipient country representatives gathered in Rome for the high-level forum on harmonization. They committed to take action to improve the management and effectiveness of aid, and to take stock of concrete progress, before meeting again in early 2005.

The Forum's concluding statement, the Rome Declaration, sets out an ambitious program of activities:

• Ensure that harmonization efforts are adapted to the country context, and that donor assistance is aligned with the development recipient's priorities.
• Expand country-led efforts to streamline donor procedures and practices.
• Review and identify ways to adapt institutions' and countries' policies, procedures, and practices to facilitate harmonization.
• Implement the good practices principles and standards formulated by the development community as the foundation for harmonization.