Why Harmonize?
Donors fund more than 60,000
aid projects around the world.
The demands on recipient capacity
are overwhelming: some developing
countries receive as many
as 800 new projects a year,
host more than 1,000 missions
to monitor the work, and have
to present 2,400 quarterly
reports on progress. Meanwhile,
as aid funds shrink, donors
themselves are realizing that
their many processes and procedures
tend to detract from their
development impact; and they
are asking whether there are
ways they could use their
resources more efficiently.
To address these challenges,
multilateral and bilateral
donors, as well as partner
countries, are working 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 bring 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 programs.
This agenda goes beyond the mechanics of how aid is delivered: what began with a focus on transaction costs has moved on to address the issues of how well donors are working together, and to more effective substantive and policy coordination. 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.
|
High-Level Forum on Harmonization
|
 |
|
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.
See also:
|
|
|
