HLF 4 Busan, 29 Nov 2011

//  Meeting objectives

• Take stock of progress made on Paris Declaration targets and Accra Agenda for Action measures
• Undertake final round of monitoring and evaluate impact of Paris Declaration
• Set out a new framework to increase the quality of aid in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015

//  Developing countries’ priorities for the meeting

• Predictable aid
• Use of country systems
• An end to policy conditionality
• Country-driven capacity development
• Mutual accountability
• Reduced transaction costs 

The Platform acting through its Working Group on Aid Effectiveness is striving to ensure due recognition of the ARD sector with its specific characteristics and challenges.

More on HLF4 on aideffectiveness.org or on the OECD website.

HLF 3 Accra, 2008

During HLF 3, an agenda to accelerate progress toward the achievement of the Paris Declaration targets was drawn up and endorsed.

//  Accra Agenda for Action

• Predictability__ developing countries will strengthen the linkages between public expenditures and results, and donors will provide 3-to-5 year forward information on their planned aid to partner countries.
• Ownership__ developing country governments will engage more with parliaments and civil society organizations.
• Country systems__ partner country systems will be used to deliver aid as the first option, rather than donor systems, and donors will share their plans on increasing use of country systems.
• Conditionality__ donors will switch from reliance on prescriptive conditions about how and when aid money is spent to conditions based on the developing country’s own development objectives.
• Untying__ donors will elaborate individual plans to further untie their aid.
• Aid fragmentation__ donors agree to avoid creating new aid channels, and donors and countries will work on country-led division of labour.
• Partnerships__ all actors are encouraged to use the Paris Declaration principles, and the value of South-South cooperation is welcomed.
• Transparency__ donors and countries will step up efforts to have mutual assessment reviews in place by 2010. These will involve stronger parliamentary and citizen engagement and will be complemented with credible independent evidence.

HLF 2 Paris, 2005

During HLF 2, participating countries and institutions committed themselves to a set of monitorable actions and indicators in five key areas.

//  Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness

• Ownership__ Partner countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies, and strategies and co-ordinate development actions.
• Alignment__ Donors base their overall support on partner countries’ national development strategies, institutions and procedures.
• Harmonisation__ Donors’ actions are more harmonised, transparent and collectively effective.
• Managing for Results__ Managing resources and improving decision-making for results.
• Mutual Accountability__ Donors and partners are accountable for development results.

HLF 1 Rome, 2003

The HLF 1 followed up on the Monterrey Consensus of 2002 and prepared the ground for the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005. In the concluding declaration, donors agreed to improve in-country coordination and to reduce transaction costs for aid recipients.

//nbsp; Rome Declaration on Harmonisation

• Ensure that harmonisation efforts are adapted to country context and that donor assistance is aligned with 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 harmonisation.
• Implement the good practices principles and standards formulated by the development community as the foundation for harmonisation.