Code of Conduct in agriculture and rural development

8 Jul 2007.
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Platform facilitates the formulation of minimum standards for ARD programmes

During the First European Forum on Rural Development Cooperation which was held in Montpellier in September 2002, participants called for a Code of Conduct for donors supporting agriculture and rural development programmes (ARD) in order to ensure improved coordination and more effective outputs of these programmes.

Code of Conduct in ARD — Principles

Any code of conduct should be based on an agreed set of principles along the following lines (as proposed after Montpellier 02):

  • National development strategies to constitute core policy frameworks
  • National ownership and inclusiveness
  • Support national capacity for analysis and policy formulation
  • Common work on key policy issues and networking of researchers
  • Support non-governmental stakeholders
  • Support decentralisation processes
  • Mainstream action on vulnerability, gender and environment
  • Follow government systems and procedures
  • Share staff resources and information and pool financial resources
  • Agree on comparative advantages of different agencies
  • Be transparent, including about accountability
  • Take a results-oriented approach
  • Inter-link levels of co-operation from local through national, regional to global
  • Conduct joint missions, monitoring and evaluation
  • Adopt similar principles for global and regional level operations
  • Agreement to hold each other to account for adherence to these principles.

Taken from Improving Donor Coordination for Rural Development by Harvey, Jim; Kohlmeyer, Christoph and McIntosh, Cheryl 2004

Based on the Action Points of Montpellier 02, Christoph Kohlmeyer (BMZ) and Jim Harvey (DFID), both now in the Steering Committee of the Platform, had proposed principles to be included in such a Code of Conduct (see box at right).

At the Second European Forum on Sustainable Rural Development on June 18-21, 2007, in Berlin, the Platform will present the envisaged process towards such a Code of Conduct as well as two documents as basis for discussion to the Forum participants.

The first document, Cornerstones for Effective Agriculture and Rural Development Programmes under a Programme-based Approach, compiles lessons learned out of the Platform’s in-country facilitation processes as well as analytical underpinnings from existing literature.

Derived from this first document, the Platform proposes Joint Donor Minimum Standards on how to plan and execute ARD development programmes under the aid effectiveness principles as laid out in the OECD-DAC framework around the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness of March 2005. These joint donor minimum standards are meant to provide the basis for a future Code of Conduct, to be signed by the members of the Platform. During the event, the participants will have the chance to reflect on the content and future use of such a document.

At this stage, the Platform considers the way towards a Code of Conduct as a process, which will take certain time. The acceptance and adherence to such a Code of Conduct represents the end of the process which actually might require years of informing, lobbying and monitoring.

The Platform proposes that the future Code of Conduct will set the frame to which the Platform members as signatories of the Code of Conduct explicitly commit themselves to do business in ARD.

To read the full concept paper, please refer to Concept towards a Code of Conduct: Establishing Joint Donor Minimum Standards for Effective ARD Programmes.

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