//  Tackling poverty through ARD

The importance of ARD as a means to tackle poverty was thoroughly underlined, drawing attention to its absence as topic in the forum's plenary. Posing complex and characteristic challenges to development success, ARD was portrayed as the sector in which progress in aid effectiveness was of particular need. It was shown to be a sector with immense potential for reducing poverty as the majority of the poor lived in rural areas.

//  The importance of including local actors for better aid

As in yesterday's ARD mini-debate, presenters repeatedly highlighted how important it was to find the right partners and focus on the inclusion of local actors. Using the evidence collated in the research for Platform Knowledge Piece I on Aid Coherence, the paper's author Steve Wiggins of ODI showed how development programmes which included actors with interest to see the programmes through, were the most successful ones. Consequently, this resulted in multi-stakeholder projects which included the various actors involved in a value chain.

Andax Rukonge of Better Aid and Azra Sayeed, co-chair of PCFS, both mentioned the importance of contributions that stakeholders from the community level can bring to multi-stakeholder programmes. CSOs could add to this by helping to determine a more effective choice of priorities on the basis of informing on the situation on the ground.

Rukonge pointed out that agriculture ministries often heavily depended on donors, with contributions of up to 80% to their budgets. This caused more than only a questionable inflation of priorities – it actually distorted the picture of whose priorities they were in the first place.

According to Sayeed aid could not be entirely horizontal. Multi-stakeholder coalitions may allow a more balanced choice of priorities. However, projects were stated to still fall short of involving actors from the community.

//  Q&A session

The issue of women’s contribution to ARD effectiveness was addressed as critically important to the success of programmes. While there was no lack of information, Sayeed underlined that it was the implementation and political will that had been lacking. These however were central to “getting women out of their house” and involving them in development processes.

//  Conclusions

Panellists agreed that overall results in ARD had fallen short of living up to the Paris Principles. While the letter of the Paris Principles had been followed, its spirit was not, commented Steve Wiggins. He illustrated this point using the principle of alignment: where alignment had officially been reached, he argued, this was often due to government priorities being so wide that almost everything would count as aligned. His message to the donors: “You need country staff to hear the local voices and listen to them. Start taking countries more serious and stick with your priorities and strategies for longer times.”

The mini debate was attended by 27 delegates.

//  Organizers

People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty ,Global Donor Platform for Rural Development, Better Aid