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Page 1 of 3 Two years after the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, evidence of its impact on development practice in A&RD is still hard to find. But the 2nd European Rural Forum offered some early clues.
Some early pointers on rural SWAps, alignment and division of labour
Three panel discussions at the Berlin Forum convened by the Platform brought together some pioneers of practical aid effectiveness to compare notes on their experience in the field. The panels discussed sector-wide approaches (SWAps) in agriculture and rural development, donor alignment with government strategies and, most controversially, the division of labour. Two Platform background papers,  Joint Donor Minimum Standards for Effective ARD Programmes and the Joint Donor Concept for Rural Development, helped fuel the debate. Here are some of the findings from the discussions around aid effectiveness issues in ARD:
Read on ...
Agriculture and rural development (A&RD) pose a special challenge for the aid effectiveness agenda: in 2007, with only eight years left to reach the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, 2.1 billion individuals in rural areas still live below the $2 a day poverty line.
Making A&RD programmes more effective is central to the Global Donor Platform’s work. The 2nd European Forum on Sustainable Rural Development, held June 18-21, 2007, in Berlin, where the Platform as co-organiser made aid effectiveness a cross-cutting issue in all working sessions as well as the focus of three panel discussions, offered some evidence on the impact of the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness on development practice in A&RD.
New code to enhance effectiveness
Ever since the first European Forum, held in southern French city of Montpellier in 2002, calls have grown for a donors’ code of conduct to improve coordination and programme outputs in agriculture and rural development programmes. The Platform has recently launched collaborative work towards just such an instrument. It was discussed in Berlin and is shaping up as a jointly-developed instrument to guide the members of the Platform on how to go about the business of ARD more effectively (see first draft of Joint Donor Minimum Standards).
Here are some of the broad aid effectiveness messages that emerged from the Forum:
1. Bring civil society to the table and ensure that all take a hand in decision-making
Donors recognise that, ultimately, it is not the state but the private sector that is the main driver of agricultural growth in rural areas, from individual farmers through local and regional producer organisations to agro-processing companies. The private sector must have a central role in formulation of A&RD strategies and their implementation. Governments in developing countries must promote and guarantee this role, and ensure all of civil society’s active and influential participation in the national policy dialogue and decision-making.
2. Tell more success stories
Agriculture and rural development (A&RD) programmes are still weak at presenting and promoting their best work. There is an urgent need to extract concise messages on how A&RD programmes concretely contribute to poverty reduction. Donors must use attractive media formats to promote A&RD programmes that can be emulated and scaled up. These success stories can then help donors and partners to clarify the “do’s and don’ts” and then make useful recommendations on programme management derived from actual best (and worst) practices. Without clear evidence of success, the flow of funds to our sector will not increase.
Too many donors?
Donor proliferation makes huge and wasteful demands of paperwork, time and patience. A central aim of aid reform is to drive down these so-called transaction costs. But immediate prospects are not promising. According to the European Commission, a certain unnamed African country was obliged to receive 800 individual donor missions in 2006, meaning an average of three per day, not counting weekends. [...]
On May 15, 2007, the European Council of Ministers adopted the innocuous-sounding EU Code of Conduct on Complementarity and Division of Labour in Development Policy. The code’s 11 guiding principles are voluntary, not binding, and apply only to multilateral and bilateral donor agencies in EU member states.
But the EU’s member states account for half of all the world’s aid money: if enacted, the code could dramatically reshape the way development policy is designed and carried out all over the world.
Read on ...
3. Keep the new aid architecture open to change
Cross-cutting issues like migration, desertification, climate change and off-farm economies are highly complex and rapidly-evolving. Most importantly, there is not enough systematic information about them and both donors and their partners are nowhere close to incorporating these issues in a significant way into the design and architecture of new aid instruments. We all need a better understanding of this picture as it unfolds, meaning we must redouble efforts to fill the data gaps with more effective research.
4. Share the know-how
Donors and partners must improve shared learning both within and between their respective organisations, and develop well-coordinated mechanisms for doing so. Interagency rivalries remain a major hindrance to this and are likely to be exacerbated as pressure builds for a more efficient division of labour between them. We need clear and transparent lines of communication with each other to build mutual trust, confidence and accountability.
5. Build capacity at the periphery as well as at the centre
The early evidence on sector-wide approaches (SWAps), programme-based approaches (PBAs) and budget support programmes in A&RD show that they are not yet working effectively at decentralised levels due to insufficient skills and know-how among the people who must carry them out. To overcome this deficit, we must make capacity development in private and public institutions an integral part of the new aid effectiveness requirements.
Missed the event? Catch up on all the sessions and debate at the 2nd European Rural Forum with audio and text downloads from  www.ruralforum.info.
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