...HIPC Effectiveness In Poverty Reduction

A two-day work shop is underway in northern regional capital of Ghana to evaluate aid effectiveness in the country with special focus on HIPC effectiveness in poverty reduction. The programme was organized by Send Foundation of West Africa, a nongovernmental organisation in partnership with Commonwealth Foundation of London and is being attended by a cross-section of civil society groups and nongovernmental organizations across the country.

The workshop is a prelude to a grand meeting to be held in September this year to review the Paris Declaration that underpin the international development aid effectiveness framework. Since 2005 after the Paris declaration, civil society organizations have been raising diverse issues and bringing in different perspectives trying to ensure that this new framework for aid effectiveness translates into effective accountable development processes.

The Paris declaration on Aid Effectiveness, agreed in March 2005, establishes global commitment for donor and recipient countries to support more effective aid in a context of a significant scaling up of aid. The intention was to reform the delivery and management of aid in order to improve its effectiveness. The reforms were intended to increases the impact of aid in reducing poverty and inequality, increasing growth, building capacity and accelerating the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The Paris Declaration outlined five principles which should shape aid delivery: Ownership: Developing countries will exercise effective leadership over their development policies and strategies, and will co-ordinate development actions; Alignment: Donor countries will base their overall support on recipient countries’ national development strategies, institutions and procedures; Harmonization: Donor countries will work so that their actions are more harmonized, transparent and collectively effective; Managing for Results: All countries will manage resources and improve decision-making for results; Mutual Accountability: Donor and developing countries pledge that they will be mutually accountable for development results.

Of the 42 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) partnering Send Foundation, in the Ghana HIPC Watch (GHW) project, less than 5% are of the Paris Declaration. This lack of knowledge translates into low capacity to engage government in making international development aid effective. Therefore SEND Foundation in partnership with other CSOs have established the Ghana Civil Society Forum on Aid Effectiveness ostensibly to Review the Paris declaration in September this year.

As part of this process regional consultations have been conducted within the context of the Ghana HIPC Watch in four Zones namely Central Volta Upper East and Upper West. The two-days workshop in Tamale therefore was a national consultation to discuss report cards from the regional discussion that aimed at achieving the following objectives: To provide a platform for CSOs to share regional aid effectiveness report card; to build awareness on the Paris Declaration and principles underpinning the aid effectiveness framework in the 42 top poorest districts ion Ghana; to use the insights acquired to contribute to the Ghana CSOs Aid Effectiveness Forum’s advocacy agenda to influence the 2008 High Level forum on Aid Effectiveness and to facilitate experience sharing and learning using the media.

Addressing participants at the opening ceremony of the workshop, Dr Callistus Mahama, the Deputy Director of Institute of Local Government Studies said the declaration on Aid effectiveness sets out steps for donors to harmonise and align their aid with partner countries’ development strategies. He bemoaned the inefficiency of public of public financial management which requires high-level political leadership and technical skills. Dr Mahama therefore called for strengthening of partner countires institutions and systems particularly for government procurement and public financial management.

In a welcome address, the Country Director of SEND Foundation, Samuel Zan Akologo stated that increased aid impact positively or negatively on poverty reduction effort depending of several factors and said aid benefits growth and poverty reduction if accompanied by good policies. On the other hand he said aid aid especially through the discredited Structural Adjustment Programme framework has led to increased poverty which brought about the programme of Social Cost of adjustment.

In this direction Mr Zan Akologo mentioned the need to pay heed to views of ordinary people about how Aid through HIPC is affecting them and added that the necessary adjustment can be made to policies that accompany the Aid framework.

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