News & Features
Aid and the Private Sector – How to make sure people and development profits
By: Fraser Reilly-King and Jeroen Kwakkenbos
Reporting from Busan: Reality of Aid engagements at the CSO Forum and HLF-4
The Reality of Aid Network (RoA) is in Busan, Republic of Korea - as part of the BetterAid Platform - for the Busan Global Civil Society Forum (BCSF) and the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4).
The network successfully held its 2011 Global Meeting and Workshop on Aid and the Private Sector at the BCSF on 26 November 2011, attended by some 80-100 participants from RoA member organisations as well as other groups attending the BCSF. "Aid and the Private Sector" is also the theme for the next RoA Global Report coming out in 2012.
Fulfilling right to development a weak spot in development cooperation
Twenty-five years after the Declaration on the Right to Development, making this right a reality for the world’s poor remains a huge challenge as developing countries and international development partners fall short in creating conditions to foster real development.
EECA CSOs participate on the road to Busan; Formulate common vision and action plan
On the road to Busan, civil society organizations (CSOs) from 11 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) gathered together in Istanbul to draft a common vision on development effectiveness and an action plan to raise their voices at the HLF4.
The regional workshop, organized by Reality of Aid, with support from BetterAid and in coordination with UNDP, was to facilitate the participation of CSOs in EECA in the aid effectiveness process, wherein the capacity of CSOs is crucial in promoting the culture of transparency and accountability desperately lacking in the region and could provide the dynamism necessary for a deeper involvement among donors, government and CSOs who are relatively lagging behind in the aid effectiveness and development effectiveness agenda.
New report shows aid can still matter for those who need it most
Aid could make a real difference for people who need it most if promises are made and kept by development actors, reveals a new report from the Reality of Aid Network, based on evidence from 32 countries around the world.
The report, titled “Democratic Ownership and Development Effectiveness: Civil Society Perspectives on Progress since Paris”, finds that at best only two of the 21 aid effectiveness targets have been achieved since 2005, and these have not always translated into poverty reduction. This is a wake-up call for key actors to agree on aid effectiveness commitments for 2012 and beyond, to be finalized at the Fourth High Level Forum on aid effectiveness- which Hilary Clinton and Ban Ki Moon have announced they will be attending. The report’s results should push them to ensure that this time, the forum results in commitments that are kept, and ones that really ensure that the people most affected by development initiatives are being empowered.
The report finds that past commitments have had some positive influence on improving relationships between many country governments and their international cooperation partners.
New report calls for full review of aid reform impact on development
Aid reform commitments in the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the subsequent 2008 Accra Agenda for Action are said to be part of an international push for results in achieving international development goals such as the Millennium Development Goals.
Yet official monitoring and evaluation done ahead of the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea next month failed to measure the degree to which aid reforms contributed to the impact on the lives and potential of poor women, men and children.
International Forum on Aid and Development Effectiveness in Agriculture and Rural Development
www.ifprs.org
On July 4th, the Peoples Coalition on Food Sovereignty, as a member of the Better Aid Coordinating Group, hosted a civil society forum that featured the perspectives of representatives of small scale farmers’ organizations and support groups from India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Mexico, Burundi, Cameroon, Kenya and Senegal.
Call for Regional Report Contributions!
The Reality of Aid Network Asia- Pacific is pleased to announce that the regional report on, and with the working title of, Financing the Private Sector: ODA to PPPs is now in the making. The report aims to show the trend of increased flow of ODA to PPPs in the Asia Pacific, present the role of multilateral financial institutions and governments in aggressively promoting the PPP scheme, illustrate the ways and process of how ODA to PPPs is managed and delivered and expose the donor and governments’ strategic interest and/or policies behind these projects.
Reality of Aid 2012 Report Theme Statement
The Reality of Aid publishes the biennial global report and this year preparations will be done with you on how we can come out with the RoA 2012 Report. The RoA 2010 Report that we launched at the OECD Conference Centre in Paris, France last October 2010 was very well received and we aim to achieve or even surpass such success.
On the road to Busan High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness
Philippine CSOs to DOF Secretary Purisima: make country delegation inclusive and multi-stakeholders; include CSOs, Parliamentarians working on aid and development effectiveness
Jazminda Lumang
Convenor, AidWatch Philippines
+63-9277404663
The global community is in a roll towards the much anticipated 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) on November 29-December 1 in Busan, South Korea.
In the forum, development actors are expected to highlight “achievements” of commitments made in the previous forums in Ghana (2008) and Paris (2005) while it is also anticipated that “new aid architecture” will be outlined.
China, India Score With Untied Aid
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Aug 25, 2011 (IPS) - Armed with a smile, Don Marut exposes the pitfalls of Western aid to developing countries. At a conference here, the Indonesian recalled the story of how 40 electric-train carriages were sent from Germany to his country for a journey to nowhere.
The second-hand carriages, it turned out, were unsuited for Indonesia’s network of narrow-gauge tracks.
Asia Pacific CSO Statement on Development Cooperation for Sustainable Development
15-17 August 2011
Bangkok, Thailand
Introduction
Poverty and marginalization have increased significantly through multiple crises in food, employment, environment and economy, fundamentally exposing the failure of the free market model of development. The systemic proportions of these crises have not only aggravated the situation of the poor and marginalized but also threatens to further worsen their conditions as the financial crisis centered in the advanced countries continues to unravel with severe consequences for the rest of the world.
Busan summit in November
Demanding democratic ownership
By Antonio Tujan Jr.
The High Level Forums on Aid Effectiveness have tackled important issues, but so far only led to disappointing results. Civil society organisations demand the democratisation of the aid effectiveness agenda.
Philippine CSOs Present Position at Multistakeholders Forum on Aid Effectiveness
Manila - Last June 2, Philippine Civil Society Organizations represented by AidWatch Philippines and the Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG) were able to present their statement for the Busan High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, which will happen on November 29-December 1 this year, in the Multi-stakeholders forum on aid effectiveness.
Selected CSOs for participation at HLF4 inBusan announced
A total of 270 participants plus ten percent alternates/reserves from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Middle East and Northern Africa, Latin America and Global Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) were selected by the Global Selection and Oversight Committee to be recommended to the OECD Working Party on Aid Effectiveness Core Group for accreditation for the HLF4 in Busan. The regional list of selected CSOs was released on 22 June.
Meanwhile, the list of participants from Europe including non EU member states and North America as well as the list of local participants from Korea are still being finalized. To see the list of selected participants, please visit the BetterAid website.
RoA 2012 Report to Feature Aid and the Private Sector
By: Ben Patrick Soliguin
Following its International Coordinating Committee’s (ICC) decision in March 2011 in Härnösand, Sweden, the Reality of Aid (RoA) Network’s 2012 Report will focus on aid and the private sector. As donors channel more aid through and to private firms and banks, aid in the private sector becomes an emerging trend in development cooperation.
CSOs call on ASEAN leaders to commit to providing enabling environment for CSOs
By: Ava Danlog
The Reality of Aid (RoA) joined 1300 other delegates at the recently concluded Asean Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Conference that discussed the people’s main concerns across the ASEAN states and developed key proposals for the 18th ASEAN Summit.
CSO Key Asks Out Now
Everyone urged to sign up
By Ben Patrick Soliguin
The achievement of a meaningful and ambitious Busan Compact on Development Effectiveness, according to the CSOs key messages and proposals towards the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, will be substantiated by the progress of four inter-dependent areas of reform. The Reality of Aid Network together with thousands of CSOs around the world call upon all development partners to:
RoA to Hold Global Workshop in Busan
By: Ben Patrick Soliguin
To engage members to debate key issues for the theme of the upcoming global report for 2012, the Reality of Aid (RoA) Network will hold its bi-annual Global Workshop on 26 November 2011. RoA holds the global workshop once in its two-year Report cycle.
Work on the RoA Shadow Report Continues
By: Goldie Liza Tanglao
Intending to fill gaps in the official reports on aid effectiveness by the OECD, the RoA 2011 Special Report, dubbed as Shadow Report, seeks to gather evidence of the Paris Declaration (PD) and Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) implementation at the country-level from a CSO perspective. To date, the Reality of Aid has received 34 full reports from a total of 35 participating CSOs from Asia/Pacific, Africa, and Latin America.