Aid still too 'tied'
European NGOs say the EU has been a "progressive voice" but call for more devolution of control over aid to developing countries.
By Mark Latham
A conference on the efficacy of aid held in Ghana has ended with non-governmental organisations expressing disappointment that developed countries continue to attach too many conditions to their aid and calling for developing countries to be given more responsibility for the ways in which aid is spent.
The conference – the Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness – was a follow-up to an accord reached in Paris in 2005 under which more than 100 countries and agencies committed themselves to improving the delivery and use of aid by 2010.
The three-day conference, which was attended by around 1,200 delegates from donor and recipient countries, multinational organisations, NGOs and charities, was called to discuss how much progress has been made three years on from the Paris Declaration.
Some NGOs have said there has not been enough progress on the issue of 'tied' aid, which requires a proportion of donated cash to be spent in the donor country. European countries – particularly Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK – have started to untie their aid but NGOs claim that the US and Japan are dragging their heels on the issue.
International donors give an estimated $120 billion or so in aid to developing nations each year, but NGOs as well as developing countries themselves, claim that some donors are reluctant to relinquish control of how the cash is spent.
Charities such as Oxfam claim that the reluctance of developed nations to change their behaviour stems in part from a perception that corruption is endemic in many developing countries. Bangladesh's ambassador to the World Trade Organisation, Debapriya Bhattacharya, argued that donor countries frequently use foreign aid as a tool of their foreign policy.
Concord, the European confederation of relief and development NGOs, said yesterday that failure to remove restrictions which force poor countries to purchase donor goods and services had the effect of increasing the costs of aid.
Concord's president, Justin Kilcullen, said "the EU has been a progressive voice in the negotiations in Accra", but now needed to "continue to demonstrate its leadership by taking the baton and working with developing countries to turn these promises into reality for delivering better quality European aid".
The president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, backed calls for reform of the way international aid is managed, telling the conference that "restrictions, earmarks and onerous conditions on food aid should be removed to ensure that food gets to where it is most needed".
The conference ended on 4 September with agreement to implement the Accra Agenda for Action, a document that enjoins donor and recipient countries to reduce the fragmentation of aid and to adapt aid policies for countries dealing with crises.
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Bangladesh	Ghana	Ireland	Japan	Sweden	The Netherlands	United Kingdom