Enough of aid ineffectiveness

by Anna Lauridsen

In a recent communication, the EC predicts that the cost of not fully implementing the Accra Agenda for Action adopted in 2008 may amount to as much as € 5 to € 7 billion euro a year until 2015. Such a figure is not only mindboggling, but also utterly indefensible. In the current climate of economic and financial downturn, resources are scarce in both the so called developed, as in the developing, world. Subsequently such a loss of the total EU aid budget due to “aid ineffectiveness” is unlikely to go down well with either the European taxpayers or the aid recipient countries.

Despite the billions of euro that are potentially lost, the Triple Fs, in other words, the three crises: food, fuel and finance, have resulted in calls for increased levels of development aid from the donors. As most governments were already failing to fulfill the target of committing 0,7% of their countries' GDP to Official Development Assistance, even before these financially sour times washed over the globe as a giant tsunami, it is unlikely that aid levels will increase.

One may even be so bold as to ask whether more money is really the answer or if it would merely be a way of throwing money at the problem. If the financial crisis has taught us anything it must be that good management is key, and something which has been lacking for a long while. Why not take advantage of the current situation to look over the regulations and management tools ruling the aid industry (for it is an industry of proportions) just as we are imposing similar demands on the banking and financial systems? Progress has been made; big summits have been held and declarations signed (for instance, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the AAA, and the IATI. Now is the time to take it one step further and put them into practice. That way, we could avoid wasting taxpayer’s money and make sure it reaches those it was intended for.