Dialogue in Pursuit of Development - Are you looking for one of ...

Coordination, complementarity and coherence for
more efficient assistance 2
Coordination
Coordination between donor countries is a must to prevent redundancies
and duplication. For instance, the European Union has a strategy in forestry.
Within the union, every country has its own forestry policy under the aegis
of its development agency. It goes without saying that there are real risks of
dissipating energy and resources with conflicts of interest as a result.
There should be particular stress on intensifying coordination between
embassies of donor countries and development agencies in the field at the
closest level to the partner country, and at all stages from designing to implementing
and assessing the development programmes by taking advantage
of strategy papers produced by the country. Such an approach goes
hand in hand with the decentralization policy that lenders like the World
Bank and the European Union wish to implement.
It is important to reinforce co-operation between departments and different
aid beneficiary sectors in developing countries. As a matter of fact
interaction between sectors must also be taken into account before assisting
a given sector. For instance, aid for palm oil tree development must take
into account the impact of such a development on the environment.
Complementarity
Reinforcing complementarity is essential for better division of work between
various lenders. No funding institution can claim excellence in all
countries and co-operation sectors. It is therefore necessary to share experience
acquired by multilateral and bilateral institutions as well as international
financial institutions to reach a case by case approach whereby tasks
will be distributed with due respect to the primary role of the partner country
and the comparative advantages of each party.
Coherence
Much more coherence is required between the different political actors of
development aid geared towards durable development. Efforts must be made
so that the objectives of development policies are taken into account when
designing and implementing policies which affect developing countries. To
do so systematic and thorough analysis is needed of possible side effects of
measures taken in very sensitive areas as well as consideration being given to
the development issue in decision making processes within development
agencies.
2 These terms are internationally accepted and are part of the Cotonou Agreement.
55