2007 (PDF, 2.81 MB) - Belgium

Improving aid effectiveness:
harmonisation and alignment
The last Millennium Development Goal, i.e. the
‘global partnership’ goal, is clearly apparent in the
commitments made in the Paris Declaration on
Aid Effectiveness signed in 2005. The European
Union has since transposed the ‘harmonisation’
aspect of the declaration into the Code of Conduct
on Complementarity and Division of Labour in
Development Policy. The code of conduct advocates,
amongst other things, increased geographical and
sectoral concentration of aid, arrangements with
the relevant donors about ‘delegated cooperation’
and further reforms by the donors to make the aid
more efficient and reduce the management burden
for recipient countries. Since the Declaration recipient
countries and donors alike have drawn up an
action plan of their own. Belgium has been no exception,
reworking the Paris Declaration into a concrete
action plan in 2007 that also incorporates the
European code of conduct.
The terms ‘ownership’, ‘alignment’ and ‘harmonisation’
are central to the action plan, alongside the
principles of managing for results, with attention
being paid to institutional capacity building in the
partner country and mutual accountability.
Belgian action plan to boost
effectiveness
The Belgian action plan translates the twelve indicators
into concrete steps to boost the effectiveness
of Belgian cooperation. The focus is on the following
issues:
Cooperation planning
Indicative cooperation programmes are aligned to
fit the partner countries’ poverty reduction plans
(Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers or other plans).
This means aligning not only the content (objectives
and strategic choices), but also organisational aspects
(schedule, follow-up missions, use of national procedures
and institutions, and so on).
Role of technical assistance (TA)
In the international technical assistance it offers,
Belgian development cooperation has to take into
account the partner country’s national policy on
capacity building and, in particular, subscribe to
pooled fund mechanisms for TA (donors’ funds (co-)
managed by the partner country to obtain international
TA). Belgium also tries to recruit as many mission
personnel as possible from the local community
and give them professional training, whilst taking
care that this does not lead to weakening of the
partner country’s own institutions (a ‘brain drain’).
Twelve indicators covering these areas were listed in
the declaration. Four are specifically the responsibility
of the recipient countries while the other eight are
in the first instance the responsibility of the donors.
Harmonisation and alignment
Coordination of implementation
mechanisms
Taking into account the institutional capacity of the
recipient country, Belgium is working on an approach
whereby the partner institutions themselves implement
and are responsible for cooperation initiatives.
1. Ownership
(Partner countries)
Partners
set the
priorities
Source:
OECD/DAC
(2004c)
This basic preference for ‘national implementation’
means that we must make efforts to avoid parallel
follow-up systems wherever possible and ensure that
existing partner institutions take care of follow-up.
2. Alignment
(Donor-Partner)
3. Harmonisation
(Donor-Donor)
Common
arrangements
Alignment
on partners’
priorities
Use of
country
systems
Rationalised
procedures
Information
sharing
Intensification of policy dialogue
With a view to creating an enhanced and realistic
(multi-donor) policy dialogue, Belgian cooperation will
bolster its risk management mechanisms by acquiring
appropriate knowledge and experience of Public
Expenditure Framework Assessments (PEFAs), Public
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