Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals ...

Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals
that the impacts it achieves bear a reasonable relation to the inputs involved
(BMZ 2005a). If this is not the case, thought will have to be given
to alternative approaches and instruments. Under certain circumstance
thought should even be given to completely terminating DC in a sector or
country if the insufficient effectiveness noted for DC is due not to the inefficiency
of the measures taken but to structural problems or a lack of the
will needed on the partner side to engage in meaningful reforms.
Alignment and donor coordination of DC: Finally, it is also essential to
give due consideration to the priorities of partner countries and the activities
of other donors (BMZ 2005a). In some countries – e.g. in Yemen –
this is already working very well (BZ 2005b). In others, though, coordination
between donors is still very unsatisfactory. One reason for this is that
some of the MENA partner countries have yet to work out national development
or poverty-reduction strategies keyed to the MDGs. Another,
though, is the fact that the donors are not always prepared to coordinate
their activities and then to key their approaches to a meaningful division of
labor or to improve their cooperation in a given sector. Indeed, sometimes
donors even compete for especially prestigious projects, a state of affairs
that permits partner countries to play one donor off against another and
thereby evade any conditionalization of DC (Loewe 2000a, 53 f.).
6.4 Policy dialogue
Moreover, the German government should make intensive use of the possibilities
afforded by its political dialogue with the governments of partner
countries. This dialogue is, for several reasons, an important instrument in
pursuing the MDGs. First, government-level negotiations and consultations
offer a good opportunity to coordinate the development strategies of
partner countries with the contributions of donor countries to implementing
MDGs 1–7. Second, they also offer an opportunity to negotiate over
donor measures designed to implement MDG8. Third, the dialogue offers
both sides the opportunity to remind their partners of the obligations both
of them have assumed under the Millennium Declaration and to call for
more, and more efficient, engagement.
What this implies is that the German government should continue to address
the MDGs in talks with governments of the MENA countries, inquiring
about the state of the ongoing implementation process. The German
German Development Institute 157