AID AND POOR COUNTRIES

THIS week, Ghana will host about 1000 international dignitaries expected to participate in a high level forum on aid effectiveness.
For both donor and recipient countries, the conference comes at a critical time when efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are continuously being accelerated on all fronts, with the vital input of aid.
Over the years the question of aid effectiveness has featured prominently in efforts at finding solutions to the economic challenges facing developing countries.
Truly, most developing countries have a great percentage of their budgets funded by donors and, clearly, that provides the impetus to critically assess the value placed on aid and the use to which it is put.
It is estimated that one billion people still live in extreme poverty world-wide. These people live in deplorable conditions with no clean water, high illiteracy rates and 6000 dying of HIV/AIDS every single day.
For such people, aid plays a critical role towards alleviating poverty and providing them with decent living. In Ghana, aid, sound economic policies and good governance have played a crucial role towards promoting economic growth.
Yet, despite the gains that have been derived from development assistance, concerns over what has been described as unfriendly and intolerable conditions attached to these aid packages have consistently attracted criticism.
Many aid donors have been criticised for setting up their own parallel structures and channels that tend to undermine the leadership and decision-making powers of the recipient countries and thereby compromising their right to make their own choices in terms of development interventions.
At the core of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is the vital concept of ownership; that is, to what extent are recipient countries given ownership of any development package that goes with the provision of aid?
As has been argued consistently, ownership of the development agenda prescribes that the developing or recipient country is firmly placed in the driving seat. Anything short of that could easily be interpreted as an imposition, which may not receive maximum patronage.
In this regard, it is gratifying to note that Ghana is an example of a country taking strong leadership of its own development agenda. Ghana is the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty, and is on track to achieving a middle income status by 2015.
The DAILY GRAPHIC commends the leadership of the country for putting in place the right mechanism to ensure that it reports back to the citizens and partners what is being achieved with aid money.
Remarks by donor agencies, including the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), indicate that the country’s public financial management systems have been significantly improved, but quite disappointingly, these gains and stringent monitoring measures do not match increased funding through the public financial management systems.
Thus, the DAILY GRAPHIC wishes to emphasise the importance of the ‘Accra Agenda for Action’, produced from one of the broadest consultation processes ever held in the field of development co-operation. Ghana has taken a leadership role in co-ordinating the views of developing countries around the world.
Indeed, Ghana’s thriving democracy and economy provide a strong basis for making a case for giving developing countries the opportunity to own and drive their own development agenda.
When countries take ownership of their development path, they will seek partnership that respects the priorities of developing countries to invest in their people, institutions and systems to achieve the prosperity the global community is looking for.
However, that fruitful partnership can only be attained if participants at the meeting muster the political will to convert good intentions on paper into real action on the ground.