Donor assessments
Democratic ownership and mutual accountability
Power relations between donors and aid recipients
Authors:
Publisher:
Fride, 2008
This activity brief contains presentations by three development experts on the power relations between donors and recipients of aid and the repercussions of such relations on domestic politics in southern countries. The presentations organised by Fride, a Mardid-based independent think tank, also covers attributes and challenges of the Spanish aid system, within the complex and changing circumstances of new aid relationships
The first presentation elaborates on the preconditions for a commitment to mutual accountability in donor-recipient relations. The presenter stresses the need for establishing common criteria, measurement mechanisms and, above all, incentives and sanctions for good or bad performance.
The presenter, however, is pessimistic about whether donors’ genuine commitment to a more equal relationship would be able to prevail over economic and political interests and institutional inertia.
The second presentation focuses on the negotiation process before the Accra High-Level Forum on 'ownership' criteria. Whilst northern and civil society voices press for 'democratic ownership', which might permit greater supervision and diversity, some Southern governments have called for 'inclusive ownership', that is, aligning action on the part of civil society with policies designed to enhance states’ capacities for poverty reduction.
This presenter particularly stresses the distortion of policy development capacities between North and South, since donors invest only negligible parts of development aid in the research capacities of the South.
The third presentation describes the findings of recent seven-country research on aid and power relations. Based on country-level evidence, the presenter questions the willingness of donors to leave the ‘driving seat’ to recipient governments and quotes examples of continued policy conditionality, donor-driven and uncoordinated technical assistance, the co-opting of civil society by westerners - be they governments or NGOs - and the gaps between the Paris discourse and country-level implementation. In spite of their declarations donors continue to limit the political space through which recipient governments might find their own way out of poverty.
