Joint Assistance Strategies

Joint Assistance Strategies (JAS) are frameworks based on the principles of the Rome and Paris declarations. They help in managing aid, enhancing harmonisation between donors and building on cooperation with national governments. The aim of JAS is to achieve a clearer segregation of lead, active and delegated partnerships and to reduce the transaction costs that governments face when dealing with multiple donors.

In JAS programmes, donors are more selective in their programming and policy dialogue. Each programme concentrates its efforts in line with its comparative advantages so as to avoid an overlapping of work. In some instances, JAS programmes also seek to involve non-government partners (NGOs and the private commercial sector) in these efforts. One criticism of JAS is that they can lead to competition between donors over the largest sectors such as health and education, while detracting attention from less popular issues that may not be well represented or not represented at all in the development agenda.