ThemesA number of themes that are highly profiled in the current debate about development aid are being dealt with in different ways during the study. The themes have partly to do with development aid in a narrow extent, and partly with the changing context. The global contextDevelopment aid has to some extent always been tied to foreign policies. Some might say that development assistance increasingly is submitted to other political agendas, and the fight against poverty is deteriorating. On the other hand, there are also tendencies pointing in another direction: military interventions are difficult to legitimate without being accompanied by reconstruction strategies and improvement of citizens’ livelihood. Thus, it can be argued that the global context also privides opportunities to broaden the objective of poverty reduction to other policy areas, such as security, climate, trade, etc. The Millennium Development GoalsThe UN publishes a report on the fulfilling of the MDGs every year. It is generally concluded in the report from 2007 that the goals are reachable on a world scale in 2015, but they will not be fulfilled everywhere. Economic growth in many Asian countries contributes to the positive result globally, whereas Africa on a whole surely will not meet the goals. The MDGs have been object for much criticism. Some say that they are focusing too much on social sectors (education and health) and not enough on production. Another fundamental question is what to do in Africa when it becomes clear that current policies and strategies do not lead to the expected results. The aid architectureThere are many different players in the field of development assistance and many ways to channel aid to poor countries. Currently the aid architecture suffers from uncoordinated initiatives which easily undermine aid effectiveness, increasing the possibility for antagonisms and overlaps between various development activities. This could motivate a reflection on a more clear division of labour between different development actors. By Kevin Kelly www.asiagrace.com
In 2005 more than a hundred countries signed the Paris Declaration. It is now used as a reference in almost all development aid associated contexts. Even though an important step towards the coordination and alignment of different forms of aid is taken, it is far from certain that the Declaration is an efficient instrument in reaching a coordinated diversity of flexible development activities supporting recipient government engaged in poverty reduction. Moreover, the Paris Declaration is, despite its good intensions, being criticised for being unrealistic; it is not possible to unite all the different approaches and interests of different countries. It is also argued that the political will to implement the Declaration is uneven among donor agencies. Fragile statesThese are countries which in one way or another do not have capacity or are unwilling to implement poverty reduction policies. ‘Fragile states’ is a term covering many different countries; some are affected by violent conflicts, some are post-conflict societies, other countries are ruled by leaders who are more focused on obtaining power than developing the country. There is also a group of countries willing but without the economic and human resources to take charge of its own development. Fragile states count some of the poorest countries in the world. Development aid seems to adjust badly to these states, risking making aid inefficient. This critique questions the mainstream aid framework based on harmonization, alignment, budget support, and sector programs, as to its usefulness in fragile states. Do we need to rethink the approach in fragile states? Development aid year 2020Questions about the fundamental issues related to development aid are rarely considered in Denmark. In some ways development assistance undermines its own ability to fight poverty because it is typically implemented by actors who are not responsible to poor people. Hence, recipients have very little influence on aid. Aid is also fundamentally characterised by an element of charity which undermines the independence and self-respect of the recipient. Furthermore, aid is influenced by sometimes rigid perceptions of how progress is made and of which groups and organizations best contribute to development. It is unlikely that development aid in its present form will be able to go beyond donor countries’ perceptions on what development is and how poverty must be fought. Thus, one may ask whether it is possible to imagine radically different and effective ways of channelling resources from rich to poor which do not take the responsibility away from the recipients. |
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