For a smoother flow of development aid
Friday, 12 September 2008
FOREIGN aid is still an important ingredient of the development budget of the developing and the least developed countries (LDCs). But of late, the foreign aid has been declining in volume and frequency. Alongside it, the conditions imposed on the recipient countries are also becoming more stringent and complicated. As a consequence the LDCs are increasingly finding it harder to fund their development activities. The common allegation of the bilateral and multilateral donors against the recipient countries is that they cannot utilise the aid properly. The blame for this failure is usually laid at the recipient governments' door. It is said that the governments of the Third World countries are inefficient and corrupt. That is why, the aid package is tied to various performance criteria set by the donor agencies. In tandem with this, a huge fault-finding industry has also grown that has been 'churning out' various indicators to measure the degree of inefficiency and culpability of the governments at the receiving end. The impact of this 'censure culture' has left a negative impact on the purpose and utility of aid itself.
But in the beginning, the purpose of aid was to help the developing and least developed countries out of the syndromes that are naturally linked to lack of development. On the other hand, it was widely considered that the fundamental causes of the backwardness and its outgrowth -- inefficiency, corruption, poor governance and so on exhibited by the newly emerging nations under the post-colonial dispensation -- were largely the outcome of the colonial rule by the erstwhile 'imperial' masters, now the developed nations. Aid was then looked upon as a way of the western world's redeeming their colonial debts to the newly independent nations. As part of this process, the developed nations in their first International Development Strategy adopted in the '60s of the last century, had committed 0.7 per cent of their Gross National Product (GNP) as Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the developing countries. Meanwhile, some five decades have passed. But what is now about the developed countries' living up to their own commitment to the developing world? And then again, who is to ask them such question, when the aid recipients themselves are smarting from the broadside fired at them by the donor governments and the agencies for the former's lack of performance and all its attending ills?
It is against this backdrop that some issues relevant to utilisation of external assistance have come into limelight afresh at the recently-held ministerial session of the Forum on Aid Effectiveness at the Ghanaian capital, Accra. Finance and Planning Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam who joined the meeting, representing Bangladesh, laid stress there on establishing a system to ensure the accountability of the aid-givers themselves. The Accra Declaration, which is the outcome of the third Forum on Aid Effectiveness, has, meanwhile, called upon donors to come up to their promises and empower their country offices to deliver accordingly.
There is no denying that the developed nations have generally failed to honour their own pledge on aid to the Third World. That does not, however, automatically exonerate the recipient governments from fulfilling their own responsibilities of utilising the aid properly. In fact, the lack of commitment has been a common fault-line cutting across the donor-recipient divide. The net result of this general failure on both the sides of the divide has been the loss of effectiveness of aid, on one hand, and the inability of the recipient countries to come out of the trap of aid-dependency, on the other. Therefore, it should not surprise any one that some countries have remained perennially ensnared in the syndrome characteristic of the countries receiving aid. It is time a change is brought about, in the existing aid culture. Since the developing world is yet to wean off the necessity of aid, it is absolutely imperative that both the giver and recipient of aid come up with a fresh look at the issue of aid and development.
But in the beginning, the purpose of aid was to help the developing and least developed countries out of the syndromes that are naturally linked to lack of development. On the other hand, it was widely considered that the fundamental causes of the backwardness and its outgrowth -- inefficiency, corruption, poor governance and so on exhibited by the newly emerging nations under the post-colonial dispensation -- were largely the outcome of the colonial rule by the erstwhile 'imperial' masters, now the developed nations. Aid was then looked upon as a way of the western world's redeeming their colonial debts to the newly independent nations. As part of this process, the developed nations in their first International Development Strategy adopted in the '60s of the last century, had committed 0.7 per cent of their Gross National Product (GNP) as Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the developing countries. Meanwhile, some five decades have passed. But what is now about the developed countries' living up to their own commitment to the developing world? And then again, who is to ask them such question, when the aid recipients themselves are smarting from the broadside fired at them by the donor governments and the agencies for the former's lack of performance and all its attending ills?
It is against this backdrop that some issues relevant to utilisation of external assistance have come into limelight afresh at the recently-held ministerial session of the Forum on Aid Effectiveness at the Ghanaian capital, Accra. Finance and Planning Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam who joined the meeting, representing Bangladesh, laid stress there on establishing a system to ensure the accountability of the aid-givers themselves. The Accra Declaration, which is the outcome of the third Forum on Aid Effectiveness, has, meanwhile, called upon donors to come up to their promises and empower their country offices to deliver accordingly.
There is no denying that the developed nations have generally failed to honour their own pledge on aid to the Third World. That does not, however, automatically exonerate the recipient governments from fulfilling their own responsibilities of utilising the aid properly. In fact, the lack of commitment has been a common fault-line cutting across the donor-recipient divide. The net result of this general failure on both the sides of the divide has been the loss of effectiveness of aid, on one hand, and the inability of the recipient countries to come out of the trap of aid-dependency, on the other. Therefore, it should not surprise any one that some countries have remained perennially ensnared in the syndrome characteristic of the countries receiving aid. It is time a change is brought about, in the existing aid culture. Since the developing world is yet to wean off the necessity of aid, it is absolutely imperative that both the giver and recipient of aid come up with a fresh look at the issue of aid and development.