Harmonising Donor Practices for Effective Aid Delivery

The effectiveness of a donor’s assistance in a partner country is affected by the nature of the institutional framework for its relations with the partner government and with other donors, and by its own internal rules and culture. In recent years, donors have recognised the importance of ensuring that these frameworks support nationally owned poverty reduction strategies or similar approaches. Different objectives and interests between donors and partner governments can impair aid effectiveness. Donor support can be opaque and unpredictable. The way aid is delivered can create an unnecessary burden on partner countries, hinder efforts to build partner country capacity and weaken partner government leadership and its accountability to its own people. This chapter sets out nine guiding principles for providing more co-ordinated and effective development assistance. These principles underpin not only the good practices in setting an effective framework but also all the good practices in the subsequent five chapters. This chapter also sets out specific good practices donors may adopt for developing the overall framework for donor-partner government relations, for donor-donor co-ordination and for individual donor systems. If adopted, they would enhance a greater sharing of objectives between donor and partner governments, clearer expectations of each other and more predictable and transparent aid flows. Donors would co-ordinate in a way that would be transparent and minimise unnecessary transaction costs for partner countries. Donors’ internal rules and cultures would encourage their staff to behave collaboratively and as flexibly as possible. HARMONISING DONOR PRACTICES FOR EFFECTIVE AID DELIVERY – ISBN 92-64-19982-9 – © OECD 2003 1. FRAMEWORK FOR DONOR CO-OPERATION