ABSTRACT
The main principles of the Paris Declaration are reflected in that quote; they include ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results, and mutual accountability. Although most of these principles and indicators for monitoring make sense, the Paris Declaration has been heavily criticized by NGOs and civil society groups for being too technocratic and focusing too much on the relationship between donors and recipients, and not enough on recipient governments and their citizens, especially as it relates to the participation of citizens and civil society in decision making. However, the broader consensus (with the presence of more participants) reached in Paris represented a significant improvement from the Rome High Level Forum on Harmonization in 2003 when donors and recipients also committed to harmonization, alignment, and ownership as key principles for aid effectiveness. In the third High Level Forum on aid effectiveness which was held in Accra in September 2008, and which resulted in the Accra Agenda for Action, it was recognized that progress was too slow and that there remained much work if the principles of ownership, effective partnerships for development, and accounting for results were all to be achieved successfully. In a similar vein, one of the ten principles from the OECD DAC “Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations” (OECD 2007, which complements the Paris Declaration, is to “take context as the starting point,” justifying the need for a case-by-case approach. The other principles include “do no harm,” “focus on state-building as the central objective,” “prioritize prevention,” “recognize the links between political, security and development objectives,” “promote non-discrimination as a basis for inclusive and stable societies,” “align with local priorities in different ways in different contexts,” “agree on practical coordination mechanisms between international actors,” “act fast . . . but stay engaged long enough to give success a chance,” and “avoid pockets of exclusion.” Again, as in the case of the Paris Declaration, these principles make sense but are not always clear or practical, as they leave significant issues unresolved. For instance, they do not mention how long we should be engaged in fragile states and what criteria one needs to consider to engage in or disengage from fragile state situations. Is a focus on state-building the right approach or should one focus instead on rebuilding the trust that citizens have in their governments by working with NGOs and grassroots organizations? What sectors should be prioritized? In the next two sections, we will examine aid allocation and aid effectiveness in fragile states environments, respectively. We will review the literature on each of these two issues, taking into account state fragility, and, as in the previous chapter, our approach will again be largely empirical, using structural data. In the final section, we will conclude with the policy implications of our findings.
