The challenge for Accra is to find ways in which aid regimes can be democratized and made more accountable to the poor and excluded citizens of the global south. Accra must agree a credible, timebound and monitorable process to ensure that aid itself can contribute to the end of aid dependency.
Proposals:
1. Moving the aid reform process to a more equal, transparent and representative forum
2. Women’s Rights should be at the centre of all aid discussions and practices
3. Making aid truly accountable and transparent
4. Make Technical Assistance 100% demand-driven and aligned to country strategies
5. Commit to ending all donor-imposed policy conditions and the use of aid to support foreign and economic policy priorities and interests, including untying all aid
6. Creating a coherent global anti-poverty effort
Total aid to poor farmers in developing countries in 2006 amounted to only US $3.9bn, while subsidies to rich commercial farmers in the OECD in the same year amounted to US $349bn.
Official Development Assistance reached US $104bn in 2007, but outflows in the form of illicit capital flight, mostly tax avoidance and evasion by multinational companies facilitated by offshore tax havens and banking secrecy, have been estimated at US $500-800bn a year.
The UNFCCC estimates the costs to developing countries of coping with climate change, overwhelmingly caused by CO2 emissions in rich countries, at US $67bn per year. It is essential that these costs, which would eat up more than half of current ODA, must be met through new and additional funding by rich countries.
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Filed under: Beyond WECA
