From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERgovernment down in a debilitating wrangle with donors, sucking theenergy out of its development plans. 146One innovative approach undertaken by donor and recipientgovernments to address the poor quality of much aid is the Educationfor All (EFA) initiative, which since 2000 has helped well over 20 millionchildren who would never have received an education to enrol inschool. Under the EFA compact, poor-country governments promisedto draw up realistic long-term education sector plans and toincrease their own investment in primary education. Donors in turnpromised to work together so that, as the World Bank’s DevelopmentCommittee put it,‘No countries seriously committed to education forall will be thwarted in their achievement of this goal by a lack ofresources.’ Not only have some 30 developing countries had theirplans endorsed and funded but, egged on by citizen campaigns, governmentsin 70 countries are spending more on education as a proportionof total government expenditure. 147Traditional donors grouped in the OECD’s DevelopmentAdvisory Committee (DAC) have also acknowledged the need toimprove quality. The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness of 2005laid out a set of principles to be implemented by both donors andrecipients over the following five years. 148 Developing countriesagreed to give priority to the fight against poverty, promising toproduce national poverty plans with the participation of their citizensand national legislatures. They also agreed to create more transparentand accountable management systems for public finances, in order toensure that resources go where they are intended.Rich countries in turn agreed not only to provide more aid, butalso to align their aid around developing-country priorities andsystems, in recognition of the fact that recipient-country ownershipover the development process is an essential prerequisite for successfuldevelopment. They also agreed to cut the high administrative burdenby working in a more co-ordinated fashion, for example by organisingjoint visits and reporting.While the Paris principles are generally positive, they addressefficiency more than effectiveness, and civil society organisations havepointed out that the principles appear to be divorced from values suchas justice, human rights, gender equality, democracy, or even the366