Trade Union Focus on Development - Issue 14

FROM AID TO DEVELOPMENT EFFECTIVENESS: THE DEVELOPMENT FATIGUE?

The Road to Busan will be uphill and full of ambushes.

Next year in November, the development world will be gathered in Busan (Korea) to discuss the future of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (Paris 2005) and the accompanying Accra Agenda of Action (Accra 2008).
The Working Party on Aid Effectiveness gathered last October in Paris to discuss and prepare this fourth high level conference. Whereas in Accra there was the political climate and the willingness to deal with the issues in a broad policy concern, the mood has completely changed.
The multiple international crises of the deregulated globalised economy do affect the political climate worldwide and affect in particular the commitments taken on development cooperation in many capitals. At the same time, many of the champion donor governments have seen in the meantime significant changes in government and reshufflings of priorities in external relations. The pressure for economic fallback on southern governments has also moved the agenda back to the (illusionary) “fundamentals” of private sector based economic growth, with human rights if possible, without if necessary. The worldwide restrictive measures on civil society do show clearly the drive of many governments to restrict policy space for social and civil-society actors and move away from the AAA engagement to engage with CSOs and recognise them as development actors in their own right.