The Aid Effectiveness Train: Next Stop, Accra

At AWDF yesterday our sisters Nafi Chinery and Gifty Anim conducted a workshop on The Paris Declaration and the Aid Effectiveness Process. I have a confession to make here ‘I didn’t know much…okay, anything about the Paris Declaration’. I guess I can add this to the ‘How to be a feminist’ feature…ensure you read up on any of the major issues affecting women and development. Honestly it can be so hard sometimes to keep abreast of key issues, current issues and even the re-emergence of issues that you thought had been dealt with and was firmly in the past (Read an earlier post of Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi’s interview at CIVICUS to learn more about the re-emergence of an issue for the women’s movement in Nigeria)

So yesterday’s workshop was very much welcome for several reasons and I want to share with you what I took away from the process:

It was great to have workshops conducted by colleagues who shared their learning.
The workshop provided an opportunity for team bonding, the atmosphere was relaxed, informal and other colleagues who were far more knowledgeable than I chipped in and added more information about the subject of Aid Effectiveness, the Paris Declaration and previous challenges with Aid such as prior structural adjustment programmes which still affect Ghana and many other developing countries today.
Knowledge of the Paris Declaration and key concerns of the women’s movement which I will share with you in a 5 minute guide to the Paris Declaration below:

5 minute guide to the Paris Declaration

Unprecedented consensus by donor countries, agencies and development partners
56 action-oriented commitments for both donors and partner countries
New concepts of managing for results and mutual accountability
Built in mechanisms for monitoring progress at country and global levels
Paris Declaration guided by overarching principles of ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results and mutual accountability

Concerns of Women’s Rights Organisations

No evidence of gender issues being comprehensively accounted for in Paris Declaration.
A lack of engagement of a broad spectrum of women’s voices and citizens voices
Will joint donor working strategies incorporate gender expertise and strengthen support for addressing gender equality and giving voices to the poor?
A lack of indicators for monitoring gender equality.
A need for mechanisms of accountability that give voice to women and the marginalised in society to monitor and demand answers of public authorities in both recipient and donor countries.

Global women’s right’s organisations have agreed to:

Ensure retention of the language of ‘gender equality and women’s empowerment’
Incorporate indicators reflective of gender equality (already been developed with the support of UNIFEM)
Call attention to the dearth of adequate reflection on gender equality and women’s rights in presentations/discussions at the round tables
Roundtables to capture the GE/WE concerns raised
Demand that women be represented as chairs of the various forums at the upcoming Accra meeting


AWDF’s Executive Director, Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi has been invited to the Accra HLF 3 scheduled for the 2nd to the 4th of September 2008 which is the next key stage in the Paris Declaration process so expect more updates about the Paris Declaration and Aid Effectiveness in future blog posts.

Many thanks again to Nafi and Gifty for leading this session. What are your key concerns in regards to Aid Effectiveness and what issues would you like women activists at the Accra HLF 3 to raise? Do share your thoughts below

Nana Sekyiamah
Programme Officer
Fundraising & Communications