On September 4 in Madrid, the Spanish Millennium Campaign and the Platform for Development NGOs in Spain launched the brochure Better Aid: A Necessary Condition for Development a joint publication that details a series of recommendations to donor countries, and in particular to Spain, to improve the way in which aid is delivered. Representatives from both organizations, present at the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness that was taking place in Accra (Ghana), also reported by video conference on the main findings of this international summit.

Juana Bengoa, representative of the Spanish Platform for Development NGOs who was in Accra, highlighted the importance of this international forum. “Now, it is time not only to get government promises on paper but also to change the aid system, extending the participation of civil society and fixing more precise commitments,” she said hours before the final Declaration at Accra was issued.

Thomas Deves, policy officer of the UNMC in Africa, pointed out the important role that civil society from both developed and developing countries had played in Accra, both during the High Level forum and the previous civil society preparatory summit. “Civil society organization has managed to put forward a common agenda,” he said. “These are key priorities to make aid work and reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.”

The role and vision of civil society on aid effectiveness is one of the issues addressed in the Spanish Better Aid brochure. “The Aid effectiveness agenda needs to go beyond the Paris Declaration and promote the elimination of aid conditionality, reinforce the need for transparency, and improve aid predictability, among other issues,” said the President of the Platform for the Development NGOs in Spain, José Mª Medina, when summing up key recommendations included in the publication.

During the brochure presentation, Marina Navarro, Coordinator of the Spanish Millennium Campaign, also reminded attendees that “effective aid complements the resources of developing countries in a way that allows them to finance those policies that are really necessary for their development. In many countries, we are still far from this.”

Results in Accra

Three days of intense negotiations in the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness have ended with the Accra Agenda for Action where developed and developing countries agreed to take bold steps to reform the way aid is given and spent. Developing countries are committing to taking control of their own futures, donors to co-ordinating better amongst themselves, and both parties to the Agenda are pledging to account to each other and their citizens.

The Accra Agenda for Action is the product of an unprecedented alliance of development partners: developing and donor countries, emerging economies, UN and multilateral institutions, global funds and civil society organisations.