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Timing and aid effectiveness, a bother to Liberia -
Johnson-Sirleaf
Accra, Sept. 4, Ghanadot/GNA – Madam Johnson-Sirleaf of
Liberia, on Thursday said in Accra that timing and urgency
of aid are the most difficulties her country was facing in
its relationship with development partners.
Contributing to the Third High Level Aid Effectiveness Forum
on Thursday in Accra, the Liberian President told delegates
that another difficulty towards the reconstruction of
Liberia was the alignment of aid with country systems.
“We have made some progress in alignment in terms of what
our development vision is, but we still have a challenge
because we have to integrate donors contributions with our
budget programmes,” President Johnson-Sirleaf said.
She said how to understand the time frame for donors and
partners was crucial and noted also that, as partners look
at the process for contract bidding, it was also imperative
to focus on the results of implementation, which often
seemed to be downplayed.
The Liberian President announced that her country had
completed its first phase of the Home-Pledged Poverty
Reduction Strategy and were at the decision point of the
Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative.
She said these in her opening statements during the
Ministerial discussion on the topic: “New development
challenges and new development partnerships – the relevance
of and urgency of aid reform.
Making brief statements on the topic, Mr. Robert Zoellick,
President of the World Bank, stressed that national
ownership of development programmes should be matched with
transparency and accountability.
He said as development partners called for increased aid and
aid effectiveness, it was also important to identify hunger
and malnutrition that confronts the world today as something
that would not go away soon.
Mr Zoellick said that meant the World Food Programme (WFP)
would require more resources for food aid in the coming
years and called for expansion in food production.
He said more aid must be channelled through nation's budget
to build ownership of developments programmes in recipient
nations saying “donors need to be more flexible. Let us also
make greater use of multi-donor trust funds”.
Mr. Kemal Dervis, the UNDP Administrator expressed worry
that ODA had declined by about 13 per cent in the last
decade despite the massive call for increase aid.
“You can't promise new monies and when you add up the total,
somehow, it diminishes,” he said donors but reminded the
world on the need to integrate aid, climate change and
energy issues in the discussion to the new development
challenges.
The Accra Forum, which ends on Thursday would adopt the
Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) on aid effectiveness.
GNA
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