Aid effectiveness: towards better indicators and processes to measure democratic ownership.

Participatory decision-making is one of the generally accepted new paradigms in international cooperation. Until now non-state actors are only to a limited extent involved in policy related decision-making. At the same time the calls for harmonization and effectiveness are loud and clear (cfr. Paris Declaration 2005; Accra Agenda for Action 2008). They include the urge to have the civil society at the table with governments to decide on development strategies in the broadest sense. In response, donor agencies have been supporting programmes to improve CS participation and that of other national stakeholders to national and sectoral development processes for several years. This in turn triggered a need for monitoring and evaluation of those programmes. The monitoring framework of the Paris Declaration also includes a sub-indicator (1d) that looks specifically at participation of non-state actors and other relevant stakeholders to development planning processes. In order to contribute to refine, to materialize and to liven up the indicators such as included in article 13 of the Paris Declaration, The Cluster A of the OECD/DAC Working Party on Aid Effectiveness asked HIVA to support their efforts in order to improve the quality of the existing survey system of the Paris Declaration and more precisely the survey tools regarding the Ownership Principle of the Paris Declaration.

Keywords:Development cooperation, Development aid, Evaluation, Dutch aid, Democratic ownership, Paris Declaration, Aid effectiveness, Partnership, theme_globaldevelopment

Disciplines:Economic development, innovation, technological change and growth, Applied economics, Social change