This article is also available in French.
In 2011, the Busan Principles defined what makes good-quality, effective development cooperation worldwide. However, in the ten years since Busan ODA (Official Development Assistance), programmes have become more fragmented and less effective. The Team Europe approach – adopted by the EU and its Member States in 2020 – is a commitment to delivering more and better impact through building joint coordinated, more effective European development cooperation. Capacity4dev spoke with country-level practitioners to learn from their experience on the Team Europe approach.
There is an extensive bibliography about the Busan principles1, monitoring system2 and implementation of the development effectiveness agenda. However, little has been said about the personal effort and experience of the country-level practitioners who implement development effectiveness while creating synergies, joint dialogues, trust, and collaboration.
This article is a collaborative exercise in which different voices from the field share their experience.
Recommendations for better work at country level and boosting development effectiveness:
Marjeta Jager, Deputy Director-General of the Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), and Hugo Van Tilborg, Head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation to Togo, share their experience implementing the EU development effectiveness agenda.
Nicola Brennan, Ireland’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and the AUC, describes her work through the lens of a Member State.
Innocent Mugabe, Aid Information Management Officer of the Ministry of Finance of Rwanda, expresses his views as representative of a partner country, and Humberto Zaqueu, an economist at the NGO Mozambican Debt Group (GMD), shares his thoughts on the role of CSOs and the private sector.
The different practitioners all agree on the opportunities presented by the Team Europe approach. For them, achieving better results means:
- Using policy and political dialogue to build mutual understanding.
- Jointly agreeing on priorities and strategies – and how to resource them.
- Building a system for each partner country to generate an impact that lasts – but being able to manage the risks.
- Keeping citizens informed to get more and better impact – and ODA.
Their experience shows the potential of Team Europe to improve the quality and impact of European cooperation.
1. Using policy and political dialogue to build mutual understanding.
For Marjeta Jager, boosting the recognition – at a political level – of the value of effectiveness is the basis for “mutual understanding and common cause between donors and partner countries”. Team Europe will enable EU actors “to be consistent and coherent in their dialogue in country-level policy and coordination processes engaging with government, other domestic stakeholders and non-EU external partners”.
Nicola Brennan believes that the key is policy dialogue, “we need to ensure coherence at the national and regional level with the dynamics at play”.
Innocent Mugabe agrees, “the most important thing in development cooperation is mutual understanding. Of course, it takes time, but trust and exchange of information are crucial to ensuring sustainable outcomes.”
Hugo Van Tilborg stresses the importance of analysing needs and performance jointly, based on facts and proof. “Even if both parties have a strong interest in fighting climate change, maybe the partner government might not be as interested as the EU in promoting solar power plants – the uncertainty of being able to incorporate intermittent energy in the grid, ‘solar’ not being perceived as ‘real’ power, for example.” For him, “understanding how the government works and thinks helps to set up realistic goals.” This is particularly important because “our goal is to use resources for impact. For this reason, without an alignment with national roadmaps and priorities, there is a risk of missing the intervention that will bring real change.”
Nicola Brennan emphasises the need for robust and realistic analysis, “strong and regular political economy analysis3 is crucial to any development intervention; both to inform the design of the intervention itself, but also to ensure adaptability and flexibility to changing contexts – as we are implementing.”
2. Jointly agreeing on priorities and strategies – and how to resource them.
Building consensus on priorities is crucial for development effectiveness. Marjeta Jager explains the importance of political engagement and budget support, “we link our interventions to our policy priorities and to those of the partner country. We disburse in support of the policies agreed in the partner country, linking levels of funding to improved outcomes and impact.” She continues, “being effective means working in a multi-stakeholder way, particularly at sector level.”
Innocent Mugabe reinforces this idea. He believes it is essential to involve all donors with significant weight on development cooperation. “Partners other than the EU represent more than 40% of the aid received. They endorse the Paris Declaration or the Busan principles. Still, they are not part of this inclusive dialogue.” He recognises that creating a team approach to development cooperation will boost results on the ground.
Good targeting and resourcing are needed to reach the most vulnerable people, Nicola Brennan believes. Alignment behind agreed policies and priorities means effectiveness will be improved by putting all resources together and avoiding gaps or duplication of efforts.
Hugo Van Tilborg agrees, “resources are limited and must be used for impact to avoid wasting resources, get out of your bubble and share information”. He continues, “recently we had two programmes on the same topic not communicating to each other. On one side, the presidency is building a partnership with the private sector to set up a factory producing hundreds of electric motorcycles. At the same time, the Ministry of Environment signs an agreement with a UN agency on a pilot programme making 25 e-cars. The lack of communication made the second project obsolete before even implementing it.”
Mozambican economist, Humberto Zaqueu, believes that civil society organisations (CSOs) are vital to development plans. “We are here to work with you,” he confirms. However, he warns that this contribution must not undermine the broad national ownership of sector policies and strategies.
He states, “we have seen in the education sector, for example, some organisations aligned with the donors’ requirements more than supporting the government priorities.” But, he warns, “by doing that, we are in trouble. So we need to ensure that CSO contributions have sustainable results.”
Hugo Van Tilborg insists on the alignment and ownership of the sector policies and strategies. “Make sure what you want to do is what the country wants to do, and not just a small interest group. It is hard for the partner government to say no to free money (and thus they rarely will), but we are working to bring results which are in everyone’s best interests.”
Innocent Mugabe recommends following the Rwandan example in which they established a Donor Partners Assessment Framework. “This system ensures the accountability and engagement of all partners by evaluating their performance in line with the country’s priorities on an annual basis,” he says.
3. Building a system for each partner country to generate an impact that lasts – but being able to manage the risks.
To strengthen a country’s capacity to sustain the benefits of external assistance and to develop independently, external support must be provided in ways that support and use countries’ own systems. Marjeta Jager believes this will prevent “projects being islands separated from the partner country’s systems, delivering transitory benefits and little or no systemic improvement.”
She emphasises that “donors should join forces and work with the state to improve national systems and capacity: what an achievement this would be!”
National systems extend beyond the state. The role of civil society and the private sector in delivering development should be seen as vital elements of national systems that also require support. Humberto Zaqueu stresses the twin roles of CSOs as both policy advocates and service providers, “helping government deliver services and define policies and strategies”. He also believes the private sector is crucial to development effectiveness. “The private sector can contribute to reducing the government’s burden through outsourcing, can improve management of available resources, and is critical for employment.”
Marjeta Jager reiterates the vital role played by CSOs: “Those representing the interests of more marginalised citizens need to be supported and involved in the process of decision-making. That requires being involved in the discussion over resource allocation, policies and strategies for the delivery of public services, investments and economic opportunities.”
When working through partner country systems, the ability to identify and manage risks is essential. “We (in the Commission) recognise that development cooperation is a risky business,” says Marjeta Jager, “for this reason, we have put in place strategies to cope with the inevitable problems.” In the case when misuse of funds led to the suspension of EU budget support in Malawi, “after transparent and inclusive discussions with the government, we set up a roadmap, timeframe and action plan for resolving the problems, with clear benchmarks to be met to restore budget support”. She recalls, “in the end, the problems were identified, and the budget process strengthened.”
Nicola Brennan shares this point of view: “It is crucial to ensure a clear understanding of expectations and risks with all partners and domestic constituencies, and to agree on mitigation strategies that are accepted by all.”
4. Keeping citizens informed to get more and better impact – and ODA
Informing partner country citizens and stakeholders about the use and targeting of ODA is essential for accountability and ownership; it strengthens the efficiency of development efforts. The Aid Information Management System is the solution found in Rwanda. Innocent Mugabe explains, “I am the administrator of this network of focal points from each development partner. I support them to collect information, and to learn about recent commitments and data for each quarter of the year.”
Humberto Zaqueu says accountability for delivering tangible results is essential in order to guarantee better management of resources – and to limit corruption. But, he asks: “Is the government accountable enough to the people? What about donors? They need to evaluate the positive and negative impacts. The need is for mutual accountability.”
Being able to demonstrate to European citizens that ODA resources are being used efficiently is also a priority. According to Nicola Brennan, “there is a reduced appetite for risk and lots of domestic political pressure on our ODA. Working in challenging and fragile contexts requires not only building trust with partners, but also informing taxpayers back home.”
Innocent Mugabe agrees, “there is a decrease of bilateral development cooperation and the resources are scarce. Therefore, we need to innovate and think outside the box to adapt to different scenarios.”
Team Europe can consolidate our experience on effectiveness to deliver more and better impact.
Click on the play button below to watch our video about Team Europe.
Have you been involved in relevant interventions implementing development effectiveness?
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Did you meet any challenges, and how did you address them?
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Evolution of effective development cooperation Although the concept of “partnerships for development” was introduced in development cooperation treaties in 1969 and 1980, it was not until the 90s that it became prominent in political discourse, mainly through the Shaping the 21st Century publication by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in 1996. The next millennium established some of the good practices – gathered over the last five years – by DAC members while piloting their partnership approaches through the publication of the DAC Guidelines on Poverty Reduction in 2001. The fundamental changes these guidelines proposed to plan and to deliver development effectiveness required more inclusiveness. As a result, a series of four consultative forums was organised (in Rome in 2003, Paris in 2005, Accra in 2008 and Busan in 2011) which was crucial in improving the quality of aid and its impact on development. To know more about the EU’s development effectiveness: |
Credit: Video © Capacity4dev
1 The Busan Principles agreed in 2011 are:
- Country ownership: Countries set their own national development policies and development partners align their support to national priorities using country systems;
- Focus on results: Development cooperation is directed to achieving measurable results and progress is monitored;
- Inclusive partnerships: Development partnerships are inclusive, recognising and building on the different and complementary roles of all actors;
- Transparency and accountability: Countries and development partners are jointly responsible for achieving set goals and ensuring that information is available to partners, citizens, and beneficiaries.
2 The Busan High-Level Forum on Development effectiveness organised in 2011 established the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC), a multistakeholder platform bringing together governments, bilateral and multilateral organisations such as the EU, and representatives from civil society, the private sector, parliaments, local governments, and trade unions, to advance the effectiveness of all development actors’ efforts.
3 Political economy analysis evaluates how political and economic processes interact in a given society, and support or impede the ability to solve development problems that require collective action. It takes particular account of the interests and incentives driving the behaviour of different groups and individuals, the distribution of power and wealth between them, and how these relationships are created, sustained and transformed over time. These relationships are crucial in explaining how politics works, how wealth is created, and how developmental change happens. More here.
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