Donor accountability

We are grateful to the donor community for their assistance in our development pursuits over the years since achieving national independence. We look upon them as our development partners. We have had, however, serious questions from time to time about donor conditionalities, 'donors pushing the aid agenda of their headquarters or applying global templates in designing projects without reference to any feedback about local cultural traditions and institutional characteristics'. One of the prominent features of the 'donor driven' phenomenon has been the overwhelming foreign consultancy component of projects.

Now the time has come for the relationship between the donor and the recipient countries to be recast, and made transparent and accountable not merely to each other but also to their respective tax payers. There is no question about donor bashing nor putting any side in the dock nor indeed engaging in a points scoring debate but to allow all the stakeholders a participatory role in ensuring that the resources are best utilised in the interest of the poor.

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There is need for recognising and taking advantage of the national expertise and capacity that have grown over time through the interaction between aid giving and aid receiving countries. On the flip-side of that interaction has been a certain nexus developing between a recipient country government keen on undertaking politically convenient projects and a section of the donor community with the result that corruption was bred and the aid money failed to benefit the deserving ones.

All we need now is to develop a mechanism comprising the stakeholders' representatives whereby the effectiveness, transparency and accountability of all aided projects can be fully ensured. Greater public participation in and association of professional groups with the processes are highly imperative.