Aid Effectiveness: the role and voice of CSOs and applicability of the Paris Declaration

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Aid Effectivenessthe role and voice of CSOs and
applicability of the Paris Declaration

• Antonio Tujan Jr.
• Reality of Aid Network

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Role of CSOs

• Role and responsibility of csos as development
  actors
• The role of civil society as a pillar of good
  governance
• Its role in providing effective delivery of
  development programs and operations
• Its role in the social empowerment of particular
  groups and the realization of human rights.
  Social transformation
• As donors, as channels of assistance and as
  grassroots actors as watchdogs

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Who are CSOs?

• all non-market and non-state organizations and
  structures in which people organize to pursue
  shared objectives and ideals
• Social solidarity as fundamental character of
  CSOs whether defined in various parameters,
  dimensions, concerns or divisions
• Obvious in sectoral, thematic, issue-oriented,
  development csos
• Addresses desired values of social
  responsibility, humanitarianism, volunteerism
• Different dimensions of social solidarity
• How to look at bringos, mongos, bongos, rongos
• This should not be the basis to recognize or
  classify CSOs

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Who are CSOs?

• General categories of CSOs
• Membership based CSOs
• Cause oriented CSOs
• Various forms and objectives
• Service oriented CSOs
• What defines service?
• Who are targets and beneficiaries?

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Who are CSOs?

• Commonly held CSOs as essential feature of
  democracy as expression of peoples organized
  action in the public sphere or civil society as
  space
• Solidarity implies diversity and multiplicity,
  expression of diversity of peoples and their
  concerns
• not just tolerated but promoted and defended
  coherence in csos as either paternalistic,
  orwellian or plain uninformed

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CSOs and democracy

• Civil society as social space for citizen
  participation essential in the functioning of
  democracy
• Civil society as one of key pillars (executive,
  legislature, judiciary and media)
• Solidarity comingle with governance in public
  space this essential feature of democracy as
  citizens/people act in the public interest as
  expression of solidarity as an essential
  interactor with governance, in the process honing
  and creating healthy governance mechanisms and
  practices
• Criticism of csos vs govt as self appointed
  does not understand democratic governance and
  essential role csos play in operationalizing
  democracy

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Role of CSOs in empowerment

• Perspective from developing countries where
  democracy is not assumed role of csos such as
  peoples movements and social movements in
  building democracy and realizing human rights
  and honing governance through interaction
• Address exclusion - social empowerment of
  particular classes of society, such as the poor
  and dispossessed, women, ethnic groups, or other
  groups

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Role of CSOs in delivery of services and
development programs

• CSOs commonly recognized as auxiliary providers
  of services
• But their role as pillar of democracy and social
  empowerment and fundamental responsibility in
  social solidarity is the reason why CSOs actually
  have a distinct role in implementation of
  development programs and in development advocacy
  as a whole
• Varied roles and values principally in promotion
  of human rights and empowered development in
  development policy advocacy and in the actual
  implementation of development projects
• Role in monitoring and ensuring accountability to
  the people by government and donors in ODA and
  specific projects and programs

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CSOs as part of aid architecture

• 1. Important donors on their own right
• Quantity -Some foundations emerging as
  influential development actors
• Quality rights based approaches to development
• 2. Important channels of development aid
• 3. Key contributions in development assistance
  process
• Monitoring and accountability
• Policy dialogue
• Grassroots participation

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Recognition and Voice

• Legitimacy, regulation and promotion of CSOs
• Representativeness/representation?
• Democratic legitimacy
• Direct membership legitimacy
• Constituency
• Mechanisms for voluntary accreditation
• Official legitimacy
• Legal framework
• Regulatory mechanisms

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Recognition and Voice

• Accountability
• Mechanisms of accountability
• Levels of accountability
• Organizational accountability
• Accountability to Direct constituency
• Social accountability (ex media)
• Legal and official accountability mechanisms
• Managing accountability

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Recognition and Voice

• National mechanisms for engagement and
  recognition
• International mechanisms for engagement and
  recognition

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Recognizing the Voice of CSOs

• Engagement at the UN processes
• Engagement with donors in the north
• Engagement at the OECD DAC level
• Policy dialogue at country level
• relatively sporadic and severely limited
• (budget support mechanisms)

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Recognizing the Voice of CSOs

• How ready are donors?
• Awareness uneven esp at country
• Preparedness to engage with csos at country
• Policy, structure, capacity
• Absence of enabling framework to put csos on the
  table
• Foreign policy constrains on more controversial
  aspects of development process and discourse
• Foreign policy directions on aid - agile
• Selectivity and objective - Indonesia wb

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Recognizing the Voice of CSOs

• Are countries ready?
• 1 awareness of Paris Declaration and afx
• fears and concerns
• leadership and political will to implement PD and
  to accept and promote role and voice of CSOs
• Engagement
• Transparency
• Availability of processed information
• Selectivity
• Political space?
• Conflict situations and impact on public space
  competing governance

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Are CSOs ready

• Southern CSOs perspectives to the issue of
  development
• Awareness of PD and aid effectiveness
• Different capacities and readiness for advocacy
  on aid effectiveness
• Different stresses and approaches in their role
  in development
• HR and effective aid but Awareness and
  commitment to rights based approaches

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Crucial to ODA reform

• Aid fx, or development fx, not simply
  technocratic reform on aid management
• When discussed, csos cynical at first realize
  that at issue of ODA reform that encompasses they
  key concerns such as debt bondage and debt
  cancellation, conditionality, tied aid and so on.
• It also presents a future path to ODA reform if
  as many have observed that - Development
  cooperation and aid relationships essentially
  politics of power aid fx is reshaping power
  dynamics of aid towards democratization
• Politics of conditionality or politics of
  dialogue promoting shared values of democratic
  development and human rights that should be the
  foundation of development cooperation?

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CSOs and the Paris Declaration

• CSO position on the Paris Declaration enunciated
  in statement and message to the Paris HLF II
• CSOs position on applying Paris Declaration and
  deepening the aid effectiveness agenda
• Applicability of the Paris Declaration on CSOs
  and enriching the international aid effectiveness
  agenda

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Applicability of Paris Declaration on CSOs

• Two frameworks of application
• Looking at parallels in PD principles and
  distinguishing between watchdog and service
  delivery or channel of ODA
• Understanding fundamental distinction of CSOs as
  development actors and distinguishing between
  interrogating parallels in applicability of PD
  principles on CSOs, from the implications or
  indirect applicability of PD on CSOs role and
  behavior in the aid architecture

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Distinct development roles

• CSOs role both as service delivery and watchdog
  premised on social solidarity other actors
  (NCSOs, governments and donors relate to CSOs
  conscious of this solidarity)
• Governments role in development premised on
  governance (Donors, CSOs relate to government
  conscious of its role and responsibility in
  governance)

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Applicability of PD principles

• Applicability and commitments are premised on
  governance as the nature of the role of
  government in development and the framework for
  development cooperation thus ownership,
  harmonization, alignment, etc.
• Commitments to promote the role of democratic
  institutions to support development and
  governance whether CSOs, parliaments, Media and
  private sector

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Applicability of PD principles

• indirect applicability of Paris Declaration for
  CSOs as auxiliary actors (whether as watchdog
  or participants in development programs or in
  service delivery in support of country programs)
  in the process and context of implementing PD
  commitments
• Ownership participation in designing
  development strategies and plans concept of
  country democratic ownership

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Applicability of PD principles

• Alignment recognition of csos (and parliament
  and media) as institutions for distinct role and
  separate support while shifting to direct budget
  support
• Harmonization in donor harmonization mechanisms
  such as SWAps and PBAs, defining distinct role
  and separate budget for CSOs
• Mutual Accountability designing specific
  accountability mechanisms at various levels
• Managing for results promoting cso roles in
  monitoring and providing better access to
  information csos as independent sources for
  information

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Applicability of PD principles

• direct applicability of aid effectiveness
  principles on CSOs have to be reinterpreted based
  on the particular character and role of CSOs
  independent citizen bodies premised on social
  solidarity engaged with governance
• Ownership legitimacy principally owned by
  constituency official legitimacy as a social
  role independence from whom? (government,
  political parties) independence in what?
  (programs, policies) ownership in international
  solidarity relations

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Applicability of PD principles

• Alignment alignment premised on governance in
  donor-country relationship versus alignment
  premised on empowered action of the poor/their
  representative in relating to CSOs aligning to
  cso decisions core funding and program/project
  funding
• Harmonization in what way should CSOs
  harmonize? (orwellian coherence and unification
  versus democratic diversity) state or donor
  interference in managing harmonization/unity use
  of donor or state-dictated platforms national
  coordination international networking

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Applicability of PD principles

• Managing for development results how to apply
  in programs and services premised on empowerment
  and realization of human rights
• Mutual accountability accountability mechanisms
  dictated by donor standards that create undue
  difficulties or inappropriate for csos
  marginalize small csos, create administrative
  pressures

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problems

• As independent actors, premised on solidarity
  (versus sovereignty and governance) problems in
  aid effectiveness are more complex and difficult
• Selectivity
• Aid dependency
• Donor dictation, conditionality
• Interference
• Agency - shaping the cso according to donor
  wishes