"1. The Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (BP), the outcome document for the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4), can be considered a significant accomplishment in several respects.1 While it recommits signatories to the aid reforms first set out in the 2005 Paris Declaration and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action, importantly it confirms a global discourse that focuses more comprehensively on development effectiveness. It does so within an overarching framework of principles that has been endorsed by all development actors – developed and developing country governments, civil society organizations (CSOs), parliamentarians, local government and the private sector. Uniquely, following the 2008 Accra HLF3, CSOs became full members of the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness and were the only non-governmental “Sherpa” in the final stages of negotiations for the outcome of HLF4.
2. On the other hand, CSOs have responded to the outcomes of HLF4 with bitter-sweet reactions. Creating an inclusive partnership for development, involving the BRICS economies such as China, the DAC donors, developing country governments and CSOs at the same table to pursue reforms for development cooperation based on common principles is a significant advance. Yet much of the DAC donors’ “unfinished business” of Paris and Accra remains largely unfinished after Busan and the non-DAC donors have approached the table with much caution. As participants in the negotiations, CSOs are implicated in the Outcome Document, while remaining critical of its overall lack of ambition. The few time-bound target and indicators for BP commitments were largely stripped from the document and “selective and relevant indicators and targets” are to be determined by June 2012 [§35]....."
Read the full assessment of the Busan Partnership by AidWatch Canada.
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