improving the effectiveness of aid a proliferation of donors and projects has made the governance of aid more problematic

L EVELS of aid have begun to recover and seem likely to continue to increase following a protracted decline in the 1990s. yet both donors and recipient countries generally agree that aid is still underperforming in terms of development effectiveness. It has become clear that what matters in reaching development goals is not just the amount of aid but also the quality of that aid. Decades of development assistance have shown, for instance, that if countries are to become less dependent on aid, they must be able to determine their own priorities and rely on their own systems to deliver that aid. Donor-driven aid does not lead to sustainable results. Moreover, asymmetries in the aid relationship, whereby donors respond to their own constituencies rather than to citizens’ needs in developing countries, have distorted the accountability of domestic institutions in recipient countries. Experience has also shown that if donors do not channel funds through recipient country institutions, these countries will not strengthen (or in some cases even develop) the governance structures and capacities to pull themselves out of poverty. In addition, disparate actors and interests have led to the uncoordinated delivery of aid—again putting severe strain on local government systems. In the face of these hurdles, donors and partner countries have committed to transform the way aid is delivered. The goal is to improve the quality of aid and achieve greater development impact. Over one hundred donors (bilaterals and multilaterals) and developing countries endorsed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness at the HighLevel Forum in Paris on March 2, 2005. In doing so, they agreed for the first time to measure their success, or failure, at making aid more effective through a set of 56 commitments. Following the endorsement of the Paris Declaration, the way in which aid is delivered was set to undergo wide-ranging reform. Expectations were high: aid would be better coordinated, increasingly aligned with country priorities, and delivered in a harmonized way; donors would commit to support national ownership; development results would be measured; and donors and countries would be mutually accountable. Now, at the halfway point between the endorsement of the principles and commitments in the Paris Declaration and the date set for their implementation (2010), the question is, has aid effectiveness improved? Addressing continued inefficiencies in the governance systems at both the international and country levels has become a high priority, and a series of high-level meetings in 2008 make this year