LOOKING BACK

There have been historic increases in development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa over the past ten years, especially in the five years since Gleneagles

Since 2000, development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa has increased by $19.628 billion, compared with a decrease of $1.800 billion from 1990 to 2000. G7 and EU countries have played a critical role in this, delivering an additional $15.625 billion and $9.540 billion, respectively, to the region since 2000.
These increases accelerated in the five years after Gleneagles. Of total donor increases since 2000, 63% (or $12.444 billion) was delivered after 2005. For G7 countries, the rate of increase was even more marked: more than two-thirds (68%, or $10.68 billion) of the increases in G7 development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade were made between 2005 and 2010.

Results since 2000 are living proof that investments in development are working

In partnership with African efforts, increased development assistance has helped achieve significant progress in countries across sub-Saharan Africa during the past decade. Since 2000:

• The lives of nearly three-quarters of a million children have been saved through scaling up malaria interventions across 34 endemic countries in the region;
• 46.5 million more children started going to primary school in sub-Saharan Africa;
• Nearly 4 million people in the region have gained access to life-preserving antiretroviral treatment for AIDS;
• Agricultural production in 17 sub-Saharan African countries has increased by 50%.

Because of shortfalls from a sub-set of countries, the G7 delivered only 61% of their promised increases to sub-Saharan Africa by 2010

The G7 increased their annual development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa by $11.197 billion between 2004 and 2010, delivering 61% of the $18.227 billion increases they promised in 2005. The increases delivered were largely a result of the US, Japan and Canada surpassing their targets and the UK nearly meeting its very ambitious commitment. Three countries – Italy, Germany and, to a lesser extent, France – were responsible for most of the G7’s shortfall. Germany and Italy missed their targets by a combined $7.11 billion, and France by $1.34 billion.

The Gleneagles agreement placed a special emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa, the region furthest from achieving the MDGs: approximately half of all pledged increases in development assistance were committed to the region. This was reinforced by a specific EU commitment at Gleneagles to direct half of all development assistance increases to subSaharan Africa.

The final figures show that, as a group, the G7 outperformed other groups of donors (driven particularly by the US and Japan), with 43% of their global increases going to sub-Saharan Africa between 2004 and 2010. This compares with just 28% for the EU15 and 36% for the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries overall. Given the EU’s specific Gleneagles commitment to the region, its poor performance is particularly concerning and needs to be addressed in future development assistance allocations.

KEY FINDINGS

Individually, some G7 efforts to meet their development assistance targets were commendable, but others were condemnable

Some G7 countries showed tremendous leadership in meeting their commitments to sub-Saharan Africa by 2010, while others fell short.

• The UK showed historic leadership during the five-year period, delivering 86% of its ambitious commitment to sub-Saharan Africa, with an increase of $2.55 billion.
• The US also made historic increases in development assistance to the region, meeting 121% of its Gleneagles commitment, with an increase of $4.28 billion.
• Canada and Japan met their relatively modest targets.Canada increased its development assistance to the region by $779 million, delivering 197% of its committed increases. Japan met 126% of its bilateral target, delivering $1.6 billion in total increases to the region between 2004 and 2010. Within the G7, Japan and Canada directed the largest proportions of their 2004–10 increases to sub-Saharan Africa (140% and 62% respectively).
• Italy’s dismal performance continues to undermine the credibility of collective G7 and EU efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. Its development assistance to the region has declined by $78 million since 2004. Italy should immediately produce the ‘piano di rientro’ (recovery plan) promised by President Silvio Berlusconi in 2009.
• The EU15 (including four G7 members) committed to increase development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa by $18.902 billion between 2004 and 2010. With a $6.541 billion increase, the EU delivered only 35% of its committed increases to the region. Nearly 40% of the increase came from one country, the UK. However, it is critical to note that several members of the EU15 are consistent high performers. Four in particular – Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden – maintained their target ODA/GNI ratios of 0.7% or above. Only Denmark and Luxembourg have met the official EU target for sub-Saharan Africa.

LOOKING FORWARD

Clear and collective commitments are needed to ensure accountability post-Gleneagles

Gleneagles bound together a diverse set of development assistance commitments and established the G8 summit as an annual moment of accountability. There is evidence that this sense of shared responsibility has helped to enforce delivery: the G7 grouping performed better than the EU and DAC in meeting their targets to increase ODA (delivering 61%, as opposed to the EU’s 35% and the DAC’s 56%) and in prioritising sub-Saharan Africa (directing 43% of increases to the region, as opposed to the EU’s 28% and the DAC’s 36%).

In a time of austere budgets and competing global priorities, accountability to development commitments is more critical than ever. In the years ahead, collective accountability will be more difficult to enforce without a comprehensive target or an annual global moment to evaluate progress.

One shared pledge that extends beyond 2010 is the EU’s commitment to reach 0.7% ODA/GNI by 2015. Although the EU has committed 50% of its increases to the African continent, the proportion of resources intended for sub-Saharan Africa is not defined (though there is a commitment to allocate 0.15% GNI for low-income countries, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa). This shift to focus on the entire African continent means that North African countries of increasing geopolitical importance (such as Egypt, Tunisia and Libya) will now be grouped with sub-Saharan countries. ONE is concerned that the expansion of focus from sub-Saharan Africa to include North Africa may dilute the focus on poverty alleviation that development assistance has achieved during the past decade.

Commitments by the three non-EU G7 members have expired or have been surpassed early (in the case of Japan). Canada and Japan lack ambitious new commitments, and the US has sectoral targets but no comprehensive plan to increase development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa. A number of donors which are not members of the G8 or EU (such as Australia and South Korea) or which do not report to the DAC (such as China and South Africa) have development assistance commitments as well.

Amidst this increasingly diverse and challenging landscape, it is critical that all development partners embrace the DAC’s new recommendation on ‘good pledging practice’ and ONE’s TRACK Principles. The TRACK Principles call for all donor pledges to be Transparent, Results-oriented, clear about the degree of Additionality and Conditionality, and audited by an independent mechanism to ensure that promises are being Kept.




Innovative financing can help mobilise the resources needed to achieve the MDGs

There is a significant resource gap that needs to be filled in order to meet the MDGs, and development assistance flows could be increasingly unpredictable over the next five years. Development partners should pursue new opportunities to leverage innovative financing for development that is additional to their existing development assistance commitments. Innovative financing mechanisms raised an estimated $57 billion for development between 2000 and 2008 (through both donor funds and local-currency bonds),5 using creative approaches ranging from the IFFIm’s issuing of bonds to purchase vaccines, using an Advanced Market Commitment to spur the creation of a new pneumococcal vaccine, to mobilising resources from consumers to finance Global Fund programmes (via Product (RED)).

The G8 and G20 should identify opportunities to build on these successes in 2011. There are several innovative financing proposals that could garner support from a majority of G20 countries and raise significant new resources for development. For example, a combination of cutting remittance costs and issuing diaspora bonds could raise an additional $6.65–$12.3 billion for sub-Saharan Africa annually, and the proposed Financial Transaction Tax could raise $128.4 billion if introduced in Europe (though the amount allocated to development would likely be much smaller). Windfall profits from gold sales by the International Monetary Fund could produce $2.79 billion that could be directed towards lowincome countries. Building on successful innovative health mechanisms (including launching a new AMC, expanding debt-for-health swaps and IDA buy-down efforts) could help generate $7 billion for investments in global health.




In a time of constrained resources, the effectiveness of each dollar is even more critical

A lack of updated data hinders a comprehensive assessment of progress towards the commitments made at the 2005 and 2008 High Level Forums on Aid Effectiveness in Paris and Accra. However, the latest available data show that G7 countries lag far behind in meeting their targets. Progress on using country systems and coordinating division of labour to avoid fragmentation has been especially slow. Although G7 donors have nearly met their 2001 commitments to untie aid to Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), there is still a considerable amount of tied assistance both in policy and practice. Also concerning is the increasing proportion of loans within ODA (from 8.4% in 2005 to 13.6% in 2009), especially because many low-income countries are still facing unsustainable debt burdens despite large amounts of debt relief provided through HIPC and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).

One positive trend is the effort by some donors (notably the UK, US and Canada) to identify the results they intend to achieve through their development investments. These results-oriented commitments are helping to prioritise a focus on impact (instead of inputs) and are encouraging innovative new programme designs to maximise results. These commitments will require the same level of clarity and accountability as ODA pledges, as well as robust monitoring and evaluation that put the citizens of developing countries more in the driving seat of development processes.

At the Fourth High Level Forum in Busan in November this year, countries should set clear standards for monitoring and evaluating results, and should increase their efforts to pursue greater transparency of development assistance flows and of developing country budgets and statistics. They should also work with non-DAC donors and other actors to ensure broad participation in aid effectiveness standards and commitments.




New partnerships must be built on transparency and accountability

Over the past ten years, Africa’s partnerships with the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China), other emerging economies and the private sector have grown tremendously. Though the main impact on Africa will be through increased trade and investment, and changes in global governance standards (such as transparency of extractive industries), the role of emerging economies as donors is becoming increasingly important. Countries such as Brazil, India, China, Saudi Arabia and Russia have been steadily increasing their bilateral aid in recent years, as well as their contributions to multilateral mechanisms and initiatives. Many countries are working to improve their statistical capacity and to build effective aid agencies (specifically through the DAC’s Enhanced Engagement initiative).

These burgeoning relationships represent new resources for African countries, as well as opportunities to share knowledge and build a critical new dialogue among countries. Improved transparency and compliance with global development assistance standards will help strengthen and sustain these new partnerships. Non-DAC donors should work with the DAC and other partners to set a timeline to start reporting their ODA figures. Two G20 countries (Saudi Arabia and Turkey) have already started reporting. Non-DAC donors should also work with African countries to establish shared guidelines and objectives for their comprehensive aid, trade and investment partnerships, as well as set clear development commitments and continue to participate in global forums on aid effectiveness.