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Building an Asian People's Agenda on Aid: A Regional
Conference on ODA
25-27 July 2007, Quezon City, Philippines
A
Conference on Official Development Assistance (ODA) organized by Global Call
to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) last 25-27 July 2007 was participated in by
representatives from various organizations in the Asian region that are
involved in advocacy for human rights advocacy, agriculture and rural
development, debt relief, among others. The meeting resulted in the drafting
of the ?Quezon City Declaration?, which tackled such issues as shortfalls in
ODA giving by donor countries, tied aid and other conditionalities, the
continuing indebtedness of poorer countries, the use of debt relief as aid,
the changing priorities of aid allocations, including for military purposes,
and the entry of private foundations in aid-giving.
The
Declaration offered a number of recommendations and action points as
follows:
Debt,
aid and conditionalities:
1. 1.
De-link aid and
debt.
2. 2.
Reject
conditionalities.
3. 3.
Conduct audits
for debt and ODA by both recipients and donors.
This should be
done by: (i) national government in consultation
with civil
society; and (ii) third party auditors.
4. 4.
Develop
mechanisms to regulate aid/aid accessing and
lending/borrowing.
5. 5.
Explore
internally driven alternative sources of financing.
6. 6.
Make grants
rather than loans a bigger component of aid packages.
Aid and Gender:
7. 7.
Study the differential impact of ODA on women and men.
8. 8.
Develop a comprehensive framework and set of indicators
that
measure gender justice and women?s empowerment.
9. 9.
Generate decent
jobs at home to stem the overseas labor migration
of Asian
women.
10.
De-link
ODA from fundamentalist politics.
Aid and the Environment:
11. Develop
regional mechanisms for collaboration to ensure that
Environmental Assessment Laws are promulgated and
implemented.
12. Build strong
civil society coalitions for monitoring and reporting
on ODA projects
on the environment with emphasis on bilateral
ODA, e.g., budget analysis.
13. Push for
accountability in the use of ODA in resource management.
14. Push for ODA
for climate change adaptation for relevant
Asian countries.
Aid and Education, and other basic social services, and poorest regions:
1
15. Popularize
the roadmap to achieve 0.7 percent of Gross
National
Income (GNI) for ODA.
16. Prioritize
basic education and double aid to basic education.
17.
Push for
increased aid to EFA Fast Track Initiative (FTI) countries
to the level of
100 fair share;
18. Promote
harmonization through active participation in FTI
processes at country level.
19. Push
for increased support for the recurrent costs of education.
20. Expand
budgetary support and program based approach.
21. Align aid
with the education sector development plan.
22. Support
the capacity building of Education for All CSOs.
23.
Ensure that aid
to basic services comes in the form of untied aid.
24. Prioritize
the poorest regions and populations of the country in
the economic and
infrastructure allocation of ODA.
Aid and Human Rights:
25. Ensure the Right to Participation; local NGOs should be involved
in
all phases of a project, from identification and design, to
implementation, as well as evaluation of ODA funded projects
and initiatives.
26. Ensure
more information and dialogue between CSOs and
governments.
27. Develop
mechanisms to build the capacity of governments and CSOs.
A
Regional Action Plan on ODA was proposed and would prioritize the following:
? ?
Maximize upcoming international platforms to promote regional
advocacy on ODA (e.g., for 2008, the G8 Summit in Japan,
and the Financing for Development Review in Doha).
? ?
Strengthen and build alliances with kindred advocates in the
South and North.
?
?
Set up a follow-through regional mechanism to move the
process
forward.
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