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Nicaragua: a rude awakening for the Paris Declaration

21/11/2007 By Nils-Sjard Schulz

Daniel Ortega, during the 1990's campaign
Photo by Robert Croma
Less than a year before the Third High Level Forum on aid effectiveness in Accra (Ghana), efforts to put the Paris Declaration [see full text of the agreement] into effect in Nicaragua have hit a wall, largely thanks to the new Sandinista government’s unwillingness to pursue constructive coordination with donors.

Its approach to ownership, which has authoritarian tendencies, has provoked concern among donors involved in the processes of harmonisation in this Central American country which, until late 2006, was considered an important testing ground for coordination.

These facts have come together with the withdrawal of Swedish aid - one of the precursors to the aid effectiveness agenda in Nicaragua – which has drawn strong criticisms from the political class in Managua.

This Comment article analyses the attitude of the Sandinista government and the significance of Sweden’s decision to withdraw, before presenting a set of preliminary findings that suggest some of the understandings of the aid effectiveness agenda may need to be reconsidered.


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Keywords

Aid effectiveness Donors Governance Harmonization Latin America & Caribbean Nicaragua

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Bio author: Nils-Sjard Schulz

Nils-Sjard Schulz is associate fellow at FRIDE. His research focuses on the new aid architecture, the global governance of aid, the impact of donor harmonisation on partner countries, democratisation, implications of international division of labour and South-South cooperation.