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The aid effectiveness agenda and decentralised cooperation
30/07/2008 By Miguel González Martín
Decentralised cooperation represents approximately 15 percent of total Spanish ODA. To its significant quantitative reach must also be added the important institutional development which it has experienced in recent years through autonomous legislation, strategic planning, the creation of new agencies and the opening of new offices and expatriation of personnel. The debate over the effectiveness of aid that has emerged in the international arena in recent years, and which crystallised in the Paris Declaration, is conceived by and for states.
Atelier Teee, Flickr
Even if moves have been made to incorporate civil society into the debate, there is still little sign of serious efforts to include sub-state actors in the process of reflection. In the Spanish case, the debate over aid effectiveness, along with other questions, is fuelling a growing level of analysis and increasing numbers of proposals regarding the role decentralised cooperation should play in the overall framework of Spanish development aid.
On one hand, analysts speak of the necessary coordination of autonomous and centrally managed cooperation, in order to avoid duplication and overlapping and thereby cultivate the efficiency of the system. At present, the difficulties of coordination extend from the limitations of existing mechanisms to the lack of real political will, not to mention the absence of an adequate framework of incentives for coordination.
On the other hand, it is also argued that decentralised cooperation could specialise in certain sectors or geographical areas, applying at the internal level some of the principles inspired by the division of labour among donors proposed by the EU.
However, even though coordination is very necessary and a debate about the potential areas for decentralised cooperation is possible, this Comment article argues that the added value of decentralised cooperation must be sought out by fostering a dynamic of cooperation that is born of closeness to the citizenry. The objective should be to thereby underline, in a new way, the relationship between the various actors who participate in cooperation.
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Keywords
Aid effectiveness Aid management Aid policy Humanitarian aid Spanish AidRelated publications
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Bio author: Miguel González Martín
Miguel González Martín. Coordinator of the department of Political Action and Networks at the NGO ALBOAN, which is based in the Basque country and Navarra. He has been a member of the Basque Advisory Council for Development Cooperation, and vice-president of Euskadi NGO Coordination.
