What did participants at the July Briefing think of the discussions? We asked a few for their reactions.
Ambassador Brave Ndisale of Malawi chaired the second Panel of the briefing. She found the briefing very useful to provide clarity on policies and practices of new actors in development, especially China. She also underlined that Africa has a lot to learn from the experience of China and India. Further, she reminded us how coordination among donors can be fostered when the ownership of development processes stays at national level: her country represents a success story in this sense.
Lucy Hayes of Eurodad [see video] found the discussions on Africa and China particularly interesting. Moreover, the discussion on aid and agriculture is timely. It is time we made better use of the money now available, building from what is there and ensuring bottom-up solutions.
Amadou Diallo (NEPAD) stressed the relevance of the subjects covered in the discussions , these help us better understand the initiatives of different actors and the various drivers behind these processes. Further, he underlined the value of the Briefings in providing a platform for dialogue, exchange and debate for harmonisation and coordination of different development policies. He encouraged the organisers to continue this initiative in Brussels, perhaps also launching similar activities in Africa.
(interview in French)
Joseph Coompson [see video], Chief Agricultural Economist at the African Development Bank expained that the AfDB is coordinating a task force looking into the division of labour among donors to Africa’s agricultural sector.
See more from the 2 July Briefing
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The third panel of the Brussels briefing on “New drivers, new players in ACP rural development” looked at trends in aid effectiveness, alignment and harmonisations among donors. Together with the experiences of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Amadou Diallo presented the the role of NEPAd in aid effectiveness for agriculture development.
Mr. Diallo argued that agriculture needs to be at the centre of the development agenda. 85% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa depends, at least partially, on agriculture for their livelihoods. Agriculture is therefore key to poverty reduction and economic growth; making effective policies and aid in this area vital.
For these reasons, African leaders developed the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) as the NEPAD framework to revitalize the agriculture sector. NEPAD steers the process, providing guidance for policy, and raising awareness and international support for this African initiative.
(interview in French)
According to Mr. Diallo, CAADP constitutes the first common African project in agricultural policy and it offers important opportunities to improve the effectiveness of investments. African Heads of State have made significant commitments, pledging to ensure that 10% of national budgets are dedicated to investment in the agricultural sector. CAADP provides guidance on how to ensure that this spending at the national level is effective. In particular, the CAADP round tables process provides a tool for better harmonization and alignment of agricultural development efforts including aid.
Mr. Diallo concluded that African agriculture offers huge potential. Many positive new initiatives are underway and for the first time there is broad consensus on objectives, targets and partnership principles. However, long lasting results will only be possible if all stakeholders join in the concerted effort needed and “African countries put themselves as main actors, not just witnesses, of a green revolution in Africa.”
Read more about the CAADP process in the intervention by Angel Elias Daka of COMESA during the Briefing on ‘Advancing African agriculture‘, 17 October 2007.
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Dr. Rudolf Buntzel, from the Church Development Service and representing Concord during the 6th Brussels Development Briefing, explained that new actors bring new international funds - each with different procedures. NGOs are challenged to search for additional sources of funding, and rely less on their governments.
Dependence on public funding can drive NGOs away from their grassroots commitments and make them less radical in their advocacy for the poor, he said. All in all, the new multiplicity of financing for rural development is ambivalent: There is more money available and a new diversity of donors, this does not necessarily lead to more efficiency to reach the MDGs. Besides, many of the new players bypass the exsiting general consensus on aid effectiveness and transparency and follow their own objectives.
Mr. Buntzel continued with remarks on rural development, claiming that calls for the private sector to become more involved might shift the focus away from poverty reduction to economic growth. He argued that economic theories and models copied from past experiences of the industrialized countries or transferred from other continents were bound to fail. He questioned whether new donors were ready to engage in political conflict on the side of the people. For CSOs, the participation of the poor in their own development is key, they have to be in the driver’s seat. Researchers, investors, governments and experts on the other hand need to learn how to be co-pilots.
Mr. Buntzel concluded his presentation with an example of good practice- the ‘Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’ initiated by Kofi Annan. CSOs would like to see such models replicated to handle funds pledged by different players to alleviate the impact of the global food crisis.
See more from the 2 July Briefing
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On 2 July 2008, CTA, in partnership with the European Commission - DG Development and EuropeAid - the EU Presidency, the ACP Secretariat, Euforic, Concord and IPS Europe, organised the sixth ‘Brussels Development Briefing’ - part of a series of discussion meetings on key issues and challenges for rural development in the context of EU/ACP cooperation.
This briefing focussed on the theme: New Drivers, New Players in ACP rural development . In particular, the briefing looked at the agricultural and rural development sector in the context of ACP countries, the role of private foundations (Bill Gates, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, Rockefeller Foundation etc) and the role of emerging donors (China, India, Brazil, Japan) in ACP countries. The discussions provided valuable input for the coming Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to be held in Accra on 2-4 September 2008.
View the programme, presentations and video material, speaker information, video interviews, and selected documents available online.
For more information please contact Isolina Boto (boto@cta.int) or Romano Purro (rp@euforic.org)
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On 4 July, more than a hundred people gathered in Brussels to explore ways to address the rural development challenges for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
Convened by CTA and other partners, this first ‘Brussels Development Briefing’ discussed the macro-economic environment and its impact on the rural poor in ACP countries, regional integration processes in Africa, and issues of aid effectiveness and harmonization amongst donors.
Participants actively quizzed speakers on their assessments of the issues and on the promising directions to follow.
The good news is that agriculture and rural development look to be back on the international agenda. A key message was that we need to start by really looking at poor people as producers contributing to growth and prosperity - part of the ’solution’ rather than the problem. Further, national governments need to put their pledges into practice and give support to rural development. Donors donors need to urgently address the coherence of the ways they provide development assistance, and pay closer attention to the needs of rural communities.
Download a report of the meeting (pdf)
More reports on the discussions, as well as substantial background information, interviews, presentations and video recordings of the presentations are accessible at www.brusselsbriefings.net.
The next briefing in October will discuss the European Commission’s recent communication on ‘advancing African Agriculture.’
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