An Insight on Aid Effectiveness from the Perspective of Civil Society Organisations
To improve the effectiveness of aid, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) initiated four High Level Forums (HLF) between 2003 and 2011. One of the outcomes of these development conferences was the acknowledgement of the importance of country (or democratic) ownership of the recipient country over the aid agenda. In this regard the importance of civil society organisations (CSOs) – functioning as the cutting point between governments and citizens – was stressed. It is in this light that this paper seeks to enter the debate surrounding aid effectiveness. To be more specific, it is the twofold aim of this work to assess (i) the extent to which (Swiss) CSOs are integrated into the implementation process of ensuring the ownership principle, in order to (ii) identify key implications for the Swiss development cooperation in rectifying the unfinished aid agenda. In this regard, major attention also rests on the supporting roles of mutual accountability and the use of country systems for the attainment of the ownership principle.
Aid-effectiveness: von der Paris Declaration zu Busan FULL PDF