Aid Effectiveness
As efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 intensify, developed and developing countries have agreed to new partnerships and aid modalities designed to align development assistance to national priorities, channel diverse aid sources into national budgets, and ensure greater predictability in aid flows. The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness outlines five partnership commitments for greater aid effectiveness: (1) ownership, (2) alignment, (3) harmonization, (4) managing for results, and (5) mutual accountability.
UNIFEM is working with partners to explore and implement ways to engage in technical and political processes at all levels, to ensure that the pursuit of aid effectiveness includes a gender perspective. Such engagement involves using existing gender action plans and strategies and broadening and deepening political participation and accountability.
Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness – Ghana
The Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness was held in Accra, Ghana, on 2–4 September 2008. Ministers from more than 100 countries, heads of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, donor organizations, and civil society organizations from around the world gathered to help make development aid more transparent, accountable and results-oriented. Participants reviewed progress in improving aid effectiveness, broaden the dialogue to newer actors, and chart a course for continuing international action on aid effectiveness.
UNIFEM was involved in preparations for the Accra forum through a number of multi-stakeholder consultations on gender equality and aid effectiveness and a UN/EC partnership focusing on integrating a gender perspective into new aid modalities in conflict and post-conflict countries.
- Accra Agenda for Action
- Preparatory Events
- Accra Women's Forum (30 August 2008)
Consultations on Gender Equality and Aid Effectiveness
Since November 2005 — when UNIFEM and the European Commission hosted the conference Owning Development: Promoting Gender Equality in New Aid Modalities and Partnerships — UNIFEM has hosted a number of multi-stakeholder consultations on gender equality and aid effectiveness. The consultations have brought together representatives from government — planning, finance, and national women’s machineries — donor agencies and civil society to explore strategies to ensure that aid effectively delivers for gender equality in the context of nationally determined development planning and programming processes. Results from these ongoing consultations are being dissemminated through a series of discussion papers.
EC/UN Partnership on Gender Equality for Development and Peace
The EC/UN Partnership on Gender Equality for Development and Peace — a joint initiative of the European Commission (EC), UNIFEM, and the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ITCILO) — aims to identify approaches to integrate gender equality and women’s human rights into new aid modalities, in accordance with the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. It also aims to provide support for national partners’ efforts to fulfil international obligations on gender equality and to match their commitment to gender equality with adequate financial allocations in national development programmes and budgets. The project has a specific focus on the role of women in conflict and post-conflict situations, and especially on the proper implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. visit the website
