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The First High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, Rome, 24-25 February 2003

Bringing together heads of multilateral and bilateral development institutions and aid recipient countries, the Rome High Level Forum culminated in commitments by donor agencies to harmonise their operational policies, procedures and practices.

The Rome Declaration was centred around these principal commitments:

• Ensuring that development assistance is delivered in accordance with partner country priorities;
• Reviewing and amending policy, procedures and practice to faciliatate harmonisation. Such as by reducing donor missions, reviews and reporting;
• Implementing progressively good practice principles in development assistance delivery;
• Intensifying donor efforts to work through delegated co-operation and increasing the flexibility of staff to manage country programmes and projects more effectively and efficiently;
• Developing incentives to foster recognition of the benefits of harmonisation;
• Providing support for country analytic work in ways that will strengthen government leaderships and ownership of development results;
• Mainstreaming country-led efforts to streamline donor procedures and practices including demand-driven technical co-operation;
• Applying good practice principles - including alignment with national budget cycles and poverty reduction strategy reviews - in providing budget, sector or balance of payments support;
• Promoting harmonised approaches in global and regional programmes

Read the full Rome Declaration

Related Documents

The High Level Fora on Aid Effectiveness: A history