The Paris Declaration

The Paris Declaration, endorsed on 2 March 2005, is an international agreement to which over one hundred Ministers, Heads of Agencies and other Senior Officials adhered and committed their countries and organisations to continue to increase efforts in harmonisation, alignment and managing aid for results with a set of monitorable actions and indicators.

• Three reasons why the Paris Declaration will make a difference
• 12 indicators of progress
• Countries and Organisations Adhering to the Paris Declaration
• Adhesion procedure
• Full text of the Paris Declaration

Three reasons why the Paris Declaration will make a difference significantly increasing the impact of aid.

1) The Paris Declaration goes beyond previous agreements
More than a statement of general principles, the Paris Declaration lays down a practical, action-orientated roadmap to improve the quality of aid and its impact on development.  The 56 partnership commitments are organised around the five key principles: ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results, and mutual accountability.

2) Twelve indicators to monitor progress in achieving results
12 indicators of aid effectiveness were developed as a way of tracking and encouraging progress against the broader set of partnership commitments. Targets for the year 2010 have been set for 11 of the indicators and are designed to encourage progress at the global level among the countries and organisations adhering to the Paris Declaration.

3) The Paris Declaration creates stronger mechanisms for accountability
The Paris Declaration promotes a model of partnership that improves transparency and accountability on the use of development resources. It recognises that for aid to become truly effective, stronger and more balanced, accountability mechanisms are required at different levels. At the international level, the Paris Declaration constitutes a mechanism which donors and recipients of aid are held mutually accountable to each other and compliance in meeting the commitments will be publicly monitored. At the country level, the Paris Declaration encourages donors and partners to jointly assess mutual progress in implementing agreed commitments on aid effectiveness by making best use of local mechanisms.

At present accountability requirements are often harder on developing countries than donors, yet aid is more effective when partner countries exercise strong and effective leadership over their development policies and strategies. This is why ownership -developing countries exercising strong and effective leadership over their development policies and strategies - is the fundamental tenet underpinning the Paris Declaration.

Chapter 3 of the OECD-DAC Development Cooperation Report 2005 titled "Aid Effectiveness: Three Good Reasons Why the Paris Declaration Will Make a Difference" takes an indepth look at these 3 reasons.

The Joint Venture on Monitoring the Paris Declaration was established to take the lead in “tracking and encouraging progress at the global level among the countries and agencies that have agreed to the Declaration”.