Ownership and Aid Effectiveness

In March 2005, the U.S. along with over 100 developing countries and donor institutions endorsed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. The Paris Declaration encourages locally-developed action plans and coordinating processes based on broader consultation with stakeholders and franker developing country-donor partnership, with a view to improving aid effectiveness and achieving better development results.

The U.S. supports all 54 commitments in the declaration.

The U.S. strongly endorses the principle of ownership, recognizing that developing countries are largely responsible for their own development. The aid effectiveness principles that evolved from studying the record told us clearly that countries that demonstrate commitment to their own development will also use external resources well. This is the foundation for the Millennium Challenge Corporation and a key principle of the Foreign Assistance Framework.

To make its own aid more effective, the U.S. recognizes that countries are in different states of development and require different responses. The distinction of categories of countries enables improved aid management for results.

The presentation will discuss the approaches that the USG has taken to implementing the principle of ownership in its foreign assistance programming. These include the country focus of foreign assistance reform; the increasing focus on capacity development, including health systems strengthening and sustainability; and the plans to further strengthen the in-country staffing model used by USAID which fosters close partnership with host country institutions as they work to implement their commitments to exercise leadership, translate strategies into results-oriented programs, and lead in coordinating aid in their countries.