Global aid reform summit must tackle conflict, or millions will lose out on the Millennium Development Goals

29 August 2008

Download policy report 'Aid Reform: Addressing Conflict and Situations of Fragility' here>>

By 2010, half the world’s poor people could be living in states that are at war or at risk of violent conflict – unless the aid system changes, according to aid agency CARE International.

This stark warning comes on the eve of a major global summit on aid reform in Accra, Ghana, where CARE is calling on the international community to up its game or fail to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) to fight poverty.

Countries in conflict are least likely to meet the Millennium Development Goal targets to reduce poverty: one in three child deaths and 29 per cent of 12-year-olds who fail to complete primary school in developing countries live in so-called ‘fragile’ states. Nearly one third of the world’s poorest people currently live in countries in conflict, and progress on the goals to reduce extreme poverty and cut maternal mortality has gone backwards [1].

CARE is calling for donor governments to buck this trend - to help countries emerge from war into peace by changing the way it allocates aid, which presently amounts to investing too little too late.

Howard Mollett, CARE International UK’s Conflict Advisor, said: "Aid reforms will be of little help to the world's most poor and vulnerable people if they do not address conflict. More and better aid for helping countries make the transition from war to peace is essential. Too often, international political engagement and funding for recovery evaporates at precisely the most critical moment in consolidating peace."

Donor nations, multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and United Nations, and aid recipient governments are meeting in Accra to discuss reforming the way in which aid is given. CARE's concern is that the summit will not do enough to make aid more effective in countries affected by war. Of the 34 countries furthest from reaching the MDGs, 22 are in or emerging from conflict [2] , yet discussions towards the Accra summit have mostly focused on mainstream development approaches in non-conflict settings. CARE calls on donors to recognise the special needs of conflict-affected countries, and reform aid to meet these challenges.

Mr Mollett explained: "The root causes of many civil conflicts lie in economic and political grievances. For this reason, aid to countries emerging from war could do much more to promote accountability between governments and the people affected by war. This would both ensure that aid is more responsive to people in need, and help to consolidate a sustainable peace. Aid that fails to involve its intended beneficiaries becomes more a part of the problem than the solution."

There are currently enormous gaps in the aid system: when the television cameras have moved on from the main action of a conflict, the country is left with a weak government, a drop in funding and interest from the international community, and the early recovery stage is left to flounder. For example, only 14% of the $98 million UN Transitional Appeal for Haiti (2006-2007), was actually funded. This often results in disillusion and relapses into violence, which in some cases around the world - for example, in East Timor - last for years.

CARE International is calling for:

- Donors to make strong and concrete commitments to providing more, and more effective, money to countries in conflict.

- Donors to be held fully accountable to the commitments they have made on a) how much money they have promised to give and b) how effectively this money is spent, and how they have involved local groups and people in deciding how to spend it.

[1] World Bank Global Monitoring Report: Millennium Development Goals: Confronting the challenges of gender equality and fragile states, 2007
[2] Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, UN Millennium Project, 2005

Ends

About CARE International: CARE is one of the world’s largest aid agencies, working in nearly 70 countries to fight poverty and helping more than 55 million people every year. Our long-term programmes tackle the deep-seated causes of poverty and we are always among the first to respond when disaster strikes. We remain with communities to help them rebuild their lives long after the cameras have gone.

Notes

Within the broader aid reform agenda to be discussed at Accra, policy-makers are discussing three main conflict-related themes:

• Reform of international funding for early recovery, stabilisation and peacebuilding
• Proposals to develop global and country-level objectives for peacebuilding and state-building
• Accountability of donor performance in conflict settings
• CARE International welcomes the focus on the above themes, and outlines specific recommendations in relation to each in a policy paper entitled: ‘Aid Reform: Addressing Conflict and Situations of Fragility’ (available from ).
  
  From the perspective of a non-government organisation working in over 70 countries worldwide, CARE highlights the following concerns:
  
• Reforms of funding for early recovery need to improve both quantity and quality. Proposals from some donors to pool such funding into a UN mechanism raise significant concerns about quality. The recent creation of other UN pooled funds have faced considerable problems in terms of their transparency, accountability and effectiveness.
• Proposals to identify objectives for peacebuilding and state-building need to address the political obstacles to consolidating peace, and avoid the temptation to purely focus on funding priorities.
• Efforts to promote the accountability of donors and aid recipient governments need to give voice to the views and concerns of ordinary citizens living in the countries in question. Overly bureaucratic processes will fail to genuinely promote accountability to the intended ultimate beneficiaries of aid: people living in poverty.

Statistics:

By 2010, half of the world’s poorest people could be living in states that are experiencing or are at risk of, violent conflict (source: Preventing Violent Conflict, DFID calculations based on World Bank estimates in Global Economic Prospects: Economic implications of Remittances and Migration, World Bank, Washington 2006)

For interviews or more information, contact Sophie Kummer 020 7934 9347,