<<Print>>

A two-day meeting on how to enhance information on Aid flows between donors and recipient countries, to ensure predictability and easy monitoring of the use of resources opened in Accra on Tuesday. The workshop, which is being held under the auspices of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), is an attempt by stakeholders to make information about aid flows more available and accessible, particularly partner countries. Representatives of partner countries from West and Central Africa, and Civil Society Organisations are participating in the meeting. They are; Ghana, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d' lvoire, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Togo. IATI seeks to respond to the concerns raised by partner countries and civil society organisations that information about aid flows is not sufficiently timely, detailed or accessible. The 2008 Paris Declaration evaluation found that partner countries faced "continuous serious difficulties in securing and providing timely, transparent and comprehensive information on aid flows that enable them to fully report on budgets to their legislature and citizens". Through IATI, donors will also implement the commitments made in the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) to �publicly disclose regular, detailed and timely information on volume, allocation and, when available, results of development expenditure to enable more accurate budgeting, accounting and audit by developing countries". Opening the workshop, Professor Newman Kusi, Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance said there was uncertainty about aid flows because of the global economic crisis and called for a high level of predictability and transparency from the donor partners. He urged partners to build a collective voice on the issue of predictability, transparency and accountability to be able to stimulate the changes required in reforming the global aid architecture. �We all know that with concerted and transparent efforts, such as in aid reform, we could achieve more results,� he stressed, adding that the consultations and the aid transparency initiative should provide the platform for peer learning on aid information management and shared discussion of challenges. Prof. Kusi expressed the hope that the IATI initiative would produce agreements on common information standards to help partner countries, improve planning and budgeting and promote mutual accountability.