Does today’s International Aid Architecture help or hinder aid effectiveness?

ndeed in recent years there has been a growing proliferation of aid instruments and a dramatic widening of the range of actors. These new players bring much-welcomed additional resources, but also make the coordination of aid efforts more difficult. For the EU, reforms of its once chaotic and under-performing aid structures have been widely welcomed, but these affect only part of the broader aid picture. What strategies can help tie together the efforts of the different players? And given that European governments account for 55% of ODA worldwide, what role should the EU play in improving the international aid-giving architecture?
The vast majority of development aid specialists agree that recipient countries should be in control of their own development efforts. Yet there is also widespread agreement that the principal aid players do not yet cooperate adequately, thus driving up costs, creating wastage and duplication of effort and adding to the coordination challenges facing developing country governments. In today’s complex aid architecture, what has been the country impact so far of the EU’s attempts to harmonise efforts and implement its “European consensus on development”? How can the broader aid community best help developing countries to take hold of the reins?

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