Improving aid effectiveness
Over the past decade, the international community has come to recognise that poverty reduction doesn't just need more aid - it needs better aid.
In 2005, more than 100 countries and aid agencies signed up to the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. This commits them to a set of principles that will increase country ownership and harmonise and align donor assistance better than ever before.
Crown Agents is committed to supporting the aid effectiveness agenda by providing assistance to donors and governments in several ways:
- We help partner governments improve their management of external assistance so they can exercise more control over their own development
- We conduct analytical studies of donor practices and programmes to support increased harmonisation and alignment
- We facilitate aid disbursement by performing aid verification studies and designing mechanisms such as pooled donor trust funds
- We help governments to design and manage grant management and disbursement systems
Our aid management services build on our practical understanding of aid modalities, donor procedures, and procurement and financial management systems.
We also use our experience in institutional development and capacity building to help strengthen partner government systems and make it easier for them to absorb and manage increasing levels of aid.
And we draw upon a variety of other skills:
- Our audit and financial management skills track the flow of funds through complex aid programmes, particularly budget and sector support programmes
- Our legal skills design effective aid management mechanisms, such as trust funds and joint donor assistance programmes
- And we use our experience of humanitarian response to work more effectively in post-crisis situations, where the need for aid co-ordination is paramount