RESPONSE OF HON:MWIGULU NCHEMBA ON POLICIES,PRACTICE,ACCOUNTABILITY ON ACP AND EU COUNTRIES(COOPERATION)

QUESTION,
Which policies and practices for effective development cooperation have worked well ? Which levels of accountability are needed for effective development cooperation? To your opinion what are the major limitations to the effectiveness of Donar Assistance and how can they be addressed

RESPONSE:
First and foremost I wish to express my sincere thanx to the government of German for hosting us here and to orgernizers of this event. Regarding the questions


(1) The policies and practice s of assistance through Government budgets has been more effective due to the fact that the align with the domestic policies and priorities hence provides a room for ownership of projects sponsored. Alongside they provide some a way for Donor comunity to face the need to provide the pledges within the financial year. In the contrary the sectiral supports have proved to be linked with several conditions to be fulfilled and sometimes they do change after being attained by the recipient country.

Meeting the no objection has been always a long process which linking with delays in undertaking projects and variations in estmatated cost of projects. Likewise the miss the room for alignment to nation priorities and synchronisation to policies.


(2) With regard to accountability there are three dimensions though they have mostly been left to recipients. But for effectiveness mutual accountability is essential. The first dimension is answerability, which is the obligation to inform, explain and justify decisions and actions. This has been partial.

The second is on enforcement, this is the capacity of accounting agencies to impose sactions where there violations. This has been oneside due to obvious reasons that when recipient countries do not fulfill their commitments the Development Partners withhold funds but the vice versa is not true. However for effectiveness mutual accountability is required. Thirdly is the need for clear delimitation of responsibilities.

It is required that all acters to have clear defined duties and performance standards. But as it stand now in some cases this is not observed. You can find the conditions linked to the assistance compromises this by a donor to finance and demand to undertake the project

3) to my opinion major limitations are unattainable conditionalities attached to projects. Without even listing here but there other conditions which are completely not related to the nsture of assistance and the nature of the project. When they get to be imposed as a requirement to access assistance is like dinying some of us to access the funding.

Am olso with the opinion that the Development Partners should entrust professionals in the recipient countries to undertake the technical duties. 

As it stands now you gives us some money for an ordinary projects and provide a series of expertise who sometimes demand international rates of remuneration and deviate s back a great pacentage of funds. Development Assistance need not to end with a project it means a projects and job creation from the time of undertaking the project to the emplementation of the project.

Receipient Counties should be left with some flexibilities to align funds with priority sectors, national policies and with flexibility to use the own expertise to enhance capacity building and job creation. We have this capacity and the needed technical knowledge just like imported expert coming in the name of proving technical expertise.