Officials from 26 developing nations and representatives of dozens of bilateral and multilateral aid agencies will meet in Rome February 24-25 to look at ways to streamline the policies and procedures that guide aid delivery worldwide.  As financial and technical assistance projects in developing countries have proliferated, so have the rules for administering them. 

World Bank studies show that a developing country typically can be dealing with 30 aid agencies across a wide range of social sectors. On average, each donor sends at least five missions a year to oversee their projects, placing an enormous strain on the recipient government that can find itself hosting three aid missions a week. Too often, the impact of foreign aid is diluted because it is delivered by multiple, high-cost aid boutiques. A vast consultancy industry has sprung up around aid delivery and is worth $4 billion a year in Africa alone.

Concern about the burgeoning red tap and its consequences has been voiced by the donors as well as the recipients.  The Development Committee, the G7/8, the High Level Meeting of the DAC, and others have called for fundamental changes.  Accelerated work to define what those changes should be has  been underway for the last two years, energized in large part by the consensus around the Millennium Development Goals, agreed to by 189 countries in 2000, and the Monterrey Consensus of 2001 which marked a commitment by the donor community to increased assistance, used effectively.  So far, analysis of operational requirements and the development of good practice standards and principles has been completed.

The current meeting launches the implementation phase, focusing on voluntary application of good practices by donors and recipients and their application in country assistance programs.  The meeting is cosponsored by five multilateral development banks—the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank—and the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD, and hosted by the Italian Government.

For more information:

• Remarks by James D. Wolfensohn - Feb 24, 2003
  
• Rome Declaration on Harmonization 
  
• Cutting the Red Tape - Feature Story, Feb. 21, 2003
  
• Agenda  (18K PDF)
  
• Participants
  

• Harmonizing Operational Policies, Procedures, and Practices: A Synthesis of Institutional Activities

• Country-Level Harmonization: Emerging Implementation Lessons

• Harmonization: Recent and Future World Bank Activities

• "A Chaos of Good Intentions"   - Newsweek International

Presentations:

• Harmonization of Environmental Assessment, Asian Development Bank and World Bank

• Harmonization: Supporting the Poverty Reduction Effort

• Harmonising Reporting & Monitoring - What is the issue?

Newsletters from Rome:

• Tuesday, February 25, 2003
• Monday, February 24, 2003
• Sunday, February 23, 2003

News Coverage:

• Press Review, February 26 - World Bank Chief Touts Development as Way to Avert Wars
• Press Review, February 25 - Red Tape Restricts Aid To World's Poor 
• Press Review, February 24 - Aid Donors Should Get Their Act Together: Wolfensohn
• Press Review, February 21 - Aid Donors Planning To Cut Red Tape At Rome Meeting

• Education for All
• OECD-DAC Donor Practices