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Busan: Not a road to nowhere, but the destination has changed
Posted by Rachel Hayman on 13 December 2011
This is a response to Brian Pratt's original blog.
International NGOs and organised civil society groups from around the world were finally offered a seat at the Aid Effectiveness table back in Accra in 2008, after much haranguing about their absence from previous summits. The deal, however, was that they somehow weld their disparate demands into a clear agenda. The years between the Accra and Busan summits were marked by the rise of the big civil society coalitions on aid effectiveness, numerous regional platforms coming together under the BetterAid banner which now claims to represent over 1,700 civil society organisations – no mean feat. In the process, civil society organisations have taken a good look at themselves and begun to address their own effectiveness deficiencies. Civil society platforms from different regions have raised their voices and aired their demands. In a world where repressive moves against civil society are on the increase – see recent CIVICUS reports – this in itself is extremely important.
Was the Busan summit a road to nowhere? We should indeed question why so many organisations felt the need to travel around the globe to be present in Busan, when the document was already in its fifth draft the week before following months of to-ing and fro-ing; and when the final wrangling was led by 18 selected sherpas. That one of those represented civil society was a major step forward, admittedly, but the power of anyone sitting within the room or outside at a fringe venue to seriously influence the final document at this stage was highly questionable.
So did Busan achieve anything? Well, the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation is certainly all-inclusive. The World Bank and others laud the 'democratic' nature of the Partnership, and many of the Big Asks of BetterAid and its constituent bodies have made their way into the final document. However, despite the 'common set of principles' that have been agreed, the words that stand out above all others are 'differential' and 'respective' with regard to commitments. The absence of solid commitments, many of which remain to be debated over the next twelve months, raises the concern that the gestures towards human rights and gender equity, inclusion and accountability, are merely that – gestures.
I've just re-read the Monterrey Consensus, signed back in 2002 by a select few OECD donors and multilateral institutions, and you have to wonder where the last 10 years have taken us. That document made reference to supporting country ownership, to South-South and triangular cooperation, to mobilising resources from different sources, to human rights, democracy, gender equity and environmental sustainability, to tackling corruption and poor governance. Clearly huge strides have been made in the interim in improving the management and transparency of aid, but that agenda is unfinished and the question is whether it ever will be.
From drafts to the final version of the Partnership, the voice of non-OECD countries and institutions becomes ever stronger, rejecting what is seen as an imposed western development paradigm and system. In the 1970s there was brief talk in development circles about a 'triumph of third worldism'; the negotiations leading up to Busan seem to give us a flavour of that once more. However, Busan also gives us a picture of what non-OECD-led development looks like. And it should do little to assuage the concerns of those civil society actors seeking accountability, justice, human rights and participation. Civil society organisations got their seat at the table, but their real concerns remain buried beneath a model of development that is firmly growth-led and based on global economic integration. Have we reached the end of the road? We can say we at least got some of what we asked for. The question is where do we go from here?
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