Aid effectiveness must be understood in the broad framework of development effectiveness. The two are not mutually exclusive, contrary concepts, but are mutually reinforcing - there can be no aid effectiveness if aid does not fulfill the goals of addressing the objectives of development such as human rights, social justice and gender equality and sustainable development. Development effectiveness assumes that aid must be managed and delivered with full accountability, with ownership by the poor and their countries and aligned to their priorities.

But the aid system has a long way to go to realise such effectiveness. It is, of course, symptomatic of the ills of the world we live in. Thus there are no quick fixes to transforming aid into an effective instrument to address poverty. Such process of reform by necessity accompanies the process of transformation in our societies and the world as well.

Many serious issues continue to hobble the aid system, preventing the effective use of aid money in genuinely fighting poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Some of the more serious issues include the prevalent practice of policy conditionalities by donors; aid-tying and promotion of commercial and investment interests of donor countries into the aid system; inappropriate technical assistance and infrastructure projects; and, lack of accountability to results of development policies and projects.

As we prepare for Accra, we have focused on a number of these reforms such as promoting democratic ownership, removing policy conditionalities, elimination of tied aid but a number of donors continue to block these efforts as several countries continue to avoid committing to democracy and accountability.
Consequently it would seem folly to expect that much can be achieved in Accra. The final draft of the Accra Action Agenda contains many nice statements that have few commitments that promise genuine change and remain bereft of ambition for reform.

Such is the aid system anyway where achieving consensus is a difficult process, where coherence is apparently impossible and finally where actual performance and implementation would be another matter, and probably where expectations would be much less.

And yet, on the eve of the Third High Level Forum itself, we can safely say that much has been achieved already. In particular, the Accra process has resulted in the strong recognition of the role and voice of CSOs both internationally and in many countries compared to two years ago in the aid system. The Accra process, supported by the Global Forum for Development, has drawn the participation of non-Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donor countries as well as other donor organisations and private funds towards more cooperation. It has substantially increased the voices of countries compared to the previous HLF processes.

These achievements have helped reshape the Accra agenda and debates to a certain degree, challenging the notion that the HLF III is a mere stocktaking exercise, refocusing debates on aid reform towards issues that are new or have been ignored in Paris and absent from the Paris Declaration. Under the objective of enriching and deepening the Paris Declaration, the issues of democratic ownership, elimination of policy conditionality, tied aid, transparency, division of labour and incentives for donor reform have made the negotiations more indepth and challenge all development actors.

These also present possibilities of how aid reform can be advanced in earnest towards HLF IV in 2011, that we may realise what aid was originally meant to be - humankind helping one another in ending poverty.

Antonio Tujan is the Reality of Aid Network chairperson.