Country Leadership

In 2005, over 100 countries and international development organizations agreed on five principles to aid to be effective and really help countries achieve the MDGs. These principles are: ownership, harmonization, alignment, managing by results and mutual accountability.

1. Ownership: Developing countries set their own strategies for poverty reduction, improve their institutions and tackle corruption.

2. Alignment: Donor countries align behind these objectives and use local systems.

3. Harmonization: Donor countries coordinate, simplify procedures and share information to avoid duplication.

4. Results: Developing countries and donors shift focus to development results and results get measured.

5. Mutual accountability: Donors and partners are accountable for development results.

Since 2005, the OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, through its Development Assistance Committee has been promoting and measuring how well these principles are being followed by donors and developing countries. Particularly in health, progress has not been as fast as we would have liked. In 2008, a conference in Accra proposed an agenda for action.