Seminar on ODA reporting and monitoring in Slovenia

The international seminar on “ODA reporting and monitoring” was organized in Ljubljana on November 19-20, 2007, by the Slovenian NGDO platform SLOGA in cooperation with Concord, TRIALOG and the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD.

The seminar was designed as a capacity building event for non governmental representatives and governmental officials from different new EU member states (NMS). It was attended by 22 participants from NGOs and governments from 6 NMS countries (Bulgaria, Latvia, Slovakia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovenia), from the French NGDO platform and a DAC representative. Additionally, 3 NGDO platforms (Hungary, Poland, Malta) sent their written presentations about ODA reporting in their countries.

During the Slovenian EU presidency, SLOGA and its member organisations are going to assist in the implementation of the European NGDO agenda and will focus also on EU aid effectiveness (a conference is planned for April 2-3, 2008, together with Concord and the French NGDO platform). In this sense the recent ODA seminar was an excellent opportunity for networking among NMS. Development NGDO platforms in NMS are relatively new and have neither established a strategic partnership, nor strengthened dialogue with governmental institutions regarding ODA monitoring and reporting. Therefore, there is the need for NGDOs from NMS to closely work together in the field of capacity building and information sharing in order to be competent to establish a strategic partnership.

The main aspects of ODA covered at the seminar were on the nature of ODA and its evolution, the rules and criteria of the DAC; case studies from NMS (examples/practice); NGO critique of ODA (aid inflating); the pressures ODA is coming under (inclusion of more security spending, climate spending not being additional, etc.); the means to monitor it (Aid Watch Report, Evaluation systems), problems in monitoring (sources, documents, collecting of data at the level of line ministries etc.) as well as experiences from previous Aid Watch Reports and a debate on common methodology of reporting for the next CONCORD Aid Watch Report.

Representatives from six NGO platforms at the end of the seminar came to the conclusion that the main challenge in the past was that the timeframe of the Aid Watch report (information gathering in March or April) was not feasible in most of the NMS. Suggestions were made to include in the next CONCORD Aid Watch report a separate overview of main issues relevant to NMS. The participants identified the need for further training on the topic of Aid Watch that would address concrete problems with ODA monitoring and reporting.

Information provided by Ales Kranjc Kuslan (Ekvilib), Coordinator SLOGA Working Group on ODA monitoring and aid effectiveness, and Anja Mesic, SLOGA

Download the 2007 CONCORD Aid Watch report from:
http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/hold_the_applause.final.pdf
Find a summary of the report, in the TRIALOG bulletin 2007:
http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/trialog_bulletin_2007_6.pdf
Read more on the NGDO project for the Slovenian Presidency 2008 at:
http://www.trialog.or.at/images/doku/trialog_bulletin_2007_3.pdf
SLOGA website: http://www.sloga-platform.org/