Roundtable #4 Democratic ownership: Managing for Development results and Mutual Accountability

Overarching principles: We recognize that CSOs are an integral part of a democratic development process. Mutual accountability implies rebalancing power relations among donors, governments and CSOs. Democratic ownership implies inverting the current pattern of upward accountability. Currently, donors and governments evaluate their own programs and policies. Reducing poverty and inequality should be the end purpose of “management for results” and “mutual accountability”; Our challenge is to localize and democratize the Paris Declaration; Our approach should be inclusive and participatory, founded on dialogue; Development actors will understand “mutual accountability” and “managing for results”, differently, and through dialogue we must build a common understanding.

Recommendations 1.Create an independent and rigorous monitoring and evaluation system (resources, agencies, methodologies) to assess both the Paris Declaration and development outcomes at the national level; This system must include meaningful and inclusive participation of CSOs (ensuring access to information, capacity building, and financial resources);

Recommendations (cont.) 2.All relevant actors must commit to the highest standards of openness and transparency: –Timely and meaningful dissemination of information, and the adoption of automatic and full disclosure of relevant information. Public disclosure of and education about the budget is especially important. –Developing country governments must work with elected representatives,, the public, and CSOs to build transparent policies on how aid and public resources are to be sourced, spent, monitored and accounted for; –CSOs must exercise accountability and continuously draw their legitimacy from their diverse constituencies.

Recommendations (cont.) 3.Localizing and democratizing development results: Both the development plan and the results framework must include meaningful and inclusive community participation by communities and CSOs. This requires resources and procedures for local definition of results and indicators.