Civil society organizations in the Volta Region on Friday rated as largely average, the effectiveness of the Paris Declaration of 2005, regarding donor aid in the education and health sectors in the Region. The least effective of the indicators used in the assessment was transparency, which was scored as low. Other indicators such as community participation, improvement in livelihood, gender sensitivity, environmental friendliness, addressing felt needs, each scored average. The effectiveness of non-governmental organizations, regarding community participation, was average for health and high for education. Transparency and accountability were rated low for health and high for education, improvement in livelihood scored high for health and average for education, gender sensitivity and environmental friendliness were put at average for health and high for education, while meeting felt needs was high for both health and education. These ratings were the outcome of the Volta Regional Consultation towards the 2008 Third High-Level Forum (HLF) on aid effectiveness in the context of the Paris Declaration scheduled for in Accra in 2008. The Ho forum was organised by the Development Institute and Actionaid Ghana, both non-governmental organizations. The draft policy paper on the Paris Declaration made available to participants at the Ho forum said: "That Declaration of March 2005 establishes global commitments for donor and recipient countries to support more effective aid in a context of a significant scaling up of aid. The intention being to reform the delivery and management of aid to improve its effectiveness, increase its impact in reducing poverty and inequality, increasing growth, building capacity and accelerating the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)." The Declaration outlined five principles, which should shape aid delivery. These were ownership by recipient countries, alignment to recipient countries' national development strategies, institutions and procedures, harmonization among donor countries so that their actions would become transparent and collectively effective, managing resources and improve decision making for results as well as mutual accountability by both donors and recipient countries. Signatories to the declaration comprised 35 donor countries and agencies, 26 multilateral agencies and 56 aid recipient countries. Source: GNA