Ministers of developing and donor countries rose from the Aid Effectiveness Conference in Accra on Thursday with a resolve to work together to help countries across the world build a successful future of shared commitment in which no countries will depend on aid. But Civil Society Groups said the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) needs to be backed by urgent action if it is to deliver on its promise. "It won't have any impact on the lives of people living in poverty unless its promise is put into practice," Robert Fox, Oxfam International head of delegation said. The EU has, however, welcomed the agreement saying it is committed to implement immediately the measures set out in the AAA. The Accra Agenda calls for donors to make longer-term aid commitments and set a new target for donors to deliver aid through developing countries' own system. Key points agreed in the AAA are donors provision of forward information on their planned aid to partner countries, the use of partner country system to deliver aid and a switch from reliance of prescriptive conditions about how and when aid money is spent to conditions based on the developing country's own development objectives as well as untying aid by relaxing restrictions on how and where goods are purchased from. While there is the recognition that some progress has been made on way donors and recipients countries work together on the ground, the parties agreed that the pace of progress is too slow. "Without further reform and faster action we will not meet our commitments and targets for improving the quality of aid," the Agenda stressed. The parties identified three major challenges that might be dealt with to accelerate progress on aid effectiveness. These are country ownership to allow developing country governments to take stronger leadership of their own development policies, building more effective and inclusive partnerships and ensuring accountability in the development process. Developing countries also undertook to broaden country-level policy dialogue on development, strengthen their capacity to lead and manage development through building strong institutions and local expertise and also building more effective and inclusive partnerships for development. There was commitment from donors to use country systems as the first option for aid programmes in support of activities managed by the public sector and to provide safeguards and measures to strengthen rather than undermine country systems and procedures if a country system is not feasible. Further pledge was made by donors to reduce the many duplicating initiatives, especially at country and sector levels. "We will reduce the fragmentation of aid by improving the complementarily of donors' efforts and the division of labour among donors, including through improved allocation of resources within sectors, within countries and across countries." The AAA came with the decision to develop and implement the global partnership for agriculture to urgently address the challenge of the food crisis. Commenting on the deal, Finance Minister Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu said the plans would advance the effective use of aid and that there was the need to accelerate the process and not to reverse the gains that had been chalked. Source: GNA