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UNU-WIDER Conference on 'Aid: Principles, Policies and Performance'

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A family in Tarialan, Uvs Province, Mongolia, uses a solar panel to generate power for their 'ger', a traditional Mongolian tent. Tarialan, Mongolia. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe.

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Conference on 'Aid: Principles, Policies and Performance'

Project name/title
Conference on 'Aid: Principles, Policies and Performance'
Year:
2006
Theme:
Development and Finance
Abstract:
Following on WIDER’s work on Development Finance which has involved three projects since 2002, a development conference on “Aid: Principles, Policies and Performance” was organized in June 2006. Aid is one of the most challenging development issues facing the international community. There is now a pressing need to evaluate performance to date, and the future for aid in light of recent events such as the post-Monterrey consensus to substantially increase aid to meet the Millennium Development Goals, recent initiatives from donors, and an ongoing focus on Africa, among others. The conference aimed to bring together senior policymakers and academics from both the donor and recipient communities to review the progress achieved so far, identify the challenges ahead, and discuss the emerging new policy agenda in development aid. The project is timely given the agreement at the G8 Meeting in Scotland in 2005 to significantly expand aid flows and discussions around development finance at the UN Summit in September 2005. The conference also explored synergies with the donor agencies and was addressed to about 160 participants. Links to WIDER’s traditional donor agencies and others were also strengthened.
Keywords:
Development aid, financing the MDGs, aid policy
Director:
Assistant:
Participants:

Approximately 160 leading experts from academic institutions, donor agencies, international organizations, and NGOs met in Helsinki on 16 and 17 June 2006 at the above major conference to present papers and discuss the current challenges of aid. Plenary speakers included Paul Collier (University of Oxford), William Easterly (New York University), Patrick Guillaumont (Universite d’Auvergne), Peter Heller (IMF), Helen Milner (Princeton University), Gustav Ranis (Yale University), Finn Tarp (University of Copenhagen), and Adrian Wood (University of Oxford).Target audiences included policymakers in the donor community, the UN system, policymakers in the developing world and the aid-recipient community, academics working in this area both in the North and South as well as NGOs and aid practitioners.

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