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The conference is part of the independent Wilton Park international policy series in collaboration with the North-South Institute and supported by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Gathered in the plush surroundings of a mansion on the south coast of England, representatives from key nations across the north-south divide discussed what's called the 'architecture' of international development aid and agreed that radical change is required.

SOT (English speech) Super: Roy Culpeper, President, North South Institute

"Our southern colleagues were quite insistent that the issues were far more profound than simply reforming the architecture which, in their view, amounts to tinkering at the margins. They think that the whole enterprise of development needs to be re-thought. What is it about, how are we going about it? Are the policies right or wrong, and these kinds of over-arching questions. So one contribution of the project is to address the over-arching questions, and one outcome of that line of enquiry has been to say, "Look, if things are going to change for the better, as far as southern countries are concerned, then the whole process by which development knowledge and development policy is generated, affirmed and disseminated - that has to change." Right now, that process of knowledge generation, affirmation, is clearly dominated by the north and it's a little ironic, even bizarre, to look at development policy being generated in the north and then imposed on the south."

Among those calling for reform is Professor Sam Wangwe, an aid consultant from Tanzania.

SOT (English speech) Super: Professor Sam Wangwe, Consultant & Aid Policy Advisor

"The voice of the north is too dominant in influencing the development agenda, including the development agenda which is supposed to be affecting and impacting on the south. So it's good development to have the voice of the south in influencing the development agenda globally, and their own development agenda to be enhanced."

Leading Latin American aid expert, Alejandro Bendana, put the case for reform even more strongly.

SOT (English speech) Super: Doctor Alejandro Bendana, Director, Centro de Estudios Internacionales, Nicaragua

"The north talks a lot and listens very little, and yet it uses terms such as 'development assistance', 'partnerships', 'co-operation', but the elemental fact would be that if you want to help me, shouldn't you be hearing what the person that wants the help needs? If you are a doctor, doesn't the patient have to be able to describe … and maybe the patient knows best what's ailing him or her? But what we have now is a monologue. First, the people that gave us the problems now come back with a manual to fix the problems that they started in the first place."

The conference heard the emergence of China as a major new source of development aid has changed the balance of power between donor nations of the north and developing countries in the south. There were calls for collective bargaining among recipient nations and a southern alternative to the World Bank.

SOT (English speech) Super: Sam Olofin, Professor of Economics, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

"You may want to think of it as a new development that's bringing the east, I wouldn't say in direct confrontation with the west, but at least it's such that it's going to change the dynamics of aid flow. It used to be a kind of an attitude of, 'father knows best', which the traditional sources of aid, more or less, would normally talk of 'conditionalities'. They imposed conditions. The most spoken-about is 'good governance' and of course eradication of corruption, and so on. And suddenly, the Chinese are emerging and saying, "Well, these are your own internal problems. What we're concerned about are the technical challenges in terms of the skills and the know-how that you need, to improve on your conditions of living.", and of course, to a large extent I'm sure, this would be frowned-at by some of the traditional sources, but I think it's a very healthy development in the sense that the political agenda also now needs to be reviewed by the traditional sources from the west."

SOT (English speech) Super: Doctor Alejandro Bendana, Director, Centro de Estudios Internacionales, Nicaragua

"We need a collective voice and we need collective economic power on the part of the south, in order to better be able to dialogue with the north, especially on such common matters such as the environment, that affect us all, but also in this field of so-called 'development assistance', because we don't see that it's either development - and we see that a lot of that assistance is really retribution for the rich countries themselves, that send their consultants, their products, want to get into our markets - and we just don't see much benefit of it."

Conference delegates from the south made it clear that reform of the fifty year old international aid structure is long overdue. Some of the discussions have been heated.

SOT (English speech) Super: Roy Culpeper, President, North South Institute

"Angry, I suppose, would be going too far. Certainly a considerable amount of frustration and exasperation, because it's not as though some of these over-arching issues have not been discussed before. So the frustration comes out of, I'd say, decades of not being heard. But the fact that they're all here suggests that there's still a reservoir of hopefulness, or at least a willingness to ... to try again, to see if another approach can make a difference."

The North-South Institute, based in Ottawa, Canada, tabled a two-year study into the need for reform of international aid architecture. It recommends a series of changes which will give recipient nations greater influence on the aid policies that affect them.

 

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