Accountability key to realizing Financing for Development promises

Promises are all well and good, but accountability and measurement are key to realizing those promises. That’s the message Michael Jarvis, executive director of the Trust, Accountability and Inclusion Collaborative, brought to the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, or FfD4, in Sevilla, Spain. “A lot of time and effort has gone into getting us to where we are, and 10,000 people … gathered here to celebrate that in Seville. But really, the hard work starts after this,” he said, referring to the FfD4 outcome document that’s been agreed to by 192 nations. “You've got a lot of very fine words in a very long document. How does that actually translate into improvements in people's lives? So we're interested in exploring how there can be an accountability mechanism for FfD delivery,” he said at Casa Devex on the sidelines of the conference. TAI Collaborative, which works with many philanthropic foundations, helps members serve disadvantaged communities and supports their inclusive grantmaking. Jarvis said that philanthropy is not a panacea to the declining levels of official development assistance, but it can strategize with partners, whether civil society, multilateral development banks, or governments, to complement each other’s work and figure out “who can fill which lanes most effectively.” And one lane that philanthropy can fill is guidance on accountability. Jarvis cited the importance of donors helping countries mobilize their own domestic resources, especially through collecting taxes. “You've got to measure, and if you don't measure, you're not going to be able to push for progress in implementation,” he said, citing as an example an initiative at FfD3 in Addis Ababa a decade ago whereby countries pledged to improve their tax systems while donors pledged to help them. “And that included a commitment to double … donor investment in tax domestic resource mobilization,” he said. But it took keeping track of data and publishing reports to put pressure on the donor countries for them to live up to their commitments. “So if we don't have … those who are particularly interested in specific areas of the FfD outcomes, who are playing that tracking, handholding, supporting role, we're just not going to get where we need to. And so I think philanthropy — it's not the answer on its own — but it can be an enabler.” Jarvis said he’s pleased the Sevilla outcome document “does talk about doubling donor support for domestic resource mobilization, which we're relieved made it in [because] if you're a donor, in this new context, perhaps the best bet you can do is actually help countries invest in strengthening their own revenue mobilization, because that has such a knock-on effect, as opposed to discrete individual aid programs on set topics.” And while the outcome document didn’t have everything people had hoped for, such as concrete debt reform, “it opens the door,” Jarvis said. “And I think we found from past Financing for Development conferences that you just need an entry point in the outcome document, and then you can build on that later. And you know, we’ve got 10 years to deliver on this thing, so let's not obsess too much about what isn't in there. Let's think about how we can take the most advantage of what is.”