Dr. Ashot Hovanesian, President of Synergy International Systems, and Mr. Richard Bradley, Aid Management Advisor, recently participated in the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held in Accra, Ghana from 2-4 September 2008. The Forum is a follow-up to the Paris High Level Forum in 2005, which resulted in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. The Forum is a unique gathering of national government leaders and aid practitioners from around the world.
Synergy’s Development Assistance Database (DAD) was featured in the Marketplace of Ideas, which highlighted best practices in aid effectiveness in governments around the world through posters in an exhibit format. The Governments of India, Iraq, and the Central African Republic all highlighted their national aid management systems, which were developed by Synergy. These included the Coordination & Decision Support System for the Ministry of Finance in India, the Development Assistance Database Iraq for the Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation, and the upcoming implementation of DAD in the Ministry of Planning, Economics, and International Cooperation in the Central African Republic. In addition to the posters, Government staff made brief presentations to explain how these implementations strengthened the principles of alignment, harmonization, ownership, managing for results, and mutual accountability.
At the conclusion of the High Level Forum, the Accra Agenda for Action was released, which specifically calls for donors to support, and invest in strengthening, developing countries’ national statistical capacity and information systems, including those for managing aid. DAD is greatly strengthening governments’ capacity for aid management through its implementation in over 25 countries.
