- Ghanaian president John Kufuor has urged developing and developed countries to deploy and manage development assistance that allow poor countries to exit from aid dependency syndrome.
"We have an opportunity today to reach for a future based on a shared common commitment to overcome poverty, a future where no country will depend on aid," president Kufuor told a ministerial session of the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness on Thursday in Accra.
Mr. Kufuor called on conference delegates to emerge with "bold and ambitious resolutions, minimize existing impediments to aid effectiveness in recipient countries and make way for sustained growth and development."
He said the driving force for shared humanity behind these conferences clearly depicts that the concept of development partnership has attained a critical acceptance as a major vehicle to further enhance aid effectiveness in recipient countries.
President Kufuor stressed the need to empower developing countries to enable them play proactive roles in the global village of interdependence. He said it was the responsibility of the conference to remove the "systemic indignities of permanent aid through social and economic empowerment of recipient countries."
He said Ghana's economy was at the brink of attaining the Millennium Development Goals, and that the country's daily minimum was above $1. Kufuor also said Ghana, which provides adequate healthcare services through national health insurance scheme, was not far from introducing free and compulsory universal basic education.
President Kufuor said Ghana is today able to "issue bonds on the international capital market" principally prevent it from perennial and structural dependence on aid.
The secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said the primary task of the conference was to approve the Accra Agenda for Action, a blueprint that developing and developed countries must do to achieve their commitments under the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness by 2010.
Angel Gurría said some progress has been achieved in meeting Paris Declaration commitments, but more needs to be done.
"A large number of developing countries have improved their management of public funds," he said, donors in turn were "increasingly improving their co-ordination at country level. Yet, the pace of progress is too slow.
"Without further reform and faster action, we will not meet our 2010 commitments and targets for improving the quality of aid."
Earlier, the three-day conference whose delegates included important dignitaries such as Liberian president, former Irish president and presidents of the African Development Bank Group and the World Bank, conducted a general review of the implementation of the Paris process, launched a pictoral exposition competition on development business tagged "Marketplace of Ideas" as well as held nine round-table meetings on key commitments of the Paris Declaration.
Organised by the OECD, more than 1,000 stakehloders in the development business are attending the forum.
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