Levels of poverty in the developing world will remain unacceptably high if aid reform sidesteps the central question of its impact on the poor, according to African churches and international faith-based organisations before a critical aid meeting.
Next month's Accra High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness brings together over 800 representatives of multilateral and bilateral donors, developing country governments, and civil society organisations. The meeting will review the Paris Declaration, a roadmap to improving aid effectiveness signed by one hundred ministers, heads of agencies and other senior officials in March 2005.
In a joint statements Caritas Internationalis, the Symposium of Episcopal Conference in Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), the International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity (CIDSE), and ACT Development fear that the interests of the poor have not been reflected in draft documents produced for Accra.
The General Secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) Rev. Dr. Mvume Dandala will be at Accra. He said, "About 29,000 children under the age of five die every day, 21 each minute, mainly from preventable causes.
"Six million of the almost 11 million children who die each year could be saved by low-tech cost-effective measures.
"Accra has the potential to improve how we end this scandal of poverty but only if it helps poor people become the authors of their development."
