Development Effectiveness and Results: In-Depth

Providing the right development aid is not only about the size of the loan or the number of roads or schools built. It is about knowing the loan is improving people’s lives in a sustainable way.

It is about ensuring that the school educates children with skills to support a country’s economic future, or that when a new highway is built, it not only spurs growth and fosters trade but also brings tangible benefits to surrounding communities.

ADB is committed to ensuring that its resources are used to help countries achieve sustainable development and reduce poverty. It does this by focusing on results management in its operations, improving the capacities of its developing member countries, and contributing to the global agenda on aid effectiveness.

Global agenda on development effectiveness

ADB actively contributes to and influences the global agenda on development effectiveness. Along with other development partners, ADB endorsed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005 and its follow-up agreement, the Accra Agenda for Action in 2008. They are both founded on five core principles:

• Country ownership of the development agenda
• Donor alignment with country priorities and systems
• Harmonization of donor policies, procedures and practices
• Managing for development results
• Mutual accountability

The aid effectiveness agenda has evolved over the past decade and shifted the focus from delivering "effective aid" to achieving "effective development cooperation."

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The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation launched at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan in 2011 highlighted the importance of partnerships based on shared principles for achieving development results. The first High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership in Mexico in 2014 upheld these principles and agreed on priorities to sustain progress toward effective development cooperation.

ADB is also a signatory to the International Aid Transparency Initiative, a multi stakeholder initiative spearheaded by the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom, which commits development partners to agree on common standards for the timely publication of comprehensive and comprehensible information on aid.

 Results of ADB-Supported OperationsAggregate amounts of contributions to Strategy 2030