NGOs Urged to Provide Quarterly Reports

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs on Tuesday 16th June 2009 organized a one-day seminar for the NGOs on Aid Co-ordination and the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

Following the completion of the consultative forum with the officials from Tango, NGO Affairs Agency and the Attorney General Chambers to discuss relevant issues pertaining to Aid Coordination and the implementation of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, it was emphasized that NGOs should provide quarterly reports regarding their activities.

The retreat brought together officials from Tango, NGO Affairs Agency and the Attorney General Chambers and other relevant stakeholders to discuss relevant issues pertaining to aid coordination and the implementation of the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness.

The meeting held at the Tango Building at Fajara ‘M’ Section was a follow-up to previous consultations on partnership for aid coordination government had with the representatives of the NGO community in the Gambia.

In his opening statement, Mr. Mod A.K. Secka, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs (MOFEA), asserted that this workshop will lay frameworks for sustainable aid coordination database management, and create the mechanisms for effective aid coordination including reporting systems for NGO interventions in the Gambia. 

He said that in December 2008, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, in collaboration with the National Planning Commission organized a consultative seminar and sensitization workshop for the public sector institutions as part of the efforts to strengthen aid coordination.

Permanent Secretary Secka pointed out that following the September 2000 United Nation’s Millennium Summit, the commitment of world leaders to free from ‘abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty’ and to ‘make the right to development a reality for everybody’, resulted into the Millennium Development Goals, (MDGs). He added that since then MDGs have become the keystone of global partnerships on development, focusing on mutual responsibility between developing countries and donor countries, in achieving the goals of this partnership.

“While donor countries are expected to give more aid to developing countries, developing countries have the task to take the lead in identifying their national development priorities,” he said.

“Under the Paris Declaration, specific measures have been set, for implementation by donor and aid recipient countries performance indicators have been developed for assessing progress and also international monitoring frameworks are promoted to keep track of both the quality, quantity and impact of aid on development”.

He added that the importance of aid coordination is to administer procedures and processes through which resources are mobilized under different conditions, from different partner and utilized within pre-established frameworks for the achievement of development goals.

Secka further went on say that the NGOs have an obligation to provide information on aid inflows and areas of intervention quarterly to the central projects programmes and Aid coordination directorate at the ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs.

Other speakers including Mr. Ousman Yabou, Executive Director of Tango and Mr. Abdou Touray Director General NPC.