Aid: Faltering Steps to International Agreement

In addition to the UN Climate Change Conference taking place in Durban this week, there is another important international meeting. The fourth high-level meeting on international aid is taking place in Busan, Korea. The delegates will attempt to make progress on issues of transparency, accountability, monitoring and tied aid; previous agreements struck in Accra and Paris have been slow to take effect. The concern is that without some sort of internationally-agreed framework, billions of dollars of aid are squandered as recipient countries have to meet different requirements to qualify for assistance. In 1960 each recipient country had on average only 2 donors, but now it is on average 28.
The conference has suffered an early blow however. China has announced that it will not agree to any international partnership.