Nearly two years after the 2011 High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, where emphasis was placed on developing countries taking the lead on development aid partnerships, “there are concerns that donors have done little on country ownership, even though it was declared at the time to be the default approach,” The Guardian’s “Poverty Matters Blog” reports. “According to a paper [.pdf] by the U.K. Aid Network (Ukan) and [non-governmental organization (NGO)] umbrella group Bond, the international community may even have gone backwards, despite the rhetoric from donors,” the blog writes, adding, “The concerns have been raised in the runup to this week’s meeting in Addis Ababa of the steering committee of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation” (Tran, 7/24).

“The document … makes some bold assessments: Development stakeholders have yet to make a final agreement on the indicators proposed, data on country ownership progress remains limited, and ‘political will’ to implement the full Busan Partnership ‘has been sluggish,'” Devex’s “The Development Newswire” states. “The report acknowledges many challenges facing the complete adoption of country ownership by many aid providers, and one of the main obstacles is pressure to produce results,” according to the news service. “The report clearly provides a grim assessment on the progress of country ownership, but admits implementation of the Busan Partnership is still in its ‘early stages,'” and it “also provides several recommendations for donors,” Devex writes (Ravelo, 7/24).