It must be noted that this exercise proved to be very time-consuming, underlining the need to institutionalise this work if it is to be carried out efficiently in the future and then effectively applied to national aid management efforts. In particular, the following observations were made with regard to the monitoring exercise and were reported to the DAC through Cambodia's participation in the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness.

• Many development partners do not have systems in place to routinely monitor the indicators;

• Defining important terms and criteria such as coordinated technical cooperation, integrated PIUs, Programme-Based Approaches and missions was sometimes problematic;

• The "point of delivery" methodology does not capture the extent to which some donors are channelling support through others, overlooking an important indicator of harmonisation;

• Indicators 1 and 11, which are derived from a World Bank desk study, benefited significantly from a stakeholder discussion.

• ODA to Government (Indicator 3) is not always a useful measure of alignment if support flows outside the Budget process (or is unrecorded by Government) or is implemented by NGOs

• The extent to which Indicator 4 proxies capacity development was queried as the coordinated aspect may not be the most critical determinant of effectiveness.

Results and Policy Implications

While there may be some legitimate doubts regarding the integrity of the data, the overall trends are felt to be representative of the reality.

The results of the monitoring exercise are featured in the Cambodia chapter of the OECD/DAC Report on Paris Declaration Monitoring Survey publication, which was prepared in close consultation with the National Coordinator for the monitoring exercise and local development partners.

Institutionalising the monitoring exercise through the CDC Database & data audits

If the Government and its development partners are going to make practical use of the Paris Declaration then it must be fully institutionalised in the national policy framework. A major step toward localising the Declaration was taken in February 2006 when the Government approved its H-A-R Action Plan and in the latter half of 2006 further progress was made when the CDC Database was customised to routinely record progress against those indicators that can be recorded at project level (Indicators 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10, see questionnaire in Annex 3). Indicator 7 on predictability can also be derived using aggregate projection and disbursement data provided by development partners.

Incorporating data collection and analysis into the database has the following advantages:

• The monitoring exercise can be applied instantly to national aid management work, providing a practical and workable means of linking evidence to policy

• Analysis can be undertaken on a sector basis to identify priorities for aid effectiveness work at a disaggregated level (see the box below and the Sector Profiles in Chapter 2, for example)

Emerging Good Practices

Developing Systems for Routine Monitoring and Reporting of the Paris Declaration indicators

The CDC Database has been customised to record many of the Paris Declaration monitoring indicators. It also allows for point of delivery (implementing partner) to be (de-)activated so that all development partner funding (not just delivery) can be monitored (including flows provided to the non-Government sector if desired).

The advantage of this localized reporting, besides transparency, efficiency and increased application to local aid management efforts, is that individual development partners and/or sectors can be analysed separately. This allows for each development partner or sector to consider the areas in which they may prioritise progress on aid effectiveness.

Development Partner Analysis

Individual analysis on each partner (subject to confirmation of data integrity) might suggest, for example, that each development partner might place a higher priority on a particular indicator (e.g. use of PBAs for CIDA).

Sector Analysis

Analysis across sectors highlights the relative priorities of health and transportation. In health, where a PBA is more established, more emphasis might be placed on joint missions, joint analytical work and more use of the PBA modality. For the transportation sector, more aid is tied, technical cooperation is uncoordinated and little use is made of Government systems.

PD #6 indicates number of partially integrated PIUs and total number of projects

PD #8 indicates share of aid that is fully untied

PD #9 indicates disbursements on projects associated with a PBA

Further analysis of both sectors and development partners can be undertaken on specific indicators. Analysis of Indicator 6 on PIU integration, for example, shows that this may be an issue that some development partners and sectors wish to focus on, while for others it may not be a priority issue.

NOTE: The analysis presented in the chart above must be interpreted with caution. Much of the data is felt to be in need of validation. It is useful, however, to highlight the potential of this locally-developed technology so that this will encourage policy-relevant analysis to be made available in the future.

The overall concern of data quality, however, does raise question marks with regard to the DAC survey that was completed only six months earlier: if partners are unable to define, identify and measure coordinated technical cooperation on a project level in January 2007, for example, it is not clear how were they able to provide an aggregate figure in June 2006.

Indicator 10 provides additional grounds for caution in interpreting the 2006 data; the 2007 exercise highlighted that few development partners are able to record how many missions took place or the number of analytical pieces that were commissioned. The prospect of moving toward the use of joint missions as part of the transition towards PBAs is some way off. One alternative is to innovate in the manner in which these indicators are collected. Indicator 10a, for example, might be more easily recorded by monitoring the Head of Cooperation's diary to see which missions pass through the local office. For missions from headquarters a more coherent approach in donor capitals, possibly utilising the offices that coordinate travel arrangements, could report more routinely on mission activity from capitals and headquarters.

1. First, the indicators will be tracked by sector, as well as by development partner (point of delivery). This will allow for relative priorities to be identified within TWGs as opposed to being set centrally;

2. Second, an additional indicator will be established to monitor, at an aggregate level, how much development assistance is being disbursed through other partners. This indicator, which can also be monitored at sector level, will record the number of partnership agreements as well as the fund flow.

3. In accordance with the H-A-R Action Plan, data provision by development partners will be undertaken more rigorously as part of the commitment to mutual accountability, including to hold data validation exercises with each development partner (and TWG, where requested).