The purpose of this brief is to provide information on the work of the DAG Ethiopia and show what is being done to promote the Paris Principles of aid effectiveness in Ethiopia. The Development Assistance Group (DAG) was established in 2001 and is comprised of 25 multilateral and bilateral partners that provide development assistance to Ethiopia. The DAG was established to foster and catalyze policy dialogue and to coordinate and harmonise donor support in the preparation, monitoring and evaluation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The DAG works towards the achievement of harmonization and aid effectiveness in line with the Paris Declaration.

This chapter is based primarily on the data and findings communicated by government and donors to the OECD through the Paris Declaration monitoring process. This OECD document monitors and evaluates up to 2008, Paris declaration principles.

Ethiopia Country Chapter of the 2006 Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration. This chapter is based primarily on the data and findings communicated by government and donors to the OECD through the Paris Declaration monitoring process. This OECD document monitors and evaluates up to 2008, Paris declaration principles:

1. Ownership: Ethiopia increased its rating from C to B for the extent to which it has an operational development strategy. This indicates that progress has been made and that country has taken significant action already, although further action will be needed.

2. Alignment: Ethiopia’s progress towards the 2010 targets on alignment has been mixed; there is good progress in some areas, but progress in others has been slower. The number of parallel project implementation units (PIUs) has nearly and there are indications that the number will continue to fall. By contrast, limited progress has been made on untying aid and despite progress in strengthening PFM systems; there was only a limited increase in the proportion of aid to the government that used the systems.

3. Harmonisation: Ethiopia's progress on harmonisation is also mixed. The proportion of aid that is programme based has increased to the point that Ethiopia has reached its 2010 target, despite the fact that donors provide no aid in the form of budget support as a result of the events in 2005. Donors have also made progress, albeit limited, towards increasing joint country analytical work.

4. Managing for results: Ethiopia's remained at C in the 2008 Survey, suggesting that no further progress has been made. However, several initiatives should help to improve the country's reporting and assessment system including the establishment of a monitoring and evaluation framework for assessing progress against the national development strategy, ongoing efforts to improve national statistical capacity, and the presence of regular government-donor joint review forums to review performance and feed back into decision making.

5. Mutual accountability: Ethiopia would be judged to have achieved the target for mutual accountability by 2010. While further progress has been made, more work will have to be carried out to strengthen mutual accountability mechanisms.

Progress towards greater aid effectiveness in Ethiopia is very mixed. However, as the 2008 Survey shows without renewed and strengthened commitment from both government and donors, to sustain and progress on the achievements. On country systems, donors and the government need to take concerted actions to address some of the identified problems, in terms of improving the quality of systems and also increasing their use by donors.

Development partners are dedicated to supporting the PASDEP and MDGs processes and the DAG

Pooled Funds form part of the mechanisms for coordinated donor support. Key elements of support are: strengthening harmonized support to the PASDEP process; Promoting the OECD DAC harmonization agenda; strengthening of PASDEP monitoring and evaluation system; strategic coordinated support to focus areas of the PASDEP including education and gender mainstreaming. This report summarizes the work of the DAG and the activities supported under its pooled funds from January to December 2008.

A total of USD 1,990,857.38 was received in 2008 as new contributions from DAG members in addition to the balance of USD 4,962,703.00 in DAG Pooled Funds. A total of USD 3,109,168.24 was used in the period under review.

The General Pooled Fund continued to support the coordination and facilitation of activities of the DAG, including the High Level Forum (HLF), Technical Working Groups and the DAG Secretariat. Financing was also provided for technical assistance to the Governance Technical Working Group and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development harmonization activities. In essence, the General Pooled fund supports the policy dialogue structures.

A total of USD 523,305.66 was spent on these activities in the year under review. Key achievements in this regard include:

• Comprehensive legal analysis and dialogue on the possible impact of the draft CSO law
• Ethiopia was one of the 55 countries that participated in the global OECD 2008 survey on monitoring the Paris Declaration
• Financing the preparation on the MDG Report presented by the Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at the High Level Event on MDGs held in New York on September 25, 2008.

The Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Pooled Fund provided support to strengthen data collection, analysis and dissemination for the monitoring and evaluation of PASDEP. The implementing partners were the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MOFED), Welfare Management Unit, Central Statistical Agency (CSA) and the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI).The major activities included: statistical work on welfare and poverty; data collection and dissemination; and capacity building.

The M&E Pooled Fund also supported the Poverty Action Network of Civil Societies in Ethiopia (PANE) and HelpAge International to enable civil society involvement in the monitoring and evaluation of PASDEP and the MDGs. The total expenditure was USD 1,613,601.76. Key achievements in this regard include:

• Capacity development of the statistical system
• Progress Review and awareness raising of PASDEP and MDGs
• CSO monitoring and evaluation of poverty reduction programmes

The implementation of the Education Sector Development Programme (ESDP) continued to be supported by the Education Pooled Fund through the financing of a number of activities including the Annual Review Meeting (ARM) of the ESDP. In addition, the Ethiopian government had undertaken a bold programme to increase the level of access to education throughout the country and a number of policy studies were required to support this process. For this purpose total expenditure stood at USD 951,194.13.

The key achievements were:

• key strategic studies to support policy making in the Education sector completed
• Identification of special needs for improving education outcomes in the emerging regions

Disbursement from the Gender Pooled Fund began in 2008 with the recruitment of a Technical Advisor for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in October. With this support the ministry was able to develop a series of programs for training and capacity building. The pooled fund also supported a workshop on women’s access to microfinance. Due to Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) and the resultant restructuring of the ministry, a number of planned activities were to be carried over into 2009. Expenditure for this pooled fund was USD 21,066.69.

• technical capacity of the Ministry of Woman‟s Affairs
• capacity development needs in gender mainstreaming identified and interventions designed