The government of Afghanistan has established a Donor Assistance Database (DAD) with UNDP support, to support resource mobilisation and effective aid allocation.  The DAD tracks all Cabinet-approved development project in the national budget, and provides Cabinet with fortnightly updates on commitments and disbursements in support of each National Programme.  It also records extra-budgetary aid flows.  The information is publicly available through the internet.

The Cambodia Aid Effectiveness Reports are produced on an annual basis by the Government in consultation with development partners, and used to develop policy recommendations for presentation at the annual Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum.  In 2008, an independent review team was commissioned to carry out an Evaluation of Aid Effectiveness.  This served as an input into the 2008 Aid Effectiveness Report, together with the Paris Declaration monitoring survey, analysis of the Cambodia ODA Database and a range of other analytical work, including on technical cooperation and mutual accountability.  The Report called for stronger political leadership to counter evidence of fatigue, and more effort to simplify and prioritise aid effectiveness initiatives.  It called for more effective partnership dynamics, and a clearer overall focus on capacity development.

The Cambodia ODA Database aims to establish a complete record of development assistance.  It enables monitoring of the alignment of assistance with the national development plan and the Government’s aid management policies.  As well as financial and status information on individual projects entered by donors, it captures information on the Paris Declaration indicators, facilitating aid effectiveness monitoring.  The Database is able to generate overviews of progress on aid effectiveness in each sector, although its accuracy depends on donor diligence in supplying information.

This review of lessons learned on developing AIMS offers a range of practical advice, such as designing the system according to the information and reports it needs to generate, building on existing reporting processes, keeping information needs as simple as possible and identifying an appropriate host agency in government.

This paper from the DAC Working Party on Aid Effectiveness argues that AIMS make an important contribution to implementing the Paris Declaration by encouraging improved alignment and predictability of aid, tracking the use of country systems for aid delivery, improving harmonisation at the sectoral level, facilitating results-oriented reporting and assessment frameworks, and improving mutual accountability through increased transparency.