Transparency and proper accounting can boost innovative financing

Kent Durr MP


It is not surprising the emphasis placed by the World Bank the IMF and the world donor community on the role of parliaments in poverty reduction strategies and in the reaching of Millennium Development Goals.

Multi-party democratic parliaments that rule by consent and that are not the pawns of kleptocratic centralized presidential style executive governments in Africa are essential building blocks of development progress.

One may well ask who else can do the job?

I think it is essential not to fall into the trap of looking for Simon Pure before turning on the aid flows; but certain basic standards and structures do need to be in place. Trends at least must be flowing in the right direction. Transparency, proper accounting and demonstrable public benefit needs to be in place. Remember donor governments also need to be able to sell these ideas to their parliamentarians.

Multi-Laterism is essential to the developing world but we must be careful that we do not spend all our resources, time, and energy and focus only on the general good that we will fail to deal with South Africa's own particular challenges and opportunities. Bi-Lateralism is vital also to pursue our own interest.

One must be realistic in setting achievable goals for developing countries within the Millennium Development Goals. (Even with South Africa 15 years of compounding growth at 8% would bring South Africa only to the lower levels of living standards of the developed world.)

Secondly of course the MDG are published and every member of every participating parliament should become familiarized with the goals; and assess where their country fits into the picture in terms of its geography history and level of development.

All participants need to involve their citizens and communicate their plans in the most effective way possible to get the public to buy into the goals.

We will need to communicate the public benefit of success of adopting these goals.

There is a long road ahead. To some extent the movement we see is a response to efforts like our own in NEPAD and reflects confidence in the demonstration effort of South African investment and government reform in countries such as Mozambique.

People are saying; Hey! perhaps it is possible so do something in Africa

Finally we must keep up the diplomatic pressure to see that these good ideas become a reality.