The Future of Aid, 2005-2010: challenges and choices, Jan-Feb, 2004
This meeting series discussed many of the issues raised in the paper 'The International Aid System 2005-2010: Forces For and Against Change'. 2004-2005 was a major window for change in the international aid architecture. Agendas for the UK's concurrent chair of the G7 and the EU and for the 2005 UN Special Assembly on the Millennium Goals were in play. Major commissions on global governance were to deliver verdicts. Elections loomed large in several key countries. The mandates of other key leaders - EU, IMF and World Bank- were up for renewal. Meanwhile, the aid landscape was still adapting to rapid structural change. New instruments were launched (like the Global Fund or the US Millennium Challenge Account) or mooted (the International Financing Facility) with profound implications for the system as a whole. Attitudes to multilateralism and to aid in post-conflict environments have shifted profoundly in the wake of 9/11. Ambitious commitments on the volume and quality of aid, and its anchoring in good governance and sovereign choice, have yet to be implemented. This meeting series took stock of where the aid system as a whole was headed.