Alliance2015 News

Actions that rich people take in Europe and the Western world strongly affect the fates of poor people in developing countries. The global trade regime, the loans and debts, the aid provided, agricultural policies, climate change challenges - everything influences what happens in the various regions of the world. Rich nations have institutions and resources to cope with these challenges, while developing countries often do not have access to resources or the capacity to get their fair share of them. To say it with the words of Leonard Cohen, "Everybody knows" that "the fight was fixed, the poor stay poor and the rich get rich."

Alliance2015 works to ensure that Cohen’s prediction is not fulfilled. The work with specific development projects, which help poor people directly, are complemented by an information and advocacy effort to tackle the barriers that prevent poor people and poor nations from exploiting their potential.

The work is broader, however. We are development cooperation organisations, and aid is our core business. Accordingly, a significant effort goes into influencing the ongoing discussions about how aid in general can become more effective so that the available funding is used in the best possible manner to benefit the poor. Too often, the donors’ work is not coordinated, they have long lists of (different) conditions, they demand that their reporting systems are followed and many donors (still) tie their aid to services from the donor countries. The result is a lack of ownership in the developing countries and wasted funding. Alliance2015 seeks to influence that debate, the more so, because the network was established exactly to make NGO aid more effective. In the development jargon this means that Alliance2015 has engaged itself in the ‘aid effectiveness’ debate around the 3^rd High Level Forum in Ghana in 2008.

Alliance2015 consists of European NGOs and as such, its advocacy efforts are also targeted at the EU. Our flagship in this work is the 2015-Watch Report, which consistently tracks EU performance towards the 2015 commitments made.