Yes, the Paris declaration on aid has problems but it's still the best we have.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

The Oxfam has issued a statement warning that the global agreement on aid effectiveness is "on a knife edge". What Oxfam means is that there is no guarantee that the monitoring mechanism set up in 2005 to measure how well donors and recipients were doing against their commitments will be in place in time for the Busan conference in three weeks' time. Donors are none too keen on continuing a bureaucracy that costs them time and money, and only serves to show them in a bad light -- they have performed poorly so far.

Some point to the failure of donors to change their practices as evidence that the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness , agreed in 2005, has not worked. But there is an irony at the heart of the process set up in the wake of Paris to monitor commitments. On almost every …