On Thursday 5 July, ISGlobal organised a one-day meeting to discuss the draft of its position paper on aid effectiveness in health. The meeting was attended by a number of experts from academic institutions and foundations who were invited to contribute their knowledge and experience in the area of official development aid. The participants included  Katya Cascante (Fundación Alternativas), José Maria Larrú (Universidad CEU San Pablo), Manuel Manrique (FRIDE), Iliana Olivié (Real Instituto Elcano) and Cristina Xalma (Secretaría General Iberoamericana).
 
During the first session, the participants focussed on defining the concept of aid effectiveness, a term originally coined to legitimise official development aid (ODA). The effectiveness of aid is currently measured in terms of its impact on development. The global financial crisis and the appearance of new global actors, including emerging economies and large philanthropic foundations, have given rise to new criteria for measuring aid effectiveness and have highlighted the need to rethink some of the concepts currently used in the international debate.  Several participants made the point that the current model is outdated and that this situation affords an excellent opportunity to reconstruct the whole system of development aid along new lines.
 
The conclusions of this discussion will be used to improve the position paper, and the Institute hopes to publish the final version in October 2012.