Development and Cooperation


	Contributions from the Column Facts and trends New old hope development aid? WTO negotiations on agriculture stalled Chair of Development in Utrecht Africa Days at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Learn from the South: a citizens' budget for Berlin UN Anti-Corruption Convention: dispute over monitoring First German investigation into bribery abroad Voluntary self-regulation Corruption threatens to hamstring Sri Lanka reconstruction		Corruption threatens to hamstring Sri Lanka reconstruction Financial aid to fund reconstruction in Sri Lanka risks being misallocated or diverted into private hands unless transparency and accountability measures are built into the process, warns Transparency International (TI), the global non-governmental organisation engaged in the fight against corruption. "The manner in which the funds for Sri Lanka's reconstruction are to be managed must conform with best practices in terms of good governance and transparency," said TI Chairman Peter Eigen ahead of a meeting of donor agencies in New York on 14 April. "The international community has a particular obligation to be fully transparent in its aid procedures. The government of Sri Lanka must ensure that funds received go to reducing poverty, especially improving health, education and vital infrastructure projects. Otherwise, the intended effect of this aid will not be met and the Sri Lankan people will be the losers, because they will have to pay back the loans," he said. "Donor aid is a key incentive to strengthening the ongoing peace talks between the government and the Tamil Tigers," said J. C. Weliamuna, Executive Director of TI Sri Lanka. "Corruption threatens not only to trap vast amounts of the population in poverty, but also to derail the peace talks themselves." Donor aid has been promised by Japan, the Asian Development Bank, USA, Norway and the EU to rebuild the war-ravaged areas in the north and east of Sri Lanka and to resettle an estimated 1 million people displaced by the war. Some estimates put the sums of grants and loans as high as US$2 billion. The World Bank was chosen in January to administer a fund for reconstruction. A major donor conference will be held in Tokyo on 16-17 June.