2004-2005 is 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 are in play. Major commissions on global governance will deliver verdicts. Elections loom large in several key countries. The mandates of other key leaders - EU, IMF and World Bank- are up for renewal. Meanwhile, the aid landscape is still adapting to rapid structural change. New instruments have been 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. A stocktaking of where the aid system as a whole is headed is therefore timely.

Programme and Reports with Audio are available (click meeting title for these)

Wednesday 14th January 1pm Setting the scene: major trends, drivers, timelines, and scenarios Masood Ahmed - Director-General, DFID Andrew Rogerson, ODI Chair: Tony Worthington - MP, International Development Committee
Wednesday 21st January 1pm Multilateralism: the international aid agencies, their owners and competitors: do we still need them all? Mark Malloch Brown - Administrator, UNDP Michael Roeskau - Director, Development Cooperation Department, OECD Chair: Andrew Rogerson, ODI
Thursday 29th January 1pm Accelerating Aid: the systemic impact of the International Financing Facility proposals Shriti Vadera - Council of Advisers, HM Treasury Judith Randel - Development Initiatives Chair: Simon Maxwell, Director, ODI
Wednesday 4th February 1pm Aid effectiveness and volume after Monterrey: does the emperor have clothes? Barbara Stocking - Director, Oxfam UK Geoffrey Lamb - Vice President, World Bank Chair: Baroness Whitaker, ODI Council

In addition to the four meetings in the series, 'The Future of Aid', ODI held three further related lunchtime meetings:
Friday 30th January at 1.00pm Launch of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee 'Development Cooperation Report 2004' Richard Manning, DAC Chairman details
Wednesday 11th February at 1.00pm Debt relief evaluation: what is the impact of debt relief? Dr Geske Dijkstra, Associate Professor at Erasmus University, Rotterdam details
Friday 20th February at 1.00pm Aid policy and evidence: is conditionality well-based? Tony Killick, Senior Research Associate. This follows Professor Killick's recent article in ODI's journal Development Policy Review. details