A Year on, No Sign of Donor Forum Meeting

Exactly one year after the Finance Ministry indefinitely postponed its last top-level meeting with the international aid donors, there is still no sign that the government is ready to set a new date to engage face-to-face with the country's development partners. The forum is held once every 18 months and is the only occasion that the government's top finance officials and foreign donors meet in one room to exchange pledges of aid for assurances of reform. The donors also use the meeting to collectively gauge the government's progress in implementing past reform pledges and air their concern. ... The failure to meet has already cost the government a multi-million dollar program used to pay salary bonuses to state employees working on donor-funded projects. ...