Especially at country level, greater efficiency can be achieved by improving co-ordination between various players. Primary responsibility for such coordination lies with the recipient country. As the leading sources of development funding, the IFI's must play a major role here. Furthermore, thanks to their politically more neutral attitude, they are in a better position than bilateral donors to facilitate coordination with recipient countries. In this respect, an initiative such as the Comprehensive Development Framework is extremely valuable, and is actively supported by the Netherlands as a model that can be used by the entire international donor community.
Recipient countries suffer most as a result of international and inter-agency rivalry.
The IFI's and other development partners must therefore be judged by their ability to cooperate efficiently with recipient countries and with each other on an equal footing. The second issue is ownership. The new concept of PRSP offers a great opportunity to enhance national ownership. Governments of developing countries are now being encouraged in formulating their own priorities in a poverty reduction strategy. The Netherlands envisages a key role for the IFI's in promoting ownership through policy discussions in recipient countries thereby facilitating the PRSP process.