The lack of a methodology for evaluations of sector-wide programs is a serious constraint in the debate on aid effectiveness.
The present paper explores the issue of emerging donors' contribution to the post-Busan debate on aid effectiveness by looking at Brazil's health cooperation projects in Portuguese-speaking Africa. Portuguese-speaking Africa
Under the leadership of a group of OECD countries and development agencies, the Paris-Accra agenda turned towards a debate on aid effectiveness, culminating in the Busan summit [ 69].
In fact, this lack of comprehensive, robust and reliable data has also been recognized by others as a major problem in the debate on aid effectiveness (Stuckler et al. 2012).
By looking at the evidence available on Brazil's health cooperation projects in the five Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) a- Brazil's top health development cooperation beneficiaries – the present paper aims at positioning Brazilian health cooperation within the current debate on aid effectiveness.
At the same time, debates about aid effectiveness erupted in the world of international aid and development, and these affected the health sector directly.
The question of aid effectiveness has moved to the centre of development debates.
Whatever the differences of view on its impact, the Aid Effectiveness Agenda retains a central position in current debates on development assistance, and is in effect the latest, most dominant re-framing of the discourse on coordination.
The real debate should be over how to increase aid effectiveness.
Key debates are identified concerning the constraints to aid effectiveness, partnership, aid for poverty reduction and sector-wide approaches.
Second, and partly as a result of this new configuration of stakeholders, the long-standing debate on targeted "vertical" programs versus the "horizontal" health systems strengthening is now being played out in the aid effectiveness arena, with so-called "diagonal" approaches [ 39] guiding alignment and harmonisation of donor activities at country level [ 40].
