Tackling Climate Change Will Enhance Efforts to Eradicate Poverty, Speaker Notes, as Second Committee Takes Up Global Partnerships for Development
Implementation of the post-2015 development agenda would require a renewed global partnership that engaged various development actors, with a participatory monitoring and accountability framework vital to its effective functioning, a Deputy Minister of the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said today.
Delivering the keynote address during a joint meeting of the Economic and Social Council and the Second Committee (Economic and Financial), Shin Dong-ik, Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs of the Republic of Korea, stressed the need for the new partnership to engage actors from the private sector, academia, civil society and elsewhere.
He looked to the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development as the setting in which to review progress and hold development actors to account, and said better coordination between the Forum and existing accountability processes, like the Global Centre for Economic and Development Cooperation and the Development Cooperation Forum, would also improve the global partnership.
The meeting, titled “A renewed global partnership for development and successor arrangements for Millennium Development Goal 8”, also featured four panellists who contributed presentations. They were Daniel Coppard, Director of Research, Analysis and Evidence, Development Initiatives; Tekeda Alemu, Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to the United Nations; Manish Bapna, Executive Vice-President and Managing Director, World Resources Institute; and Felix Mutati, Member of Parliament, Zambia. Barbara Adams, Chair of the Board, Global Policy Forum, moderated the panel.
Mr. Coppard called for three paradigm shifts in official development assistance (ODA) under the new development agenda. Poverty had to be eradicated, not halved, while the new agenda should shift from being aid-led to mobilizing a variety of resources. He emphasized Government resources, noting that domestic resources represented three times international aid flows. The sustainability and development agendas also needed to be unified.
Mr. Alemu also stressed the importance of mobilizing many sources of financing. Domestic resource mobilization could help a country to align development with national priorities, while his country was “a good example for how much South-South cooperation can complement North-South cooperation”. Adequate capacity and assets were available to ensure implementation of the new agenda’s goals but commitments made in the past had not been met, and there must be “greater passion for cooperation”.
Mr. Bapna focused on the integration of poverty eradication efforts with a response to climate change and environmental protection. The Global Commission on Economy and Climate Change released a report stating that tackling climate change would enhance poverty eradication “irrespective of the global climate benefits”. The integration required “significantly greater levels of public finance” and coherence could be an issue, with funds needing to be separated as they were dispersed to States but integrated once applied.
Mr. Mutati stressed the local nature of development, calling for domestic fiscal prudence and discipline and noting his Government’s efforts to improve capacity and align resources with national priorities. A budget bill was being discussed to tackle excessive “consumption expenditure” in the national budget. Traditionally, budgets focused on inputs with no evaluation of previous performance, but the bill would introduce checkpoints and “speed bumps”, and would increase participation of stakeholders and Parliament.
In an interactive discussion that followed, the representative of Guyana asked about ODA’s contribution to poverty eradication in countries that were less needy, and Mr. Coppard said “we should move away from focusing on countries to focusing on people”, and target ODA to where poor people were within countries.
A representative of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) asked about the qualitative assessment of development financing and Mr. Alemu sympathized with the idea of focusing on the qualitative impact of investments.
Mr. Bapna commented on a question from Guatemala’s representative about the means of implementation, saying current targets were unspecific, potentially harming their ability to gain traction. Progress was needed on those targets before September to make them more specific and focused.
Mr. Mutati took up a question from the representative of Switzerland about local government’s role in development, describing a failed water-drilling project in his country. Failure to consult locally meant the needs of a travelling, cattle-rearing population were not met. To address priorities, it was important to listen to those receiving help, not just tick boxes.
In closing remarks, Thomas Gass, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs, summarized the discussion and key messages.
Representatives of Mexico and Colombia also entered the interactive dialogue, and a representative of the IPU also took part.
The Second Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. on 31 October, to hold a side event on “Promoting accountability at all levels: monitoring the post-2015 development agenda”.