High expectations, Busan day two
Posted on 1 December 2011
The red carpet came out for speeches from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and Queen Raina Abdullah of Jordan.
Queen Rania: “Arab youth don’t want aid, they want jobs”
In his opening speech Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak pointed out that the setting of the event in Busan is one of symbolic significance. After the Korean War in the 1950’s the ravaged country was itself dependent on development aid. It was in the Southern city of Busan where the first humanitarian aid to Korea arrived. Decades later Korea transformed from an aid recipient to an aid donor, making it one of the greatest examples of effective aid.
Hillary Clinton, who avoided directly naming China, said that developing countries should be aware of new donors only interested in their resources. She also announced that the USA signed up to the International Aid Transparency Initative (IATI) and acknowledged the Istanbul Principles. A great victoy for the Open Forum!
CONCORD meets MEPs
Several Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have also made their way to Busan to participate in the efforts for more effective aid. A Concord delegation, consisting of 20 representatives of member organisations, met with MEPs Franziska Keller (Greens, Germany), Olle Schmidt (ALDE, Sweden) and Eleni Theocharous (EPP, Greece). During the meeting Concord members raised their concerns on a number of issues.
The lack of ambition for addressing the unfinished business from Paris and Accra was pointed out and Concord members pledged for more support for an enabling environment, together with more recognition of the CSO initiative for Development Effectiveness, which resulted in the Istanbul Principles and the Siem Reap International Framework.
Other points of concern raised in the meeting were: the need for greater support for the New Deal on conflict and fragility; the importance of Human Rights Based Approaches; the fact that growth is an engine but not a driver for development; the need for an inclusive technical group that would set out the Post-Busan architecture by June 2012, and finally the importance of global indicators to ensure that we can continue to hold donors accountable.
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xehh — 13 April at 05:39PM
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