Asia Pacific works towards effective development financing

Asia Pacific works towards effective development financing

Monday, 30 March 2015, 8:45 pm

In preparation for the Third Global Conference on Development Financing, more than 80 participants gathered at an Asia Pacific regional meeting held at the New World Hotel in Makati City, Manila, Philippines from 26 to 27 March 2015 to discuss development effectiveness and financing.

Participants at the ‘Strengthening Coherence between the Effective Development Cooperation and Financing for Development Agenda in Asia-Pacific’ meeting included Government delegates, representatives from civil society organisations, academia and development think tanks from Asia-Pacific countries, as well as representatives from global and regional development partner organisations.

In his opening remarks, Honourable Elbuchel Sadang, Minister of Finance, Republic of Palau, who co-chaired the meeting, highlighted that five years ago, Pacific leaders recognised the importance of building credible and integrated national planning and financing systems to improve the implementation, monitoring and delivery of development programmes for better outcomes.

“The Pacific’s Forum Compact is a regional platform that seeks to strengthen national leadership and ownership of country planning, budgeting mechanisms and ensure all domestic and external development resources are well coordinated, used and aligned to national priorities and country systems,” Honourable Elbuchel Sadang added.

Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat’s Acting Secretary General, Cristelle Pratt said the Pacific is already integrating development planning, financing, aid management at country level through our own efforts and the Forum Compact initiatives.

“The Forum Compact looks at improving the use of all resources at the country level – domestic and external including ODA and climate finance.”

Over the five years of Forum Compact implementation, there have been several essential key factors that have emerged for effective development including strong leadership and ownership of national and regional development agendas and processes.

“Strong and effective country institutions, systems and capacities are essential in delivering on national, regional and global development priorities and to better manage development finance.” Ms Pratt added. “Development partnership should be mutually accountable, inclusive and respectful at country level.”

The meeting focused on how to grow the envelope for development financing and also highlighted building a resilient financing framework to achieve long term sustainable financing for small and vulnerable economies.

“We need to give equal importance to development effectiveness and coordination, to engage actively in determining the modality that is most suitable to our financing needs,” said Honourable Elbuchel Sadang.

ENDS

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