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It is an honour for me to address this assembly today on behalf of the CANZ Group, comprising the delegations of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
This two-day session builds on our discussions of the past three months by focussing on how we, as members of the international community, can support efforts to provide financial and technical support to developing countries. Such support is now urgently needed in order to revitalise our collective global efforts towards achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals. Progress towards meeting these goals requires an integrated approach that mobilises all sources of financing, including trade liberalization, official development assistance (ODA), other international assistance, debt relief, foreign direct investment, remittances and domestic financing.
CANZ strongly supports the MDGs and is committed to helping developing countries to attain them. We also endorse the decision to hold a special UN meeting on the MDGs in September this year. We must recall that for additional financial and technical cooperation for development to have an impact on the ground, it must be part of a wider enabling environment that attracts not only ODA but all sources of financing, including taxes, investment, trade, ODA and remittances. Good governance is required to ensure that these financial resources are used effectively and appropriately to help people realise their rights to a life free of hunger, poverty and disease.
CANZ countries have significantly increased our own efforts to reduce global poverty, both in terms of the volume and the effectiveness of our aid. Our respective governments have each separately announced new commitments of international assistance in various areas and we are making our existing aid resources work more effectively, by enhancing the focus, efficiency and accountability of our development work.
CANZ commitment to aid effectiveness is clear. We have endorsed the Paris Declaration and are determined to make progress against these commitments and targets by enhancing our support for local ownership, alignment, harmonisation, management for development results and mutual accountability. The Aid Effectiveness agenda is also helping to support the enabling environment within Canada, Australia and New Zealand that is needed to build upon our accomplishments to-date.
Mr Co-chair
We must keep firmly in mind that the aid effectiveness agenda has been developed in order to achieve concrete development results. In order to do this we will need to continue to step up our efforts to mainstream attention to human rights, gender equality and environmental issues in our programmes. We also need to strengthen the ability of poor people – men, women, girls and boys – to demand increased accountability from the systems we all help sustain. We will continue to work with all of our development partners, including civil society, to enrich the international aid effectiveness framework.
Improving aid effectiveness is not just a responsibility of bilateral donors and our developing country partners. It is also the responsibility of multilateral institutions. CANZ will continue to advocate effective partnerships between the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, regional development banks and other multilateral and bilateral donors and organisations to promote coordinated country-owned development strategies, and the most efficient and effective deployment of aid.
In closing, we must all rise to the challenge of delivering increased financial and technical cooperation to support the elimination of poverty. Achieving the MDGs urgently requires increased international attention and support. But we must be vigilant, and we must learn to make better use of and strengthen existing mechanisms in an already overly complex global aid architecture. And we must encourage and support increased mutual accountability for development outcomes in what has to be a re-invigorated and truly global effort.
Thank you.
