Partnership and financing crucial for achieving the 2030 Development Agenda

Vienna, Austria, January 21, 2016. An adequate level of development financing is a pre-requisite for achieving the ambitious objectives of the 2030 Global Development Agenda. Such financing should include more and better bilateral and multilateral development cooperation, private sector investment and domestic resource mobilization, as well as innovative approaches to supplementing official development assistance (ODA).

Such was the main conclusion of the Annual Arab Coordination Group (CG)-Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Dialogue, hosted by the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) at its headquarters in Vienna, on January 18. The meeting was co-chaired by Mr Abdlatif Y Al-Hamad, Director General of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and CG Chair, and Mr Erik Solheim, Chair of the OECD/DAC.

In his introductory remarks, OFID Director-General Suleiman J Al-Herbish said that the task ahead in addressing the 2030 Agenda was challenging, but also inspiring. He considered the meeting an important platform for sharing views and starting new programs.

On the issue of development financing, the participants agreed that there was a need to explore new ways of mobilizing additional resources for development beyond ODA, which could include public, private, domestic and external resources. There is also the need to increase ODA to fragile and conflict-affected states in ways that leverage more private sector activities and investments. The private sector could play a pivotal role in this respect, since businesses can help rebuild economies, create jobs, deliver services and generate revenues.

The participants also discussed the report of a task force on energy, established in 2015 by the CG and the DAC, to explore opportunities to jointly promote greater access to energy for poor people in two pilot countries, Malawi and Uganda. The meeting supported the idea to renew the mandate of the task force and expand its activities to other sub-Saharan African countries.

Preceding the CG-DAC dialogue, OFID hosted the 15th meeting of the Heads of Institutions of the CG on January 17. In this meeting, the CG issued a declaration in which the members committed to further strengthening cooperation among them and to continue to build partnerships with other institutions in order to implement the 2030 Development Agenda.

About the Coordination Group

The Coordination Group is a policy and operational alliance among a number of Arab national and regional development funds, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), as well as their subsidiaries and special programs. Established in 1975, the Group currently has 10 member institutions, which, in addition to OFID, include: the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD); the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA); the Arab Gulf Programme for Development (AGFUND); the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD); the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF); the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED); the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB); the Qatar Development Fund; and the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD).