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Statement by Kemal Derviş, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme at the launch of the Partnership for Democratic Governance

Honourable Ministers,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the launch of the Partnership for Democratic Governance which UNDP is pleased to co-host today with the OECD. I am delighted that OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría is able to join us here from Paris.

We have the honour of welcoming here this afternoon Founding Members of the Partnership for Democratic Governance, including their Excellencies: US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice; Alejandro Foxley, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Chile; Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS); In-kook Park, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea and Andrzej Sardos, Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. On behalf of both Angel and I, we would like to sincerely thank you for your participation here in today’s event. 

This Partnership would not have been possible without the support of all the Founding Members present here today, namely: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Turkey and the United States, and in addition to the OECD and UNDP, the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Development Bank.  Thank you all for being here.
 
As we are all well aware, at the heart of the development challenge is a state’s ability to effectively deliver essential regulation and public services to their citizens. At certain times, many developing countries, especially those in crisis and post-conflict situations, can benefit from external resources and expertise to help ensure that the state is able to provide both the required regulation and the needed services. 

For UNDP, two principles are essential for the success of all development assistance efforts. First, there must be national ownership and a national dynamic that drives the overall effort. External resources or expertise can never substitute for sovereign national ownership – however, they can complement and support the national drive.

Second, the external resources that are deployed should be temporary, and the way they are deployed must facilitate national capacity building. With these two important provisions, there are many interesting and successful examples in history of countries benefiting from foreign expertise in building their own national capacities. Two such examples, and there are many others and ongoing ones, but two particularly interesting ones are of Japan in the 19th Century, where top experts from abroad were invited for lengthy periods to help in various domains support Japan’s impressive capacity building and modernization drive. The other example I would like to give is from my own country Turkey. When the modern Republic was founded, shortly thereafter, the founder of the Republic invited experts from Europe, mainly experts who faced persecution or worse from fascism and racism in some parts of Europe, to come to Turkey and help build the capacity of the state, particularly in education, with positive results. So there are many such examples, and I think what needs to happen is to bring together the national drive with expertise from all over the world which can help.

At the heart of the Partnership being launched today is the operating principle of capacity development. As an organization committed to supporting countries in developing the institutional capacities required to achieve their development objectives, capacity development is very much at the core of UNDP’s mandate and functions. That is why we are particularly happy to participate in the proposed effort.

Another key feature of the Partnership which is central to UNDP’s activities is the promotion of cooperation between developing countries themselves through South-South cooperation. Many developing countries have acquired a wealth of knowledge and experience on institutional reforms which are often more relevant to other developing countries than the sometimes more remote experiences of the North. UNDP would like to make a special effort within the framework of this partnership to identify personnel and services that can effectively promote South-South cooperation. 

In advancing all these objectives, we expect the partnership to build on and support the ongoing work of UNDP and the OECD on aid effectiveness and the development of state institutions, especially in crisis and post conflict countries, and we look forward to other countries and organizations from all regions of the world in joining these efforts.

With these brief introductory remarks, I would like to now hand over to the OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría for his remarks.

Thank you.