On the road to Busan

From November 29 to December 1, 2011, two Prime Ministers, over 100 Ministers, 50 parliamentarians and 40 heads of international organizations, including the UN Secretary General, will meet in Busan, South Korea, at the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4).  With the Paris Declaration having technically expired in 2010, Busan “must deliver the foundations for an ambitious, inclusive partnership in support of effective co-operation and collaborative action to advance progress on the Millennium Development Goals by 2015”. The ambition for Busan is to create a short, high-level political and actionable statement. But political commitments must be backed up with some firm indicators, time bound commitments and a monitorable framework if these commitments are to be meaningful and generate the necessary political will to carry them forward.

The Busan process is unique as a multilateral process in that multiple stakeholders, including civil society through the BetterAid Coordinating Group, are directly involved in the preparations for Busan and in the negotiations to shape the final Outcome Document.

From November 23 until December 3, a number of Canadians from different civil society organizations will be in Busan engaging in the process: Robert Fox from Oxfam Canada; Joseph Ingram and Shannon Kindornay from The North-South Institute; Gervais L’Heureux from l’Association québécoise des organismes de coopération international; Fraser Reilly-King and Julia Sanchez from the Canadian Council for International Co-operation; and Brian Tomlinson from AidWatch Canada.

Over seven days, they will be providing reflections directly from Busan on a range of topics among them global inequality, the private sector and aid, gender equality and development, the enabling environment, continuing the global CSO engagement around aid, and the future of aid architecture.

This blog post was written by Fraser Reilly-King, Canadian Council for International Co-operation.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of CCIC or its members.