South Korea
President Lee Myung-Bak
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Kim Sung-Hwan
Relevant to Resolution 1
The Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) The international community is exerting efforts to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime, especially the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), in response to the growing threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The 2010 NPT Review Conference was particularly significant as it succeeded in adopting a final document in ten years since the 2000 Review Conference. The document provides specific measures to overcome diverse challenges facing the NPT and to strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime. The Korean government played an active role in leading efforts to adopt the final document as Vice-President, reaffirming the international community's concerted efforts to urge the DPRK to abandon its nuclear program in respect to the Joint Statement on the North Korea's Nuclear Programme (September 19, 2005) and related UN Security Council Resolutions.
Relevant to Resolution 3
The Busan High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness: Vision and Goals Keynote Presentation by H. E. Cho Tae-yul Ambassador for Development Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea at the Workshop on Emerging Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation September 29, 2011 Korea Development Institute
Introduction
Dr. Hyun Oh-Seok, President of KDI, Dr. Gorden Hein, Vice President of The Asia Foundation, Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen,
It is indeed a great pleasure for me to address such a distinguished audience as is present here today. First of all, I would like to thank KDI and The Asia Foundation for taking joint initiative in organizing this important meeting and for giving me this opportunity to share with you Korea's vision and goals in hosting the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to be held in Busan in late November this year.
Changing Global Development Landscape: Issues and Challenges
Before proceeding to the main topic of my presentation today, I would like to draw your attention to the rapidly changing global landscape in which we shape the development agenda.
(Coping with multiple global crises)
In recent years, the development community has been in a constant crisis mode. The impact of economic and financial crises, climate change, food insecurity, energy instability, conflicts in fragile states, and natural disasters is much broader in scope and larger in scale. The multiple global challenges pose a serious threat to achieving sustained growth and development. Development cooperation has become more critical than ever to cope with these challenges.
(Evolving global aid architecture)
We also live in complex global aid architecture. The existing global aid system does not reflect the magnitude and speed of changes taking place in today's world. The views and experiences of all stakeholders involved in development --- governments, international organizations, NGOs, and the private sector --- are critical to enhance the effectiveness of development assistance. We should not only embrace the new dynamics, but also seek effective partnerships to fully harness the benefits they bring, while avoiding duplication of works and fragmentation.
(Engaging emerging economies)
In addition, the global balance is shifting rapidly toward emerging economies. The new global economic order recently characterized by the OECD as shifting wealth implies that developed or affluent countries can no longer set the development agenda alone. We should recognize the increasing role of emerging economies in development and build a new partnership based on a diversity of modalities and approaches to development.
(Moving beyond aid)
Lastly, while remaining an important resource for development, aid is yet just one part of the equation of development. As development issues are increasingly intertwined with other policy issues such as trade, investment, the environment, security, etc., promoting greater coherence among these policies is essential to produce sustainable development results. It is time to deepen our understanding on aid in the broader context of development.
The Busan HLF-4: Vision and Goals
Against this backdrop, during the G20 Seoul Summit in November last year, Korea played a leading role in placing development at a central place in the G20 agenda by facilitating the adoption of the Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth and its Multi-year Action Plan.
Korea is now preparing for the Busan HLF-4 with the same enthusiasm and sense of responsibility so that the Forum can contribute to the global efforts to attain the UN MDGs, promote strong and inclusive growth, and achieve sustainable development.
Let me further elaborate on what we aim to achieve in Busan and where we should go from there looking toward 2015, the target year for the MDGs, and beyond.
First, the Busan Forum will seek a new global compact for development. Its primary objective is to draw conclusions on the Paris/Accra process based on evidence and review what has or has not been done to implement the existing commitments. But, we will not stop there. We will broaden the paradigm from 'aid' to 'aid and beyond', an issue broadly referred to as 'development effectiveness'. Busan should pave the way for a better quality framework for the future, with a view to 'making development happen' globally. To do this, Busan should be a political event. In order to make it such an event, we need a political agenda that attracts political leaders. Deepening aid effectiveness agenda alone will not be sufficient to meet this goal. It is for this reason that we, as the host of the event, suggested to give a full consideration to the broader context of development and focus our discussions on how to operationalize this concept as a key action agenda.
Second, the Busan Forum should be an opportunity to form a broad and inclusive development partnership to embrace new actors and approaches, address new challenges and opportunities they bring, and yield even more productive development results. Unfortunately, however, there is currently an absence of mechanism where new development partners can readily play a constructive role. More works need to be done to catalyze the South-South and triangular cooperation as they can both lead the way toward strengthening the capacity of partner countries, enhancing horizontal partnerships, and achieving effective development outcomes. We should also engage other new players, the private sector in particular, with a view to leveraging aid with other resources, especially given the fact that the traditional donor countries suffer from budget constraints in the midst of global financial crisis.
How then do we need to approach the issue of development effectiveness in Busan?
First and foremost, introducing a broader perspective on development should not be interpreted as diluting the existing commitment to aid effectiveness. Development effectiveness supplements rather than supplants aid effectiveness. Its focus should be placed on promoting the catalytic and amplifying role of aid in leveraging and mobilizing other resources of development.
Second, development effectiveness should focus on supporting endogenous efforts to build skills and institutional capacities for locally-owned and locally-led development. Bottlenecks to development are not confined to the lack of resources. Ineffective policies and institutions also hamper aid from producing the intended results. In order to increase development impact, it is not sufficient to provide education and training or to transfer technologies or build schools and factories on an ad hoc basis. It is imperative that developing countries bear ownership and accountability to push for result-oriented policies. Development effectiveness should therefore give more weight to building competent governance and effective institutions, and emphasize the need to develop human resources, including women's empowerment.
Third, we need to make fuller use of the private sector as a broker of local and international partnerships and an engine for growth. The private sector has emerged as an important player in international development, but this still remains a relatively uncharted area in development dialogue. Integrating the private sector, including for-profit enterprises, into the broader partnership for development will be essential to increase the effectiveness of broader partnerships. The private sector's contribution, however, should not be confined to funding only, but involve market-driven technical input as well as training and capacity building. To do this, we should seek models where a profit objective meets with a development objective.
All in all, the Busan Forum should provide an opportunity to not only strengthen aid effectiveness principles such as ownership, accountability, and transparency, but also enhance development effectiveness in such a way as to ensure more tangible and sustainable outcomes, using aid as a catalyst for development.
At various meetings and workshops of the OECD recently held in Paris, a broad support was confirmed for our vision on a new global development compact presented along these lines. Of course, there remain some issues on which traditional donors and partner countries differ in terms of priorities and emphases. But, in my view, the differences are basically perceptual in nature and, therefore, can be smoothed out through our collective efforts in the process leading up to the Busan Forum.
I am reasonably optimistic about the outcome of the Busan Forum in terms of realizing our vision and achieving the professed goals.
The Busan HLF-4: Organizational Outlook
Turning to the organizational aspect of the meeting, the Busan HLF-4 will be a truly multi-stakeholder event, bringing together about 2,500 participants from governments, international organizations, CSOs, and the private sector. Invitations have been sent out to 166 countries ranging from traditional donors, emerging economies, low income countries, to the least developed countries. Compared with the previous meetings, the Busan Forum will greatly increase the participation from parliamentarians, CSOs and the private sector. We have been requesting that each country include one parliamentarian in its delegation. For CSOs, we have agreed to invite 300 representatives from both developed and developing countries, more than tripled from 80 CSOs invited to Accra in 2008. For the first time, we have also invited to Busan over 70 representatives from the private sector including large and small firms from both developed and developing countries
A number of side events for CSOs as well as Parliamentary, Youth and Private Sector Forums will also be organized during the event. In addition, more than 70 international organizations have been invited to Busan including international financial institutions, regional and sub-regional development banks, UN agencies and regional organizations. In order to enhance the political profile of the event, we have also invited 20 some heads of states and other high profile speakers such as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Secretary General Ban and heads of states of some developing countries have already confirmed their participation while Secretary Clinton has shown her strong interest.
Post-Busan Process: Looking Toward 2015 and Beyond What then should the post-Busan process look like?
With only four years away from the target year of the MDGs, the Busan Forum should serve as an important political event to generate fresh momentum for achieving the MDGs and provide the way forward setting the tone for the preparation of a post-MDGs process.
From Busan, the aid architecture should develop in a way that maximizes the benefits and minimizes the costs of coordination because with more development actors, coordination has become harder to achieve. Problems of fragmentation, volatility, duplication and waste of resources should be addressed by creating a better aid delivery model.
A global monitoring system for the post-Busan agenda should be cost-effective and 'global light, country heavy' as was pointed out at the July meeting of the OECD Working Party on Aid Effectiveness. The current monitoring process is too bureaucratic and heavily focused on technical indicators, which has increased burden on partner countries. The post-Busan monitoring mechanism should also strengthen domestic accountability system by encouraging all development partners including, in particular, parliamentarians and civil societies to participate in the process.
Finally, the works of various development fora such as UN, OECD and G20 should move in a mutually reinforcing way that supports and complements the global endeavor to achieve the MDGs and move even beyond. To this end, strategic links should be established among these different platforms to increase synergy effects and complementarities based on their respective comparative advantages.
In this regard, the Busan HLF-4 and the G20 have important roles to play together as there are convergences of values and approaches between the two. Both not only share common interest in strengthening development impact and results, but also recognize the strong role of developing countries as partners and potential engines for global economic growth. Like the Busan process, the G20 development agenda takes a comprehensive approach to development by addressing development resources other than aid such as trade, investment, and domestic resource mobilization, and acknowledges knowledge-sharing, including through South-South cooperation, as an important pillar of development.
What we need now and in the future is a better interface between the two processes with an effective division of labor. The HLF-4 would be the best platform for setting norms and standards for development cooperation, supported by a strong monitoring mechanism. On the other hand, the G20 enjoys a strong political clout by bringing together virtually all the important players in international development. This helps us set political priorities and pursue strategies and actions as embedded in the key pillars of the Multi-year Action Plan.
Closing
Distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, The history of international development cooperation tells us how daunting it is to achieve development. However, the development experience of Korea as well as many other developing countries in Asia and Latin America has shown that this can become the reality for other developing countries as well.
As the first recipient-turned-donor country in the world and as a leading player in making development a main theme of the G20 last year, Korea is ready to play a bridging role between the traditional donors and other development partners in the Busan HLF-4, one of the largest and most significant gatherings of global development community. Being the first to be held in Asia, the Busan Forum will also provide an excellent opportunity to share the lessons learned from the development experiences of Asian champions largely represented by the distinguished participants present here today. I would strongly encourage our Asian neighbors to actively participate in the Busan Forum and share their experiences and perspectives.
I also hope that in preparing for the upcoming Busan Forum, we will benefit from the insights and recommendations coming out of a series of dialogues that KDI and The Asia Foundation have been jointly organizing this year. I wish you a great success in your joint efforts and all the best in your intellectual exercise during the remaining session this afternoon. Thank you very much.
Excellencies, Heads of delegations, Representatives from civil society organizations, Distinguished Guests,
It is a great pleasure to host this dinner tonight. I would once again like to extend a heartfelt welcome to all of you. We do indeed deeply appreciate your valuable and constructive engagement in the discussions today. As we all know, the Busan High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness holds great significance in the global context. This Forum aims to present a new vision and framework for the international development community since this is the prime opportunity for all development actors to get together and to discuss the future framework for development cooperation beyond aid effectiveness before 2015, the target year for the MDGs.
To make development happen in the real world, there is a need to reaffirm and further strengthen our commitments on aid effectiveness. And at the same time we should pave a path from effective aid to development. This is the task we face at this Forum. In this regard, I am indeed delighted that the Republic of Korea is hosting this meaningful and eminent meeting in the global community. In fact this Forum holds particular meaning for Korea, which is just a beginner in the area of development cooperation. To the Korean government, still in the learning process in the field of development cooperation, this Forum represents another valuable learning opportunity and experience and I greatly welcome this.
Korea has provided aid since the end of the 1980s, but it was last year that Korea became a member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee. Furthermore, Korea's contribution is still modest and needs to be improved compared with those of traditional donor countries To enhance Korea's contribution in the world, the Korean government plans to double the aid volume by 2015, representing a figure of approximately 3 billion USD.
Furthermore, it is pursuing more effective and partner-oriented aid programs through its strategic plan adopted last year with a special emphasis on MDGs and the self-sustained growth of partner countries. I believe that we have gained a great deal from sharing our experience and lessons learned in this Forum. For beginners such as Korea, this Forum serves to generate further momentum to improve its aid quality. For partner countries, this is a good opportunity to reflect their needs and concerns in the development cooperation framework. Moreover, this gives fresh impetus to the traditional donors' quest for innovation. This Forum also provides a framework to bring emerging actors in. I am convinced that this mutually-learning process will be of great value in enabling us to establish a new global partnership for effective development cooperation tomorrow.
I would like to bring my remarks to a close by proposing a toast to the success of the Busan High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, as well as to the health and happiness of all of us here tonight.
The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness aims to broaden and deepen partnerships for effective development cooperation including public and private actors. This is as part of the efforts to respond to the increasing demand for better development results and to the evolving global development landscape. My government, as the host of this event, greatly values the partnership with the private sector for achieving our shared development goals. In this regard, for the first time, over 100 representatives from the private sector have participated in the Busan forum as full members of the broader effectiveness partnership, including large and small firms from both developed and developing countries.
Relevant to Resolution 4
Green Growth: A Strategy for Sustainable Development and Planet-Responsible Civilization
Over the years, the adverse impacts of climate change and other environmental damages have become increasingly visible around the world. In response to growing environmental concerns, President Lee Myung-bak presented "Green Growth" as a new national vision in 2008. This strategy aims to create green technologies and clean energies that will function as stimuli for economic growth and job creation. The focus of the new national vision lies in promoting sustainable development without compromising economic competitiveness. In 2009, the OECD Ministerial Council adopted the Declaration on Green Growth during the meeting of the council at ministerial level. Green Growth was one of the key issues during the G20 Seoul Summit, and will be one of the main agendas for the G20 Summit and the Rio+20 Summit in 2012.
Since the adoption of the Green Growth strategy, the Government of the Republic of Korea (ROK) has taken several steps to successfully implement it. The Five-Year Plan for Green Growth set a goal of annually investing 2% of the nation's GDP in the green growth sector for next five years. Also, the National Assembly enacted the Framework Act on Low Carbon, Green Growth. This legislation provides a legal basis that aligns national rules and regulations under Green Growth. The vigorous Green Growth programs demonstrate the "Me First" attitude of the Korean government that attempts to make adjustments to changes ahead of others.
The Korean government has also been making international endeavors to spread Green Growth across the globe. Under the leadership of President Lee Myung-bak, the "East Asia Climate Partnership" program was established. As a "fast-mover" on Green Growth issues, the Korean government plans to provide up to 200 million USD to support developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region to tackle climate change. In addition, the Korean government contributed in establishing the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), which aims to facilitate green growth in developing countries. International organizations like ADB•IBRD and countries like Denmark, Japan, UAE, and Australia have joined in our endeavor. We believe that this generation has every responsibility to restore our planet as a ground for sustainable development for the next generation.
The Korean government believes that Green Growth is a viable strategy for creating a planet-responsible civilization, and we plan to make further efforts to spread it around the world.
Korea's Contribution to Climate Change Negotiations Concluding the ongoing climate change negotiations is becoming an increasingly urgent agenda since the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol will soon expire in 2012. And yet countries have been facing difficulties in creating a blueprint for the next climate change regime due to diverging views and interests between developed and developing countries. Climate change negotiations have two tracks, one focused on selecting emission reduction goals for developed countries and the other focused on promoting mitigation actions by developed countries. While many of the developed countries insist on focusing on the implementation the Cancun Agreement, developing countries support the Bali Action Plan, which recognizes "differentiated responsibilities." The core issues from Cancun such as financing, technological development and implementation, adaptation, emission reduction, MRV & ICA, and equity issues are yet to be fully discussed.
The Korean government has made efforts to play a bridging role between developed and developing countries and to find common grounds to make progress. Korea urges developed countries to recognize their historical responsibilities and play more active roles. On the other hand, Korea has brought some innovative ideas such as the NAMA Registry and Unilateral CDM to encourage the voluntary participation of the developing countries based on the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities."
At Durban, the Conference of the Parties decided to launch a process to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the UNFCCC that applies to all Parties. The Durban outcome at COP17 will provide a new momentum for all parties to participate in a new climate change regime by 2020. They also decided to establish the Green Climate Fund which will be the operating entity of the financial mechanism of the Convention.
President Lee Myung-bak once said that countries must adopt the "Me First" attitude, willing to change before expecting others to change. As an active participant of the climate change negotiations, Korea has been setting high standards for itself, for example launching a plan to cut the GHGs emission by 30% below the BAU (business-as-usual) level by 2020, the highest number recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In addition, Korea wishes to further contribute to the climate change negotiations by hosting a ministerial conference before COP18.
Korea is a country that has witnessed rapid industrialization followed by strong economic growth. We plan to share the knowledge we have obtained from our past experiences and play a bridging role between developed and developing countries.
CIA World Fackbook on South Korea