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Steering Group Meeting at Ministerial Level
Opening Remarks by Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General
Cairo, Egypt, 29 November 2007
Minister Darwish, Ambassador Andersson, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Welcome to our Third Governance for Development Ministerial Meeting, which we expect to be a significant contribution to national governance reforms in the region. Today’s meeting is a crucial political milestone for carrying the Good Governance for Development in Arab Countries Initiative into its second phase, from 2008 to 2010.
I would like to thank you for your enthusiastic and continued support in all of our meetings. Your participation, ideas and leadership have been a major driving force for the successful implementation of the GfD Initiative. In particular, I would like to thank Minister Darwish and Ambassador Andersson for their commitment and continuous involvement.
Good Governance matters
The OECD has been a pioneer in recognising the importance of good governance frameworks for economic and social development, and in assessing its potential as a source of progress.
Good Governance is about improving efficiency, transparency, and accountability – three essential elements for building high performing economies and fair societies. Yesterday at the MENA-OECD Investment Ministerial, we confirmed that adequate institutional frameworks are fundamental to foster competitiveness, private investment, employment and productivity – and to make the most of globalisation.
These frameworks are inextricably linked to the promotion of good governance, a key precondition for economic growth. In Egypt, for example, the recent reforms to improve the investment climate and facilitate entrepreneurship have brought annual GDP growth to a twenty-year high of 7 per cent in 2006 , while foreign direct investment inflows increased more than fifteen-fold between 2001 and 2006. In the first three quarters of the 2007 financial year, inflows reached more than USD 9 billion, up from only about half a billion US dollars a year before 2003.
Good Governance is also about improving the life of our citizens through better public services. In a globalised economy, the quality of these services will determine the attractiveness of our local economic environment for national and foreign investments. They will also enhance the competitiveness of our cities and regions.
Today, governments have to respond to a myriad of growing challenges, many of them of a global nature. These include decentralisation, new ICT technologies, climate change, international migration, geopolitical threats or scarce natural resources. The success of governments’ responses depends to a large extent on their capacities to implement effective public policies.
The speed of change is testing our intelligence as policy-makers. The world, as was advertised in a recent promotional of a bank in New York, “is a very different place than it was…ten minutes ago”. This is no longer an exaggeration.
Like private companies, the public sector is in need of constant innovation; the competitiveness of our economies and therefore, the prosperity of our citizens, is at stake.
Sharing the OECD experience
Major governance reforms have been implemented in OECD member countries in the last two decades to address these challenges. We can draw three main lessons from these experiences:
1. First, there are no universal solutions to governance challenges. Governance is deeply rooted in history, traditions, values and specific conditions of countries. Each country has to develop its own institutional arrangements which are appropriate for its national context.
2. Second, such uniqueness should not lead to isolation. OECD countries have greatly benefited from interaction and co-operation, by sharing common values but also by recognising their differences. Exchanging concerns and solutions in an open policy dialogue is an enlightening exercise if it builds on similarities, but also if it takes account of national particularities.
3. And third, there are common elements to the process of reform that can be identified in different countries. Managing reform effectively can be supported by comparisons, experience and benchmarking.
Reform is a difficult enterprise for governments. We all know that reforms may have short-term costs, while many of the benefits are only visible in the medium to long-term. Groups or individuals affected by them can easily organise to resist change, whereas many of the beneficiaries are dispersed and not aware of the long-term benefits. It is therefore important to communicate the rationale and impacts of reforms adequately, and to link their implementation to overall political and economic goals.
The OECD’s work on the political economy of reform is building a rich stock of experiences on how to design, promote and explain reforms; and on how to connect them to citizens’ needs and aspirations.
Governance reform, including public administration and the judicial system, provides the framework within which economic reform can prosper, and helps provide visibility and credibility for the overall reform agenda. Significant reform requires two elements: broad support for change, and strong leadership. Both elements are reinforced by the GfD Initiative.
Good governance and civil society: a mutually reinforcing relationship
I would like to mention the importance of an increasingly relevant factor for the improvement of governance: the engagement of civil society in policy-making.
In both OECD and Arab countries, engaging citizens in policy making and maintaining trust in government constitute a growing priority. The involvement of civil society organisations, as well as effective communication with media, is crucial for achieving better governance results and implementing reforms successfully.
It is of utmost relevance to explain the need for reforms – and the costs of inaction – to citizens, and engage them in the process. In many OECD countries, consultations through electronic means in anticipation of new laws and public projects, illustrate how civil society can be involved in public management issues. This involvement strengthens policies and “legitimises” reforms. Successful governments are therefore giving more and more importance to this crucial element.
Holding seminars and media events centred around the “challenges of communicating economic reform” is a useful way of broadening public support and something we may want to consider in Egypt and elsewhere. The GfD Initiative would be glad to support such an event, which could provide an opportunity to chief editors, political, and economic analysts from MENA and OECD countries to share experiences with government reformers.
Progress made with the GfD Initiative
Progress achieved with the GfD Initiative illustrates the benefits of multilateral co-operation in the field of governance. Allow me to highlight some examples of such progress:
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Arab and OECD countries are actively engaged in the regional policy dialogue, increasingly involving their national administrations in order to build a critical mass of committed reform actors. Comparative knowledge and sharing of expertise has become a crucial input at different stages of policy making for participating Arab countries.
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Ten Arab countries have established national co-ordination teams, composed of key policy makers from ministries and agencies, who formulate and implement public governance reforms. Members of the co-ordination teams regularly participate in GfD activities and have influenced the pacing of reform in their countries. Seven Arab countries endorsed and have begun to implement national country action plans, in the framework of the GfD Initiative. Other countries will develop Country Action Plans in the coming period.
I would also like to emphasise the positive feedback we have received from OECD countries on the progress made with the GfD Initiative. OECD members recognise the value-added of this Initiative and its substantive contribution to the Organisation’s mandate to strengthen relations with non-member countries.
OECD countries have benefited from this Initiative in a significant way. Participating OECD countries have had the privilege to learn more about the governance challenges of a region which is of key importance for the world economy. They have also witnessed the extraordinary momentum of governance change in the Arab world, and as they worked with you towards the promotion of good governance.
Strategic objectives for the future and examples of activities
The Initiative’s strategic directions for 2008-10 contain many very promising tools to strengthen the regional policy dialogue and co-operation at the national level. Allow me to briefly highlight a few concrete examples that we will address today.
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Regional Centres: We will learn more on how regional training and expertise centres could increasingly contribute to support policy dialogue and build knowledge and capacity for good governance. In areas such as evaluation of public policies; regulatory quality; and tax and financial management, these Centres would work on a multilateral basis towards regional governance reform.
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Peer Learning: Past experiences have shown that country-specific peer learning is crucial for linking the regional exchange to reform implementation at the national level. A key dimension of the future GfD Initiative will be to meet Arab countries’ demand for country-specific peer advice.
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The establishment of regional knowledge networks, for example to promote anti-corruption efforts and transparency, will also contribute to the regional policy dialogue.
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Strengthened Partnerships: Continued emphasis will be placed on partnering and anchoring the GfD Initiative with international, regional and bilateral institutions, networks and processes in order to ensure maximum synergies.
These strategic orientations illustrate how the GfD Initiative has achieved considerable progress since the Dead Sea Declaration. Our achievements over the last three years are the basis for the ambitious targets we are setting today for the upcoming years.
I would like to invite all participating countries to encourage their experts and officials to continue to take part in the activities of the different working groups. There is much to be gained from this unique experience; both for Arab and OECD countries.
Ladies and gentlemen:
The GfD Initiative is a prototype of a new approach to international co-operation. It is not about providing countries with financial support that will create foreign debt; it is about providing policy advice that will foster progress. The OECD countries don’t have any lessons to give; we have policy experiences to share. The GfD Initiative for the Arab Countries is a mutually reinforcing initiative: it is opening the door to the work and knowledge of the OECD to our Arab partners. At the same time, the OECD is gaining insights on different cultural perspectives and paths of human progress.
I wish you all a very fruitful discussion about the future work of the GfD Initiative. With your contributions, this Initiative will accelerate its evolution and become a strong and effective tool for public sector management and governance reforms in Arab countries. I will now hand the floor to Mr Adel Abdellatif, Chief Regional Programme Division of the Regional Bureau for Arab States, UNDP.
Thank you very much.
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