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Thursday, 1 March 2012

OECD Headquarters, 2 rue André Pascal, Paris

Provisional Agenda

The High Level Meeting of the OECD Development Centre will convene Ministers from the 42 Member countries of the Centre’s Governing Board. OECD Enhanced Engagement countries, OECD Accession countries and leading international organisations working in the field of development will also participate. 

In addition to marking the Centre’s 50 years of history and endorsing the future strategic orientation of its work, the meeting will provide an opportunity to discuss members’ experiences and identify practical ways to build competitive economies and cohesive societies in an increasingly interconnected world. The meeting will also be an opportunity for participants to express their views and thoughts about the OECD Strategy on Development, which is currently being elaborated by the Organisation.

Click here to download the Communiqué for the High Level Meeting

Click here to download the list of participants.

Chairs

Andris Piebalgs - Commissioner for Development, European Commission

Mohamed Najib Boulif - Minister of General Affairs and Governance, Morocco

09:15 - Opening Keynote Address

• Angel Gurría - OECD Secretary General

9:40 - Chairs’ opening remarks and adoption of the agenda

Ministers will be invited to formally adopt the draft agenda.

10:00 - Session 1: National Development Strategies in a more interconnected world

(1h30mins)

Today’s global economic landscape has created new opportunities for development in many countries. The extent to which countries will be able to seize those opportunities lies in their capacity to identify and tap their specific resources and to address their binding constraints. Equally important will be countries’ capacity to design an effective mix of policies to mobilise these resources, to assess their political feasibility, and to sequence their implementation. These individual policies should be part of an overall national development strategy. This session will discuss and compare different ways of designing and implementing national development strategies.

Lead speakers:

• Elżbieta Bieńkowska - Minister of Regional Development, Poland

• Armida Alisjahbana - Minister of National Development Planning, Indonesia

Interventions:

• Magdalena Lizardo - Deputy Minister of Planning, Economy and Development, Dominican Republic

Intervention from International Organisation:

• Mr. Abdoulie Janneh - Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa

Documents

• Issue Paper One

• Annex: Perspectives on Global Development 2010: Shifting Wealth

11:35 - Coffee break

12:00 - Session 2: Building competitive economies

(1h30mins)

Competitive assets and resources in developing countries often remain untapped or poorly exploited, raising   concern   about   the   sustainability   of   growth.   Furthermore,   rising   globalisation,   new technological paradigms and the emerging new geography of production and innovation call for new and better competitiveness strategies. This session will discuss the variety of strategies and policy mixes that countries are implementing to build competitive economies by combining smart industrial policies with mobilisation of the private sector, skills development and well-performing financial markets.

Lead speakers:

• Anabel González - Minister of Foreign Trade, Costa Rica
• Marie-Gabrielle Ineichen-Fleisch - State Secretary for Economic Affairs, Switzerland

Interventions:

• Mohamed Najib Boulif - Minister of General Affairs and Governance, Morocco

• Tomáš Dub - Deputy Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Czech Republic

Intervention from International Organisation:

• Mthuli Ncube - Chief Economist and Vice President, African Development Bank

Documents

• Issue Paper Two

• Annex: Building Competitive Economies: what options in a shifting world?

13:30 - Lunch

15:00 - Session 3: Fostering cohesive societies

(1h30mins)

Living in a cohesive society requires equal opportunities, trust and social mobility. An exceptional decade of growth in the developing world has brought about new challenges but also unprecedented opportunities for fostering social cohesion. Improved growth performance and rising prosperity are associated with rising expectations, as well as increasing inequalities in a number of countries, drawing the attention of citizens to the efficiency and accountability of public policies. But they also bring new resources and broaden the fiscal space for a more ambitious social agenda, aimed at more inclusive growth and a reduction in persistent global imbalances.

Lead speakers:

• Mauricio Santa Maria - Director, National Planning Department, Colombia

Interventions:

• Roger Schjerva - State Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Norway

Intervention from International Organisation:

• Carlos Westendorp - Secretary General, Club of Madrid

Documents

• Issue Paper Three

• Annex: Perspectives on Global Development 2012: Social Cohesion in a Shifting World

 

16:30 - Session 4: OECD Strategy on Development

(1h30mins)

The OECD is currently elaborating an OECD Strategy on Development which recognises the need for a new, comprehensive approach to development by the Organisation. The goal of this initiative is to achieve higher, more inclusive, sustainable growth for the greatest number of countries. The strategy aims to broaden the Organisation’s approach to development, to draw more effectively on its multidisciplinary expertise in a wide range of policy areas and to build on its previous work on policy coherence for development as well as its longstanding experience in economic development policies, aid effectiveness and development co-operation.

OECD Members  agreed  that  this  will  be  accomplished  by greater  collaboration  and  knowledge sharing, including sharing policy successes and failures and engaging in mutual learning, as well as deepening partnerships between the Organisation, developing countries and other international organisations.

Participants  will  be  invited  to  express  their  views  and  thoughts  about  the  OECD  Strategy  on
Development.

Interventions:

• Fernando Schmidt Ariztía - Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chile

• Andris Piebalgs - Commissioner for Development, European Commission

• Henri de Raincourt - Minister for Co-operation, France

• Rundheersing Bheenick - Governor of the Bank of Mauritius

• Chi Dung Duong - Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vietnam

Intervention from International Organisation:

• Alicia Bárcena - Executive Secretary, UN ECLA

Documents

• Issue Paper Four

• Annex: Second draft of the OECD Strategy on Development & Executive Summary

18:00

Closing Keynote Address:

• Leonel Fernandez - President, Dominican Republic (video message)

18:15 - End of Meeting

18:15 - 19:00

Cocktail, Roger Ockrent Room

19:00

Piano concert by Leszek Możdżer, George Marshall Room

* to be confirmed