Second High-Level Meeting (2HLM) of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation
Closing remarks by Angel Gurría,
OECD Secretary-General
Nairobi, Kenya, 1 December 2016
Your Excellency William Ruto, Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya,
Excellencies, dear colleagues,
Mabibi na mabwana (ladies and gentlemen),
It is an honour and privilege to be here with you at the conclusion of this second High-Level meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation.
One thing is clear: thanks to Kenya’s – and Africa’s – leadership, our commitment to effective partnerships has never been stronger.
While the SDG Summit was the “what” conference, the last two days have been the “how” conference. By 2030, we need to end extreme poverty. We need to have made a dent on all poverty. And we should be well on the way to eradicating it altogether.
Nairobi is another defining moment in the history of international solidarity. We have committed that development co-operation will play its part in achieving the SDGs. It is no longer the question of whether we have political momentum to drive more effective development co-operation. We do.
This is the first Global Partnership High-Level Meeting in Africa – and African countries are here in force to lead this agenda. We have convened in the thousands this week to drive progress in the way we work together. The Global Partnership monitoring effort benefited from record-high participation – 125 countries, hundreds of organisations and thousands of people. This is about putting hard evidence on the table and – now – acting on it.
And we have all committed to do more – this promise is set out in the Nairobi Outcome Document. Congratulations to all of you.
Excellencies, President Kenyatta said something that struck me in his remarks yesterday. He said that it is not about who speaks the loudest. It is about using our comparative advantage as public, private, and civil society actors to deliver better results on the ground.
And that is what the Global Partnership does. It is SDG 17 in practice.
No longer are we talking about the most pressing concerns facing our planet and our people as if governments were the only solution. They are not. And this is the beauty of the Global Partnership. It unites governments with international organisations, with representatives of business and trade unions, with foundations, with civil society, with parliamentarians, and others. And it brings us all together to take action!
Just a little earlier today, I was privileged to witness the birth of a new south-south co-operation initiative on Tax Inspectors Without Borders between Kenya and Botswana. This is just one example of the many concrete initiatives that have come to fruition this week in Nairobi.
We should all congratulate ourselves on these successes. But I would like to thank Kenya in particular for its leadership, as well as our three co-chairs, Malawi, Mexico, and the Netherlands. To each of you: Asanté Sana! (Thank you very much.)
I also want to thank my staff – led by Jorge Moreira da Silva and Mario Pezzini – for their hard work, alongside that of our friends at UNDP. Helen: the partnership with UNDP just gets stronger every time! Thank you.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, as I said yesterday, it’s now time for implementation, implementation, and implementation! Data and evidence is one key ingredient of this. The OECD will continue to generate, together with UNDP, the evidence and lessons needed to track progress, learn, and hold each other to account. This includes holding OECD members to account for promises they have made.
Likewise, the OECD’s work on tax, effective institutions, supporting fragile and conflict affected states, are all topics critical to effective development co-operation. We will continue to put this knowledge at the disposal of the Global Partnership.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the ultimate driver of change is political leadership. I look to all of you, the leaders in this room, to ensure that promises made in Nairobi are promises kept. The task ahead is ambitious, but the rewards will be unparalleled. We need to end poverty. We need to tackle inequality. And we need to do it all sustainably. So let’s get on and do it!
Thank you.
Related Documents