# New Partnerships in Global Development Finance

## Moscow International Conference, February 17-18, 2010

## Ministry of Finance
of the Russian Federation

www.minfin.ru
With support of The World Bank
and the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development

## Donors old and new shape the future of aid

South China Morning Post

In 2006, when Russia hosted a Group of Eight meeting on co-operation with emerging development donors, it planted a seed that had great growth potential. Today, new development partners are increasingly prominent in global affairs, providing steadily rising aid contributions of different types.

That is why this week's Moscow meeting of these new development partners points towards the future. Development organisations and recipient countries, both long-standing and newer partners - including Russia, China, Korea, Turkey and Poland - will share best practices, consider innovations in development and find ways of using aid more effectively to respond to shared global challenges.

The rise of new development partners - emerging markets that are channelling billions of dollars to developing countries - opens possibilities for fresh ideas and resources to help overcome poverty, sustain inclusive economic growth (including through a dynamic private sector), and address such global issues as food security and climate change.

But there is a risk that developing countries, already burdened by dealing with numerous donors, will face an even greater fragmentation of aid efforts. New donors can lessen the load on the world's poorest and increase effectiveness by working together through multilateral channels. In Moscow today and tomorrow, both new and traditional aid donors, and organisations such as the World Bank Group and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, will discuss improving transparency of aid, co-ordinating assistance and boosting effectiveness.

The conference will advance the "Moscow Process", an expression of Russia's desire to forge new partnerships to shape the evolving global aid architecture. Russia recognises that newer donors can help all countries climb up the ladder of opportunity. The World Bank wants to learn from these donors, catalyse deeper co-operation, and build a stronger and deeper multilateral system.

Effective development assistance is not a one-way street from donor to recipient or from North to South. It requires local ownership. We need to apply global experience, but customised for local circumstances.

For the World Bank, the Moscow conference marks a welcome step in building a more globalised system of aid that recognises a variety of contributions from aid donors and organisations, including through private-sector development.

We feel an especially strong sense of urgency as we approach the deadline of 2015 for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to reduce extreme poverty, hunger and child mortality. The next few years will be critical.

New realities of the global political economy demand a different system. Developing nations and new market economies are part of the solution - they must also be part of the decision-making process. We urge other donors and organisations to contribute to the "Moscow Process" as we modernise multilateralism.

Alexei Kudrin is deputy prime minister and minister of finance of Russia; Robert Zoellick is president of the World Bank