# 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

## Russia support for developing states grows despite crisis – minister

MOSCOW, February 17 (Itar-Tass) - According to preliminary figures, last year the Russian federal budget allocated about 800 million dollars to support developing countries, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told an international conference here on Wednesday.

Kudrin stressed that in 2008, 220 million dollars were allocated for these goals from the budget. Thus he emphasized that during the crisis Russia has not only fulfilled earlier made commitments, but also boosted its activity as a donor country.

Although not all sovereign donors have managed to retain within the past year-and-a-half the level of finance allocated for global development, on the whole the world “has managed to maintain financing in accordance with approved figures,” Kudrin told the New Partnership in Global Development Finance conference.

Thus from 2000 to 2009 the amount of financing grew from 53 billion to 121 billion dollars a year. Kudrin drew attention of the participants to qualitative, not only quantitative parameters of this work. It is important that “the so-called ‘new donors’ increase their participation in that,” said Kudrin, who is also Deputy Prime Minister.

However, the financial crisis “has jeopardized success that is taking shape and has worsened prospects for economic development of some developing countries,” he said. He cited data of the World Bank, according to which 94 out of 116 developing countries have already slowed down the pace of economic growth, and 43 of them are poorest countries.

First of all such negative tendencies are felt in the sphere of public health, education and agriculture, Kudrin explained. However, he believes that “the several past years will become fundamental in reaching the Millennium Development Goals”.

According to these aims, fixed in the U.N. Millennium Declaration, the year 2015 must become the last one on the way towards overcoming extreme poverty, towards a decline in child mortality rate and the number of starving people in the world.