 Good afternoon everybody, you're very welcome to the Institute of International European Affairs. Just to begin with a couple of housekeeping, if you could please switch your phones to silent to avoid any embarrassment. To let you know that the initial presentation will be on the record and the question and answer session thereafter will be subject to the Chatham House Rule and if you could identify yourself when you are pitching a question. But before we start, this series of presentations we've been having is very generously supported by Irish AIDS. So to introduce the speaker, may I ask Rory de Burka as the Director General of Irish AIDS to say a few words. Thank you Rory. Just many thanks for introduction Barry and to the Institute for Hosting this seminar today. This has been a very, very good series of collaborations on the Development Matters series and it's particularly good that we have Charlotte Petrie-Gonitska with us today from Paris where she chairs the OECD Development Assistance Committee, commonly known as the DEC. And I think it's important that we take that discussion that happens in Paris to practitioners here in Ireland and sort of break that imaginary boundary that may be between what the Development Assistance Committee does and the discussions in places like this and not just here but more generally. Charlotte was formerly the head of CEDA which is the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency and she was appointed to the Chair of the DEC in July 2016 and I think she's played a very, very important role in spearheading the DEC reform agenda since taking up her appointment and spearheaded is probably the right word because she's probably needed a very sharp implement at times to make sure that she navigates I'm mixing a metaphor here but to navigate through what is an awful lot of very, very forthright opinions, visions and at times contradictory, I suppose ethical agendas might be the right way to put it. She comes to this position I think not just with her experience in CEDA but well served by her time as Secretary-General of Save the Children in Sweden and is head of Save the Children International and from her own experience of Save the Children it's an excellent NGO that I wish I was very proud to work with in a number of places and indeed any of the Save staff that have come through and worked with us have always been amongst the best of the employees that we have across the world and I think that's a testament to an organisation with a very strong sense of itself and the values and a very strong sense of international development so thank you for that and Charlotte's also worked on communications for the Swedish Red Cross as I said she's here today in her capacity as Chair of the DAC but I think it would be very good for us to hear and I certainly could learn from her experience of heading an international development cooperation division so it would be interesting that Ireland is a member and core supporter of the Development Assistance Committee and the DAC provides a unique international forum where major development cooperation providers come together to coordinate policy and improve the effectiveness of their development cooperation programmes through its peer reviews DAC monitors commitments made by donors to increase the effectiveness of the development cooperation policies and programmes and the DAC's work on development statistics sets the international standard for defining and recording official development assistance and that all sounds quite technical but I think the normative value of that shouldn't be underestimated partly because it tells us where we are relative to our peers partly because it keeps us all honest in a sense it makes sure that when we say we're going to give ODA that we give it to the areas that we say we're going to give it and don't get distracted maybe then cul-de-sacs in alleyways and it's also a really useful tool to use in internal resource debates with ministries of finance etc and I wouldn't underestimate that and it's also really important to helping shape the discourse in the development community so you take things like the SDGs how do you translate that into actions it's through discussions around the DAC table and the arguments which are often quite fierce on what are look at times to be obstruous technical issues at heart, intensely political and about our vision for changing the world to put it in big worlds but that's what the SDGs are it is about changing the world and making it better maybe we shouldn't hide from that kind of language from time to time also it's the network effect, valuable networks in research, policy in information sharing and fact-based multilateralism fact-based is something we don't do an awful lot of these days and it's great that there's a resource in Paris where there are facts and you don't have to go to Twitter to get a negative and it's something that Ireland is dedicated to maintaining and protecting that's why this year I think we're the third largest contributor to the DAC and its networks and that's something we want to continue to be a very important partner for the DAC I mentioned the DAC reform agenda you know it's really important that the DAC is responsive to current global challenges and there are many and I think that's why some of the debates have been so difficult and challenging and where people are coming at how you do this from very very different ideological perspectives Charlotte has steered that very very well and I think she's been informed in that in part by somebody who's no stranger to this building Mary Robinson who outlined a vision for the DAC in the context of Agenda 2030 through her work as chair of the DAC High-Level Panel Ireland is working across the board on that reform agenda and looking at Agenda 2030 in the OECD as you would imagine but also at the UN and just a finish on this we're in the process of developing a new white paper and development aid which hopefully will come to light next summer-ish don't hold us to any particular date but we're developing how we'll take that forward but I think many of the questions that will come out of the discussion today and already in that DAC reform agenda are questions which are going to have to tease through in the context of how we move to that white paper and how Ireland better responds to the sustainable development goals and how hopefully we can begin to grow our overseas development assistance again after a few years of what we can maybe chartably call consolidation so I think today's discussion comes at an important time and within that we'll also be engaging with the DAC and its networks so look enough about us I think today's all about what Charlotte's going to say so look forward to hearing what you have to say thank you very much for coming she's directly off the plane so it's very good that we get Charlotte's thoughts unfiltered so thank you very much so thank you very much for the introduction I feel very humbled and very pleased to be here I must start by apologising for being late there's a lot of power in my role but not flying the plane so apologies for that and good afternoon and thank you for spending time here today and I very much want to start by saying to thank the Institute for International and European Affairs and Irish Aid for co-hosting this IEA Development Matters Lecture Series because if there's something that we need very much of these days is dialogue to come together and exchange and really work hard on delivering on promises that we in different roles and capacities took in 2015 to deliver on the agenda 2030 and the SDGs and I think it's very much through these kind of series that we can continue to keep awareness high and to continue to discuss perhaps interest conflicts of interests which will be there when we start to think about a holistic whole of government agenda which the 2030 agenda is about so I really think this is a good initiative so thank you for that I would also like to say to you to start with that Mary Robinson it's been fantastic for me personally to have had the opportunity to be kind of she reported to the DAAC the high level panels report on the future of the DAAC and she spoke a lot about an attitude for the DAAC that she wanted to bring along with the agenda and under the two words of a servant leader and I do think that the DAAC has to think through what that means because we are currently 30 countries kind of rich we've been in place for more than 50 years and when we started to do our work it was not about 30 countries it was some 50 plus years ago and some rich countries industrialized came together to discuss rules and regulations, standards on how to serve I don't think perhaps we use the word serve but maybe how to work with development aid for poor countries not industrialized and it was a very dualistic relationship but today when the DAAC thinks about our future we need to realize that on one hand we are still a very rich community and if you think about the DAAC as 30 resourceful members but also housed in the OECD a powerhouse of knowledge, facts, evidence and all of the things that we can bring to the table I think we have to realize that we have a lot of resources and power if you will but we are not the ones who are going to deliver the agenda 2030 on our own and to be able to continue to serve the globe on the 2030 agenda an attitude of being a servant leader or a servant leader is important for the way we do our work and Mary Robinson certainly put a lot of emphasis on that So why am I here with you today? Well as the chair of the development assistance committee I have led the efforts to reform the DAAC as said in the introduction We want the DAAC to be able to continue to be relevant for our members and relevant for the landscape in which we work with development We want the DAAC to be relevant Most of us here can agree that we have witnessed remarkable improvements around the world during the last decades Unfortunately not many people talk about that in the media We have to remind ourselves that for instance when I was born it wasn't yesterday so I admit that but when I was born not all humans lived in extreme poverty Today only one out of ten finds themselves in these dire circumstances and according to the World Bank data around 45 countries have left the category of low income country during the last 30 years Child mortality and maternal mortality has decreased fast in developing countries during the last 25 years and we still have to work for every child to get educated but while we do that we have to remind ourselves that access to primary education has reached 90% globally and long-term development assistance has been instrumental in achieving these results particularly when it comes to ensuring basic health and education We the development people know that ODA or aid is not the only solution has not been the only solution won't be the only solution but we have to take some credit and remind people that things have improved because every day in the media we run the risk of just being reminded of what's left to do and especially that development assistance under scrutiny much more than perhaps before so it's important to kind of stand firmly in results have actually been achieved We in the development community and Ireland as a generous donor country should take note of this Ireland's aid program is internationally renowned for having a clear overall vision for development cooperation and delivering effectively on commitments to international development and grounding its policies in the needs and priorities of its partner countries to keep commitments to live by the principle of ownership should be something that should go for all members in the DAC We have to constantly talk about that and Ireland is very very important as a member in the conversation within the DAC a little bit of a watchdog sometimes and I mean that in a positive way on one hand on the other hand you shouldn't have to but you do Countries like Ireland set an important example when it comes to counterbalancing rhetoric in the OECD countries about national interest and directing development cooperation policies your neighbours in another island yeah well this is on the record so I will be very clear it's fantastic to be able to have 0.7 of BNI as a commitment binding by law it was celebrated when it was said but it's very interesting to see how difficult it is to keep in pace with public when you have commitments like that and we can see a fierce media landscape for instance in the UK really making aid as a policy area questioned by many and I would say that what we face in the DAC today is a bit of kind of a volatile landscape where some countries have to defend this policy area domestically and while doing that some of the countries that we work for lose a bit of trust in us as predictable partners because we have to in different ways work in our own countries domestically and I would say that that is one of the challenges and again where Ireland plays a very important role because you are trusted as a partner and some other countries have more difficult in the bilateral trust today because more and more of ODA is being spent at home Ireland is not the biggest donor although the third biggest donor to DAC which was fantastic but not the biggest donor in 2016 you or it provided US 802 million US dollars in net ODA and that is preliminary data I should say it represents 33% of your gross national income however this was a 12% increase in real terms from 2015 and the first time in seven years that the Irish government increased the ODA budget so even if it's not 0.7 it's on a good trajectory however international development cooperation is not only about volume it is about quality as much as volume quality through policies and practices and here Ireland plays an important role by supporting and enabling partner governments and civil society organizations to lead their development efforts themselves as I said partners value Ireland as an honest broker and for being a long term partner working according to international best practices building on this trust countries like Ireland must lead the way in transforming development cooperation to meet the challenges we face today and tomorrow again thank you for discussing development in this series and we should take note of this progress at the same time be clear that we face great challenges here and now as well as in the years to come there is still much work to be done to eliminate poverty and we need to reach those furthest behind and those most vulnerable they might not have increased in amount of people but they are completely stuck left behind and we have not succeeded yet in leaving no one behind and when we embark on the Estichi agenda Ireland is constantly reminding us in the duck discussions about this fact but we also must change our ways of working we need to accelerate the shift from unsustainable carbon based energy unsustainable production and consumption patterns the number of refugees and displaced persons in countries of origin in neighboring countries and in our own countries we need a more comprehensive response during our October high level meeting members agreed to adopt the proposed clarifications for reporting costs for receiving and hosting refugees in donor countries as part of ODA as part of the official development assistance and thanks to this harmonization effort we established which costs are in line with ODA definition and which relate to the integration of refugees or donors internal and security policies and do not therefore conform the ODA definition and this decision provides for more transparency and more coherent spending and reporting increasing accountability among members we needed this improved reporting to ensure both the protection of financing for development for long term poverty and conflict prevention and also the accurate acknowledgement of in donor refugee spending civil society is still pushing hard for the duck to go further and not count in donor costs as ODA but this clarification is a way for the duck to prove how important this tool is today as well as for 50 years ago and I welcome very much the push that we put on ourselves on transparency it's going to be possible to compare it's going to be possible to see what we spend the money on and I really think that the duck can not be proud but at least be pleased with the fact that we took a decision on a very political issue very much scrutinized by our watchdogs which we should be we also needed this since we have seen divergent practices across donors and we must doubt on the credibility of ODA statistics 85% of refugees are not in our countries 85% are in what we call developing countries and the more we spend at home which ODA figures show that we do we spend more money on humanitarian immediate needs and less than before on long term development in sub-Saharan Africa and of course again going back to trust if that's a trend not only something that we see now but if that trend continues partner countries might start to talk again about the duck being a rich club in the north not necessarily a partner so this decision in that context was also very important since 2015 we have a global development consensus based on the 2030 agenda for sustainable development as we know including the Addis Ababa action agenda this decision was a game changer demanding increased partnership increased financial flows and increased focus on leaving no one behind this agenda caused for transformation of development cooperation while upholding the much needed levels of ODA to support those most in need this transformation means that we need to find the right balance between guarding the integrity of ODA and using ODA in a catalytic manner to leverage other financial resources for sustainable development our October high level meeting also facilitated the adoption of something that we call blended finance principles and now we're a bit technical again but what it means was to decide on how do we make sure that when we use ODA to crowd in other financial flows that the way we do it is developmental in nature adding value for development and is not just using public money for financial flows that could be there on a commercial basis so it's really safeguarding the principles of development and to get one common language for doing so the OECD work program on blended finance aims to distill and promote best practice and develop guidance that will assist the development cooperation community in delivering development impact from emerging blended finance approaches and we can build on the achievements so far but we also face new challenges and we need new ways of working as I said development assistance is more and more an integrated part of a whole of government approach to sustainable development and sustainable development for a country a region or a city is more and more an agenda way beyond government calling for a whole of society approach governments and the public sector should not shy away from their role in leading the change but must acknowledge that others will lead as well and sometimes the development community is being asked to stay a little bit away on the side because agenda 2030 is not about aid, it's about all the other things so don't lead that change because then everybody else might think that we're traditional aid and we're trying to do so much new things here so perhaps you shouldn't lead, some people say and I say well where are you then where's the rest of the society who wakes up every morning dreaming about this agenda I think that we need to be co-leading this change and that we should be proud of the knowledge and the tradition if you will that we bring to the table but we need to find ways thinking of how do you lead change you're there to kind of crowd in others and perhaps step back yourself, how do you do that motivating people to really leverage on this and I think that's the challenge we have as leaders in many different capacities the servant leader who's out there to inspire change by others the motivation high for staff who might think am I less important because you're always talking about somebody else there you're talking about the finance market so in the daily life of delivering this agenda 2030 we have both governance and management challenges and we should perhaps not think that everybody breathed this agenda just because we do. So finally I will tell you a little bit about how are we trying to make DAC relevant for this future to deliver on this agenda DAC members and the greater development community can make better use of the DAC as a hub for building knowledge improving policy and stimulating collective efforts. DAC can achieve so much more through increasing its outreach and its collaboration with each other and with others and that is why I as a chair based on proposals from the high level panel led by Mary Robinson and with a lot of dialogues within the DAC with Ireland and others that is why I proposed ways in which the DAC should modernize and adapt in its transformation the DAC will build on the core strengths of the committee. We will not shy away from what has built DAC the DAC has a unique role and we should maintain it. We will continue to define and measure development cooperation we will be the guardian of the ODA definition and monitor its flows we will set standards for providers engagement in development cooperation and facilitate members mutual accountability for development efforts. We will still promote learning perhaps even more than before promote learning exchanges of views and coordinating among members on good practices in development cooperation. We do that today we will keep on doing it even more going forward the DAC will also focus on development impact because what we have focused on so far is a bit more on what we have provided the 0.7 the figures of money provided but not necessarily on what we have achieved as a community members do that separately but the policy area suffers a bit from too little focus on impact and a common narrative on what development really delivers if you wish. So DAC will put more emphasis on impact but also more emphasis on the mobilization of resources be the leader of development finance if you will and that is about continue to work hard to get the ODA increased but also to use ODA as the catalyst for other financial resources including also working with domestic resources knowing that tax is a very very important part of delivering finance. The DAC will learn from existing development approaches as we do today but we will give more focus to learn and explore new approaches to development by for instance embracing innovative practices and the digitalization of societies the DAC will reach out to influence and to be influenced for instance by using the convening power we have to stay in constant dialogue with a diverse and growing development community the DAC has been spoke about as a club we would like to see the DAC more of a hub for development. The DAC will be open, transparent and hold each other to account sometimes I think that we are a bit too polite peer reviews are very important but are we really addressing challenges enough or are we dependent if you will of watchdogs like civil society to really really put the finger on the issues that our community need to address I think that we need to be in the driver's seat I think that we need to be the ones who put the problem on the table and dare to discuss it this is a little bit of a discussion within the DAC because some members don't want criticism domestically because they fight for their policy area so if the chair enters into that context and say it might actually do more harm it's good so obviously when we talk about holding ourselves to account we need to know in what way but I do think that we allow media to play too much of that role so I have proposed that we should be a bit tougher and you know Kira that's not what I'm most popular about if I'm at all popular but we also need to work in effective governance systems and structures within the DAC and what is interesting for you perhaps is that this agenda sounds like we're going to do a lot of what others do the UN does a lot and other international organizations have roles to play and it's important for the DAC to be sure that we are complimenting and that we add to a system of international organizations and that we avoid duplication but what's still true is that the DAC can bring facts, learning, standards normative work to the table and the community that we are is still being a very resourceful community that has to deliver so if we could use that as a magnet for delivering and inspiring other actors to try away from doing so we are expected to lead not to duplicate but to play an active leading role and our efforts do not stop here the decisions taken at the high level meeting where the meeting did decide to embark on this vision for the DAC and to renew or to actually to a new mandate for the DAC the high level meeting have laid the groundwork for our reform but there is more to be done to support the reform in our own work and in our own communication we have put the words on paper after almost a year of discussion but now this reform will be taken into implementation mode and that's where the rubber meets the road that's where we're going to see if we are successful and our efforts will be judged by our ability to achieve the 2030 agenda less than 13 years left and we know that it means doing things differently, more efficiently and changing the narrative of the effectiveness of development cooperation to continue to build universal support for the 2030 agenda thank you for being part of this I hope that you will join yourself and others in this important journey for development and for the DAC in its role in that whole of society attempt, so thank you