Welcoming speech given by Francis Mer,
French Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry,
on 25 March 2003 for the official opening of the workshop,
“Partners for development evaluation – analysis and accountability”

Good morning,

I was eager to open this seminar, your workshop, in order to signal the importance that the French government, especially my own Ministry, attaches to your work.

I believe I am correct in saying that this is the first time such a great number of people have been brought together in the same room as part of an effort to work collectively on the major topic of aid evaluation. It is clear that, in this domain as in any other, the notions of evaluation, quantification and qualification are significant enough to warrant our being accountable to the benefits of what we are doing and to the effectiveness of the way in which we work.

As you are no doubt aware, the many people in this room represent a wide range of organisations:

- Forty States and aid agencies from OECD countries,
- Representatives of countries acceding to the European Union,
- Fifteen United Nations agencies,
- The multilateral development banks,
- The International Monetary Fund,
- Various representatives of civil society, including NGOs – some international and some more focused on a single country – and private foundations, plus trade union organisations, whose involvement, however recent, I commend, since I believe that the topic you will be discussing, that of aid and its effectiveness, is one of major importance that must involve all players in our economic sphere,
- And, of course, professionals in the evaluation field from the southern hemisphere’s developing countries, i.e. representatives from Africa and Latin America, who are here today thanks to the assistance of overseas co-operation departments.

I cannot end this introduction without thanking all those who have helped us, to one extent or another, in organising today’s meeting through direct or indirect co-operation initiatives.

So, what is our subject here today? Our subject is aid, and I would like to remind you of the ways in which France, under its current G-8 Presidency, wishes to focus its thoughts on this area. We have defined four main themes, of which three are to be taken up in your workshop.

The four themes are:

- Solidarity, especially in terms of partnership in the development of the southern hemisphere (particularly Africa) and of access to water for all;

- Responsibility, namely that of the States of the northern and southern hemispheres and that of economic players, especially private enterprises;

- Security, which is not formally on the agenda today but which was the subject of a great deal of thought during the G-8 Finance ministers’ meeting at the end of February and which will continue to be a focus for study in the G-8’s later work. Security means protection against terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, a highly topical subject at the present time;

- The need to do all the above as part of a sustained dialogue between civil society and national governments – what we mean by democratic dialogue.

Over its two days, your workshop is meant to work on three of these themes – particularly on the spirit of responsibility – in order to show that improvement is needed for both governments and enterprises. Corporate governance needs to be improved, but this is an objective that also applies to national governments and representatives of civil society. All concerned must endeavour to increase transparency and effectiveness so that this spirit of responsibility can thrive.

In terms of the strengthening of democracy, in all cases a strengthening of the dialogue between civil society and national governments will be necessary.

Regarding solidarity, the latter is of course the first theme, the one with the highest priority for the G-8, and clearly the one to which you will be devoting the greater part of your attention.

What was said on 22 February, when the G-7 Finance ministers met in this room? Together, we affirmed our commitment to addressing the challenge of poverty and to building on the positive outcomes of Monterrey and Johannesburg, not only underlining the need to mobilise greater financial resources, not to put too fine a point on it, but also – and this is the theme of your workshop – the need to improve the effectiveness of aid. The latter means more spending, perhaps, but also better spending, the definition of quantified targets of one kind or another, and, naturally, a crucial focus on growth-oriented policies.

All of these elements enabled us to reaffirm our support for the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in the areas of health, education, and water supply. We also reaffirmed our determination to deal in priority with the Highly-Indebted Poor Countries and the Global Health Fund, and we underscored, with special emphasis, the necessity of giving thought to the countries of Africa through the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) initiative. And, of course, we reiterated the need for all of these countries to improve their governance and to demonstrate solid policy performance if they wish to encourage us to back their policies.

Two specific French messages in these domains are quite straightforward. First of all, despite the fact that we are already one of the principal contributors of aid to developing countries, we have made a pledge – one that we will abide by regardless of the difficulties involved – to ultimately increase our aid efforts to 0.7% of GDP as recommended by the UN. We are aiming at a percentage of 0.5% over five years and we have begun to increase our aid efforts as of 2003.

Secondly, it is clear that we share with you the view that it is necessary to improve the effectiveness of our aid, and the effectiveness of aid in general, this being the responsibility of both those who are its beneficiaries and those who provide it.

Therefore, we must – and this concerns not only France but also the whole community of developed nations – focus our aid if we are to be certain that it is not being wasted or dissipated, and that it is leading to tangible, measurable results. We must, however, avoid falling into the trap of forgetting that, for the poorest countries, aid is an absolute necessity.

We are also convinced that the harmonisation of procedures is a condition that, while not sufficient in and of itself, is nevertheless a necessity if aid effectiveness is to be improved. On 25 February last, there was a meeting in Rome that I believe facilitated progress regarding the harmonisation of aid from the developed countries, since it should now become possible to improve aid efficiency by reducing the administrative burden involved in managing the multiple aid formats currently being provided to beneficiary countries.

I emphasise this point since it is our view that conditions must be established to keep the overheads involved in implementing aid as low as possible in order to ensure that the maximum amount of aid arrives at its destination. We have put forward a recommendation to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) relating to such co-ordination and harmonisation of the practices of donor nations, as was already the case for the least advanced countries, a recommendation that should be incorporated into the practices and policies of all countries. We also considered it desirable for the Development Assistance Committee to create a working group to measure the effectiveness of aid with respect to all those involved, in particular UN agencies and multilateral banks. This Committee should have a clear remit and, above all, it must work according to a timetable – we all do our best work when there are time constraints.

Where evaluation is concerned, of course, the Committee must also work in close conjunction with the DAC Working Party on Aid Evaluation and, more generally, with all those involved in aid evaluation.

The third and fourth points on which we are endeavouring to make progress involve the maximisation of the impact of the aid provided; and, if it is to be maximised, we need to measure it, hence the need to put in place a means of measuring the impact, to proceed with the actual measurements, and then, finally, to learn the lessons that need to be learned. All this is straightforward in the world of enterprise – in the broadest sense of this term – but it is a little more complicated in the areas of concern to us here. That fact should not prevent us, however, from working together to arrive at appropriate ways of doing this because, as I have said, measurement makes effectiveness possible. In this domain, it is clear that the World Bank can, in my estimation, continue to play a major role as forerunner.

Lastly, we feel that development must take into account the need to show solidarity with future generations – hence the notion of sustainable development and the preservation of the environment. Water supply is a specific case of this, and very probably one of the issues, along with AIDS, regarding which we must try our best to create conditions where the effectiveness of our aid leads as swiftly as possible to significant progress.

As you may be aware, Mr. Camdessus has led an international working group, testifying to the scale of the efforts we must make if we are to attain and maintain the Millennium Development Goals, and in this context we have the further intention, in our role as President of the G-8, of proposing an action plan focussing on water to our partners in Evian in May.

Your objectives, which I share, are reflected to a certain extent in the notion of “redevabilité”, a French term of Latin origin that means to render accounts or to be answerable for something. I feel that to render accounts, to be accountable to those who have agreed to make efforts for the sake of others, is a good way of translating this concept, though the word “redevabilité” in French doesn’t really cover the whole idea; I myself think that “rendre compte” in French – “accountability” in English – better expresses the power of the underlying concept.

Based on the ideas that you have developed, it is clear that this need for accountability is an indispensable complement to all the auditing systems that exist not only for those economic players not subject to market forces but for all other players as well. Such accountability must not only be rigorous, it must also be applied independently, and it must of course meet a certain number of standards, which you will perhaps begin to draw the broad outlines of in the course of your work.

However, accountability is also, as we have already seen, a means of improving the capacity of public aid, and it is for this reason that we are looking forward, with great interest, to seeing how far you are able to go in designing procedures, or in giving consideration to practices already in place in this field, that will allow us all to leave this workshop with a clearer idea of what we must do to improve our aid practices if we wish to continue to show a bit of generosity, a bit of courage, and a bit of boldness. All of this boils down to the idea that, if we wish to be able to continue taking the well-being of others into account, we need to feel that we are doing so effectively.

Such effectiveness in pursuit of helping others must henceforth, I believe, be part and parcel of a more sustained dialogue with civil society and, of course, with all the States involved, hence the interest with which I note that civil society, in the broad sense of the term, is very well represented here. I should like to express the wish that, together, you will be able to perform useful work that will both let you yourselves feel that you have learned something and allow us to benefit from the results of the lessons you have learned together.

And so I come to the end of what I wanted to say to you regarding a subject that you, as professionals, are more familiar with than I. I wished quite simply to say to you something of great importance, and this is that underlying the topics you are addressing a great deal is at stake and that the more we are all convinced that we have effective ways of implementing and measuring the impact of the aid we give, the more we shall have the courage and boldness to increase the amount we give. Aid cannot, however, make up for a lack of capacity on the part of the countries concerned to take themselves in hand, nor can it eliminate the necessity of doing so. Aid is indispensable, and will continue to be so in the future if we wish to build a world that is not only sustainable but also worth living in. Consequently, I look forward to the opportunity of hearing what my staff has to say regarding the results of your work, which is of use not only to you but to all and which comes at a particularly important moment in world history, when we find ourselves facing up to a world full of challenges.

I appreciate your kind attention, and wish you a good day. Thank you.

© Ministère de l’Économie, des Finances et de l’Industrie, 09/04/2003