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Past Event

Global Economy and Development Briefing

Can Innovative Financing Help Close the Gap on the Millennium Development Goals?

Macroeconomics, International Finance, Development, Global Economics, Multilateral Development Banks


Event Summary


Moderator:
Vice President and Director, Global Economy and Development, The Brookings Institution

Panelists:
The Honorable Ngozi Okonjo
Minister of Finance, Nigeria
Michael Klein
Chief Economist, International Finance Corporation
David de Ferranti
Distinguished Visiting Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Hiroto Arakawa
Director General, Japan Bank for International Cooperation
Pierre Jacquet
Executive Director and Chief Economist, Agence Française de Développement
Bruno Wenn
Senior Vice President, KfW Development Bank


Contact: Emily McWithey
Phone: 202/797-6066

As financial leaders and national representatives from around the globe converge upon Washington, D.C. for the semi-annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the Brookings Institution, in partnership with the development banks of France, Japan and Germany, will hold a briefing to examine the potential for innovative financial mechanisms to help close the gap between the lofty international goals and the grim realities of official aid budgets.

Event Information

When

Monday, September 26, 2005
9:30 AM to 11:30 AM

Where

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Map

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

E-mail: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

With advocates calling for huge increases in foreign assistance and major official donors confronting severe budgetary pressures at home, innovative financing mechanisms will be critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The briefing will be moderated by Lael Brainard, vice president and director of Global Economy and Development at Brookings, and will feature a dynamic group of panelists including: the Honorable Ngozi Okonjo, minister of finance for Nigeria; Michael Klein, chief economist, International Finance Corporation; David de Ferranti, distinguished visiting fellow at Brookings; Hiroto Arakawa, director general, Japan Bank for International Cooperation; Pierre Jacquet, executive director and chief economist, Agence Française de Développement; and Bruno Wenn, senior vice president, KfW Development Bank.

A question and answer session will follow remarks.

Transcript

PIERRE JACQUET: Our purpose here is to invite us to think about a new paradigm of government aid as compared to the dominant product. And historically, of course, aid is always balanced between two kinds of mothers, one being poverty reduction and redistribution of income and the other one being promoting growth.

But the general paradigm behind that is the following. There is a wide spread in extreme poverty in a number of developing countries. In many of them, there is insufficient growth. And this points to inadequate public policies, inadequate pro-growth policies and poor governance. And in response the public aid program and the public aid authorities focus on government-to-government relations.

I think actions based on this paradigm are both necessary and useful. But my purpose here is to argue that the paradigm provides only part of the story and that much progress can be made in the world on the effectiveness of development assistance by moving to a more ambitious and more modern paradigm.

Read the full transcript (PDF—168kb)


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