We the development ministers of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States believe that a greater focus on sustainable development results is urgently needed. Results for people living in poverty will be at the core of our future aid and development effectiveness commitments. We reaffirm our commitment to support partner countries in their efforts to achieve sustainable development results in anticipation of the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea.
The last decade has seen some of the fastest progress in poverty reduction in human history. To a large extent this results from rapid growth due to market economic reforms in emerging economies and integration of the global economy. Global aid has also played its part — despite the economic downturn, global official development assistance (ODA) has grown by 35 percent since 2004 (OECD DAC statistics in 2010). This has come from developed countries and, increasingly, also from emerging economies and the private sector. Poverty, unemployment and lack of social and economic opportunities are still widespread. Conflict-affected and fragile states continue to be the furthest away from achieving the Millennium Development Goals. And the world of development cooperation is more fragmented than ever.
The Paris Declaration was a major step in making sure that the scaling up of development funds is matched with a higher effectiveness in the way the money is being spent. It was endorsed in 2005 at the second High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness and provided a ground breaking set of common principles for improving the quality and impact of aid. It also provided a series of commitments that could be measured and monitored during the following five years. The Paris Declaration has led to improvements in how development funds are spent, but we acknowledge that more can be done. We want to make sure that money spent on international development cooperation supports the initiative and ownership of our country partners and decreases their dependency on international assistance through producing better results. We want to catalyse other sources of potential finance and support, both private and public, and make sure it is provided in a more coherent way. And we want to demonstrate better value for money to citizens of partner countries and our citizens.
Building on the agreed principles in Paris, the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea, next week is a critical event. It brings together Heads of State, Ministers, multilateral institutions, development experts, youth, parliamentarians and private sector representatives from developed and developing countries as well as civil society organizations to produce a new more inclusive consensus for development results. Together we must forge a new partnership based on common principles for effective development cooperation so that we may join forces to promote the sort of development outcomes we all aspired to in the Millennium Development Goals.
We believe the key priorities for Busan are focusing on better development results, increasing transparency, strengthening democratic governance and accountability, mobilising the potential contributions of the private sector and other actors to development effectiveness, and finding new ways to engage fragile and conflict affected states. We will work to increase our accountability to partner countries, as well as to our respective taxpayers, while helping to get the best outcomes to improve the lives of people living in poverty. We will also build a broader global partnership for development cooperation, fully recognising the important role played by the emerging economies and other actors in development, such as the private sector, foundations and civil society and further enable partner countries to exercise leadership for their progress.
While we firmly believe that the responsibility and accountability for sustainable and inclusive development ultimately lie with our developing country partner governments, we emphasise accountability as a responsibility for all development actors.
We approach Busan confident that all participants will be ready to engage in this important milestone with us.
