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MONTERREY,
Mexico -- Jean-Claude Faure is Director of the
Development Assistance Committee (DAC), an arm
of the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD). It is a platform for discussion
and review for the 22 donor nations to coordinate
their official development assistance (ODA) polices.
Founded before the OECD, which has now expanded
to 30 members, it has played an important role
in influencing aid, from untying aid for the
poorest
of nations to documenting aid trends. Far from
his Paris office, Faure is in Monterrey to present
the DAC´s latest report, and to provide
on-the-scene assistance to its members.
Describe
the DAC and how you help your member countries?
The DAC is a committee in which you find all
the world's donors around the table. That means
that all official assistance providers, in
a sense, are on the committee. Donors are those
countries that give high volumes of their domestic
resources for ODA. So this is the group where
ODA comes from-the entire ODA in the world,
or 99-point-something percent, comes from that
group of countries. We are their committee
in the OECD. It is a place where we discuss
policies, orientation. We discuss guidelines
for future actions; we discuss best practices;
we promote best practices.
Do you ever talk to the developing world?
Yes, of course. The developing world is not
a member of the DAC, because they are not members
of the OECD. But you cannot discuss these issues
about development in absentia, so to speak.
I mean they have to be there and we have to
consult them, so we invite them sometimes.
We organize meetings with them, we discuss
with them, and of course we discuss with them
more and more in depth when we review the policies
of our members in developing countries. One
of the features of the DAC, maybe the main
one, is that we have a system of peer reviews.
Each year, six member countries of the DAC
have their development policies reviewed by
other members. We discuss the conclusions so
these countries know better the shortcomings
of their policies, what are insufficient results
on this or that front, what should be improved
in policies, etc. The peer review system is
very important.
What do you think of the American and European
announcements of increased aid?
This is very welcome. I will not say it is
overdue, but it is welcome at this juncture.
Of course we don't know that it will be sustained.
But, in a sense, we know the sustainability
is built in there. When the EU moves to open
0.39 percent of their average GNP, provided,
of course, that you have some growth-around
2 percent is expected for the EU-that means
that it will bring in $9 billion more ODA year
after year. Which is not nothing if you compare
it to the $53-54 billion overall that we got
in 2000. And the States tell us that in three
years, starting in 2004, they will give $5
billion more of ODA-that's very important also.
That shows that what we are witnessing these
days is the crystallization of political will,
plus commitment to the future, poverty reduction,
and the capacities to do it. It may crystallize,
provided ODA is given in a manner which will
ensure the effectiveness of the process. That
means good policies in developing countries;
that means good practices for us in the DAC.
The Americans really reject 0.7 percent as
their goal, whereas the Europeans look at 0.7
percent as their ultimate goal. What do you
think of these two different approaches-is
one right, is one wrong?
I would not take it that way. I think of 0.7
as a mobilizing objective, as an omega so to
speak, as a star we have to follow. That may
help in providing this money; in mobilizing
our public opinion and convincing our finance
ministers that they have to move in that direction.
That is be the case for many countries, and
after all the Nordic countries in the EU, the
Netherlands, and some others show us that this
target has been instrumental for them in practical
terms. They decided to reach it, they have
reached it, and some of them went beyond it.
It's important, but maybe in some other cases
it's less important.
In the case of the United States?
Yes,
and so what? Globally that level of assistance
has
never been reached as a whole. DAC countries
have peaked at an average of some 0.3 percent,
so it's less than half the target. And, at
the time, maybe ODA was not enough. We had
forgotten about the target when, between 1992
and 1997, we went from 0.33 to 0.22 percent
and in the process lost "about 100 billion
in ODA" that would have been provided
if we had kept to our levels. This number,
0.7 percent, has been set as a target many
years ago by the Pearson commission.
Is it realistic?
At the time it was coming from evaluation
and calculation. These people, who were the
best experts in development issues at the time,
had found that flows to developing countries
should reach at least one percent of the GDP
of developed countries if we want to sustain
a dynamic process of development. And then
they said, okay, one percent cannot be provided
by private flows, because private flows to
developing countries are very low. So, 0.7
percent [of GDP] had to be in the form of aid.
Of course the situation is very different now,
and the private flows have increased dramatically
and are now much more important than ODA. So
that type of calculation is a thing of the
past. Maybe a new calculation should be provided.
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