- engage with representative business associations and others to improve the policy, legal, regulatory, and institutional environment for private investment, including foreign direct investment, public-private partnership, and strengthening of value chains,
- enable the participation of the private sector in the design and implementation of development policies and strategies,
- further develop innovative financial mechanism to mobilize private finance,
- promote “aid for trade”, as an engine of sustainable development and,
- encourage public and private sectors and related organizations to advance the mutually reinforcing development and business outcomes.
At the same time, the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) was launched, as an open platform for the exchange of knowledge and the regular review of progress, to support and ensure accountability for the implementation of the Busan principles at the political level. Embracing diversity, the GPEDC includes members from developing and developed countries, international financial institutions, parliaments, private sector entities, philanthropic foundations, trade unions, and civil society organizations.
The First High-Level Meeting (HLM) of the GPEDC was held in Mexico City in April, 2014, with more than 2,000 participants. Among the five priority work streams of domestic resource mobilization, knowledge-sharing, south-south/triangular co-operation, and middle-income countries, was private business as a development partner. Together with the other multilateral development banks, the IDB provided inputs to help set the agenda, organizing two focus sessions and bringing in several speakers for those sessions. One such session, ”Proving Prosperity in Public-Private Sector Cooperation”, was jointly organized with the German Development Cooperation, the Donor’s Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED), and the International Finance Cooperation (IFC), in which an overview of the various instruments used for measuring development impact of the private sector was presented.
The overall takeaways from the private-sector related sessions included the importance of the public sector to reduce risk for private investors in emerging markets, the central role of catalytic finance for the development finance agenda, and opportunities for private companies to achieve both business and development objectives through their core work. After the Mexico HLM meeting, workshops were held in Seoul in November 2014 and Brussels in January 2015 to follow up implementation of GPEDC initiatives and develop work plans towards the next HLM through active engagement of GPEDC stakeholders.
Throughout the preparation process of the Busan high-level forum and the actual implementation process of the GPEDC, a multi-stakeholder platform called Partnership for Prosperity (P4P) has been instrumental in leading the private-sector related activities, including defining priority areas for the private sector themes in the global discussions, facilitating participation of business representatives in key events, and leading specific initiatives under the GPEDC. Composed mainly of governments, business representatives, and international organizations, P4P provides a unique forum to share knowledge, innovative ideas and initiatives, as well as build on strategic partnerships with the private sector in contributing to inclusive and sustainable development. Based on its close collaboration with P4P in advance of the GPEDC HLM, and given its mandate to leverage the role of the private sector to the Bank’s institutional strategy, the IDB joined P4P as a formal member in January 2015. The IDB is pleased to be working closely with the German Development Cooperation and other partners for the Building Evidence work stream, which aims at improving the measurement of results of private and public partnerships by sharing the variety of tools and approaches applied by private business and highlighting their best practices. Our goal for this collaborative effort is to bring public and private development practitioners together to explore the use of common metrics and tools, and apply them widely.
Through our engagement with the GPEDC and active participation in P4P, we will continue to contribute to the global efforts to enhance the effectiveness of development co-operation, particularly the leveraging role of private sector to promote inclusive and sustainable development.
Learn more about the work of the GPEDC at http://effectivecooperation.org/.
* Ichiro Toda is Lead Development Effectiveness Specialist in the Private Sector Department at the IDB
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