1993-04-07 12:45 DEL
[UK]
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issues (This is an example of the sort of active outreach by OECD which the Department of Environment and ODA (NRED) have been anxious to encourage, if resources allow, as part of post- UNCED follow up).
5. The only members of the Advisory Board who participated in the subsequent discussion were the UK, the USA, France, Japan, Canada, Finland, Norway, Greece and Switzerland. (The Korean representative who attends the Board has not opened his mouth yet). No-one expressed support for Jean Bonvin's first suggestion: informal style high level meetings of the Dourdan type. Most (including the American Ambassador: quite a climb down from last year) supported Keith MacInnes' view that the Development Centre's dialogue should be within the framework set by the agreed 1993/95 research programme. It should flow from the implementation of this programme and not be something additional to it. (This having been said the main research themes for the next three years are so broad that little is likely to be excluded). We were alone in emphasising the need to conduct the dialogue within existing resources (although the latter is not usually a problem for the Development Centre which can often Lap substantial voluntary contributions from Regional Development Banks or member states to help finance its conference/seminar activities).
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6. The United States in its intervention, while agreeing with us that the dialogue needs to flow from the Centre's research programme, drew attention to the efforts that had been made to ensure that the latter was better integrated with the work of the Development Cooperation Directorate and other OECD Directorates. An integrated multi-disciplinary approach was desirable; also involvement of policy makers from developing countries. But the Americans were not thinking of such contacts in grandiose North/South terms. The OECD's comparative advantage was different. Engaging in dialogue with selected policy makers a limited number of countries via the Centre's workshops/conferences provided an opportunity to influence countries towards the OECD model without the heavy pressure of conditionality. The USA was attracted to a regional approach to such meetings. More and more the United States was discovering that this was the most effective way of tackling development problems (eg the Caribbean Basin initiative; the Enterprise of the Americans initiative etc). Issues such as democratisation, trade and investment were often best discussed in a regional context. The USA was not at all attracted by Dourdan style informal high level meetings..
7.
The French intervention was largely a paean of praise for the Development Centre and a plea for it to keep in close touch with the Development Assistance Committee in order to inject some reality into the latter's discussions now that it was progressing from technical aid issues to discussion of broader development themes ! The French highly appreciated the Centre's dialogue with developing countries. The forthcoming workshop in Vietnam was an example of how valuable its outreach activities were.