Events

Under the patronage of the President of the French Republic, and at the invitation of the Minister for Foreign and European affairs, the Sixth plenary session of the Leading group on innovative financing took place in Paris on May 28th and 29th.

This high-level conference marks an important step in international mobilisation for these mechanisms before the next General Assembly of the United nations in September, during which a report on innovative financing by the Secretary general will be made public.

Three years after its foundation, the Leading group on innovative financing for development can be pleased with the importance these instruments for development have taken, especially in a period of economic crisis.

The unanimous recognition of their usefulness and their direct impact on development aid have pushed the international community to propose a “scaling up” of these resources complementary to traditional development, as attested by the recent Doha Declaration in December 2008 and the declaration of the European Union in November 2008.

This international mobilisation, which was the very reason for founding the Leading group, is the result of significant advances by different presidencies of the Leading group since 2006. In this context, our sixth Plenary session will seek to pursue this new dynamics and set new concrete engagements.

This conference was also the occasion to host, at the same moment, the third meeting of the high-level taskforce on innovative financing on health systems co-chaired by Mr. Gordon Brown and Mr. Robert Zoellick.

Please find below the draft version of the Paris conference programme:

  Read the aricle by Bernard Kouchner on Innovative Financing for Development (Paris, 28 May 2009)

"Engines for growth are in the South and we still haven’t learned that in helping them develop, we are helping ourselves emerge from the crisis. Decisions taken at the G20 meeting in London at the impetus of President Sarkozy are crucial in this regard to our collective action. Innovative financing plays a driving role in this."

  Read the speech by Bernard Kouchner (Paris, 28 May 2009)

"Innovative financing has passed its test. It is no longer in the experimental stage. It has already produced over $2 billion dollars in three years.

But there is still an enormous need for financing: to ensure primary education for all, improve maternal health, combat hunger and the great pandemics, guarantee environmentally-friendly development, etc. We know that $175 billion is needed every year at the global level to finance climate mitigation policy. We all know that $35 billion is needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in the health sector alone."