High-Level Forum on Harmonizaton
Welcome and Opening remarks by
Tadao Chino
President
Asian Development Bank
24 February 2003
Rome, Italy
Honorable Mantica, Under Secretary of State,
His Excellency President of Tanzania,
Chairman, OECD-DAC,
MDB Presidents,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is with great pleasure that I join the other distinguished speakers in opening the High Level Forum. I would like to thank the Government of Italy for hosting the Forum. I would also like to thank the High Level Forum Secretariat for all its hard work and professionalism in the preparations for the Forum.
This Forum has brought together key representatives of governments and donors, both multilateral and bilateral. I would like to acknowledge in particular Government representatives from countries in the Asia and Pacific Region. Everyone here has a strategic interest in pursuing more effective cooperation and coordination for better planning, delivery and utilization of official development assistance.
We all know that ODA has an important role to play in supporting and facilitating development, and in particular, in helping realize the shared goal of poverty reduction in the developing countries of each region. However, both at the recipient country level and among donors at the global level, there has been growing concern about the effectiveness of ODA. Evidence is compelling that while donors provide valuable financing and other assistance, their administrative and procedural requirements can be burdensome on recipient countries and divert capacity from other important areas.
It is very important that scarce ODA resources are utilized efficiently. There is a need for donors to both align their activities with the recipient countries' national priorities, and to coordinate more closely and effectively among themselves, so as to maximize possible synergies of assistance and also to avoid unnecessary duplication.
Under my leadership, the Asian Development Bank has been actively engaged in promoting and pursuing beneficial harmonization of our business processes, procedures and practices with those of our development partners. ADB has been a full participant in the MDB technical working groups to produce good practice and principles in priority areas for harmonization. ADB has also cooperated with the OECD-DAC on managing for development results and aid effectiveness, and on aid evaluation.
Very recently, and as an important contribution leading to this High-Level Forum, ADB, in cooperation with the Government of Viet Nam, the Government of Japan, and the World Bank, organized and conducted a regional preparatory workshop on harmonization. That workshop brought together senior officials of many governments, and donor agencies operating in the Asia-Pacific region, who reached important understandings on key guiding principles for future work on harmonization in developing Asia. I encourage everyone here to read carefully the information on that regional workshop, which is provided in the documents for this Forum, and to hear the presentations on that regional workshop in Session 3 today. That Session will also discuss the very important pilot study on harmonization that has been on-going in Viet Nam. A similar pilot study is also planned for the Philippines, and ADB will work closely with the Government and concerned development partners on this important activity.
As a result of our long-standing and broad participation in harmonization, the Asian Development Bank has developed some basic perspectives and understandings on the planning and conduct of harmonization. Let me briefly outline them here.
- Harmonization does not necessarily mean creating a single uniform set of policies and practices adopted by all institutions. Harmonization can be pursued through various "good practice standards and principles" applied by various institutions. We have to maintain a certain level of latitude that will allow each institution to develop under its own mandate, experience, and development conditions in which it operates.
- Harmonization should be "opportunistic" and not excessively planned. To this end, we, ADB and our partners in the region, have generally used four criteria as guides in selecting areas for our harmonization activities. These are:
- One, areas and activities where concrete results can be achieved in a relatively short time frame.
- Two, areas where transaction costs are perceived as significant.
- Three, areas where the existing institutional capacity of the receiving institution is relatively strong, and
- Four, areas where multilateral and bilateral agencies can also benefit from harmonization.
We will continue to use these criteria for planning our future work on harmonization.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Well-designed harmonization among external development partners that reduces administrative costs to developing countries and strengthens their public administration is important for increasing aid effectiveness and achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific. The Asian Development Bank is committed to a strategic application of harmonization that supports country-led development processes. I am pleased to mention that the Asian Development Bank is now an active participant, along with twenty three (23) other donor partners, in the Partnership Website on Country Analytic Work that facilitates coordination and cooperation among countries and donors to improve development impact and cost effectiveness.
In closing, I hope that during the next two days' discussions a clear indication of the progress made, and the various approaches that have been taken to bring about greater commonality and streamlining of our respective areas of harmonization, will become evident, and they will also serve as a good reference for others who will undertake similar harmonization initiatives. I look forward to your active participation and contribution in making this High-Level Forum on Harmonization productive and successful.
A warm welcome to all participants.
Thank you.
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