China, India opt out of OECD-backed meet
April 17, 2014, 11:33 am

Head of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Angel Gurria, centre, and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, react, prior to their meeting at the OECD headquarters in Paris, Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014 [AP]

In a major blow to the first High-level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) which was held in Mexico City on April 15, the two major economies, China and India said they had misgivings about whether the conference would protect concerns of developing economies.

The two-day meeting brought together over 1,500 participants, including heads of State and Government, to build on commitments made at the 4th High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held in 2011 in Busan, Korea.

The global partnership was created at the Busan meeting and had aimed to bring together aid donors and recipients, emerging economies, civil society organisations, private sector companies to eradicate poverty.

The conference jointly organized by OECD, the Paris-based club of rich countries, could lose sheen as China and India boycott the high-profile meet.

India and China said they had specific issues of concern on aspects relating to developing countries especially with regards to South-South cooperation.

The two sides were also concerned that the Mexico High Level Meeting Communiqué, adopted after the meeting concluded, would become a “binding input” to UN processes especially when all member states were not present at the meeting.

Even the G-77 bloc, a critical grouping of 133 developing nations, did not participate in the meeting due to concerns with certain provisions of South-South cooperation.

The Mexico communiqué also noted that to achieve global development, the international community must “muster” political will for “bold and sustained action” for shared development, improved gender equality, and the promotion and protection of human rights.

China and India have maintained that poverty eradication should be the main pillar of global development, and not linked with issues like human rights protection.

The communiqué noted that the principles, commitments, actions and working arrangements agreed in the outcome document of the Busan forum and in the Mexico meeting shall be references for South-South partners on a voluntary basis.

The outcome document noted that the results of the GPEDC meeting would be submitted as “inputs” to “all convergent intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder processes”, including the UN Development Cooperation Forum, the the UN International Conference on Small Island Developing States, the International Conference on Financing for Development, and the UN deliberations to devise the Post 2015 Development Agenda.

Indian agency PTI quotes officials sources as saying India had concerns over these aspects of the communiqué since it linked the messages and results of the GPEDC meeting to other UN processes.

 Source: Agencies