1. Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se attended the First High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (hereafter Busan Global Partnership) in Mexico City on April 15-16 as the head of the ROK government delegation. At the Meeting, he delivered a keynote speech under the theme “from Busan to Mexico.”

o The Meeting brought together around 1,300 senior officials and experts on development from some 130 countries, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

2. Minister Yun was invited as the only keynote speaker at the First Plenary Session of the Meeting. His speech focused on the achievements the Busan Global Partnership has made in international development cooperation since the 2011 High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, as well as the ROK government’s position on the way forward.

3. Recognizing that there is an urgent need to institutionalize the Busan Global Partnership, a newly-created global platform for development cooperation, as the launch of the post-2015 development agenda draws near, Minister Yun announced the ROK-led “global initiative to implement the Busan Global Partnership” and it received huge support and responses from participants.

o Through the initiative, the ROK aims to actively support the international community’s implementation of the Busan commitments by holding an international meeting every year to review the progress in the implementation of those commitments. The ROK also aims to facilitate the institutionalization of the Busan Global Partnership so that the Partnership can establish itself as a key mechanism for development cooperation.

o The ROK’s hosting of an international meeting on the Busan Global Partnership on an annual basis will be reflected in the outcome document “communiqué” of the latest High-Level Meeting and officially approved as an operating system of the Busan Global Partnership.

4. In his speech, Minister Yun also stressed that the ROK, as a new provider, is working to advance its development cooperation program and enhance its effectiveness by applying the Busan principles to the ROK government’s development cooperation policy. He announced that the ROK government is seeking to join the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) by 2015 in order to live up to the principle of transparency, one of the core principles agreed on at the 2011 High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan.

5. The invitation to Minister Yun to deliver a keynote speech at the Plenary Session of the latest High-Level Meeting is seen as the result of the ROK’s active contribution to making progress in the Busan Global Partnership, including the hosting of the 2011 High-Level Forum in Busan, activities in the Steering Committee of the Partnership, and the hosting of three international meetings in preparation for the latest High-Level Meeting.

6. Despite its short history as a donor, the ROK has steadily elevated its status as an agenda setter in international development during the process of launching the Busan Global Partnership and implementing the Busan commitments. Minister Yun’s attendance at the High-Level Meeting helped solidify the ROK’s influence and status in the international development arena and maintain its ownership of the Busan Global Partnership. 


                      Spokesperson and Deputy Minister for Public Relations of MOFA

*unofficial translation