1. Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se will attend as the head delegate of the Republic of Korea the third International Conference on Financing for Development, which will be held in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa from July 13 through 16.

◦ The forthcoming meeting will mark the third of its kind following the first and the second held in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2002 and in Doha, Qatar, in 2008, respectively. In the meeting, the participants will review the progress in the implementation of the measures agreed upon at the first and second meetings; and adopt an outcome document containing ways to effectively mobilize finance necessary for the attainment of the post-2015 development goals as well as ways to effectively use it, and guidelines for international cooperation to that end.

◦ The meeting is one of the three largest international conferences to take place in 2015 along with the UN Summit for the Adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda in September and the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December, all of which will determine the future of the global community. It is the view of the international community that the success of the September and December meetings will hinge on the discussions at the International Conference on Financing for Development.

◦ The Addis Ababa meeting will bring together some 7,000 people, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and heads of other UN agencies, President Kim Yong of the World Bank, government delegates from UN member states and representatives of civil societies. The ROK delegation will be comprised of officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the Korea International Cooperation Agency and the Export-Import Bank of Korea.

◦ The ROK, which acceded to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization For Economic Cooperation And Development (OECD) in 2010, will attend the meeting as an emerging donor country. At the meeting, the country will share its experience of achieving sustainable development through the effective mobilization of domestic resources and investment in education. It will also convey its position on ways to increase and diversify financing resources for poverty eradication and sustainable development of the international community and ways to put them to effective use.

3. Minister Yun will deliver a keynote speech focused on the ROK’s basic position on financing for development.

◦ The Minister will also attend “The Investment Case for Information,” a side event to be co-hosted by the governments of the ROK, Norway and Ethiopia as well as UNESCO on July 14. He will speak about the lessons reaffirmed by the ROK’s experience in educational development, which included the achievement of basic education over a short period of time after the end of the Korean War and expansion in phases of secondary and higher education in sync with the country’s industrialization policy. In addition, he will highlight the ROK’s willingness to contribute to the international efforts to attain the post-2015 education goals.

◦ On a side note, during his visit to Ethiopia, the Minister will visit the Korean War Veterans Memorial Park; offer encouragement to KOICA’s volunteer workers; and attend the opening ceremony of the “Thank You Small Library,” which will be organized by the ST-EP Foundation, an affiliate of the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

* Ethiopia is the only African country that dispatched troops to the ROK to fight alongside it during the Korean War. Out of its 6,037 soldiers, 122 were killed and 536 were injured.

* unofficial translation