They should be completed in two directions

You are Director of the strategy of the French Development Agency. What are the guidelines

The Agence française de développement (AFD) has three missions in the implementation of the French policy of financing for development: the reduction of poverty, the promotion of economic growth and the protection of a number of collective interests - the "global public goods" - as the fight against climate change or the protection of biodiversity. The economic crisis, we have significantly increased our funding to offset the drying out of the private financial resources available in our country. AFD group so engaged in 2009 a volume of transactions greater than EUR 6 billion to the benefit of the developing countries and of the departments and communities overseas. Sub-Saharan Africa has received more than 2 billion euros of financing, in line with the commitment announced by President Nicolas Sarkozy, early 2009 in Johannesburg, to devote 10 billion over five years to sub-Saharan Africa. Our operational strategy has three key ideas: partnerships with other donors for bilateral and multilateral, NGO, foundations; diversification of the recipients of our funding - Governments, enterprises, local communities, private enterprises, local NGOs; and innovation, both in terms of financial instruments in terms of the terms of intervention, to provide effective solutions to the needs expressed by our partners. Our craft, called probably wrongly "" public development aid is much upgraded: the financing of development, is not only the gifts!

The commitments of the World Bank reach $ 100 billion, the development assistance Committee announcing an increase in public assistance in 2009. The money dedicated to development is, and yet, the Millennium development goals will not be achieved. How do you explain it

Our global economy needs global public policies to meet the same challenges as those to which our countries have responded by national public policies, including in terms of regulation, distribution of income, allocation of resources and public goods production. The Fund is dedicated to the financing for development remain notoriously inadequate to these challenges, and goes far beyond a transfer of income from the rich countries to poor countries on the basis of a well thought charity. With regard to the objectives of the Millennium, which would be favourable to the reduction of poverty, the facilitation of access of populations to water, to the improvement of maternal health or to the reduction of infant mortality Progress has been made. But believe that association of quantitative indicators, timelines global (2015) and increased public support would be sufficient to overcome the obstacles and delays of the action is an illusion. From my point of view, it would be useful to build these targets in universal rights, then decline, in each country, programs of public policies to achieve in a calendar more adapted to local characteristics.

Precisely, how would you define the development

First, development is not reduced to a few indicators. How to measure the economic, social and environmental performance The work of the Stiglitz commission confirmed the shortcomings of the gross domestic product (GDP), which reflects the individual life or sustainability. Beyond the extent of the overall added value in a country, it must take into account the distribution of income and the perennial nature of development. Our development instruments must, in my opinion, further integrate income inequality and environmental constraints. Then, there is a kind of naivete permanent suggests that it is "our development" which defines the standard. In fact, "underdevelopment" affects a majority of the world's population, which shows the complexity and the historically unlikely nature of the process called "development". The consideration of climate and environmental challenges also shows need to invent new ways of growth and distribution to improve the living conditions of individuals. Finally, some consider democracy as a prerequisite for development. This vision of causation does not stand up to the test of history and recent examples of rapid development. The democratic maturity is rather a goal, I intégrerais even within a more comprehensive definition of development. The commission headed by the Nobel Prize in economics, Michael Spence, who made his report in May 2008, also showed that the trajectories of development diversity, including illustrating the role of local leadership. There is not a single recipe

development.

You think development assistance should not be only multilateral

The financing for development implies an effort of the national taxpayers to finance operations of development in third countries. It is therefore a fundamentally political act, it is therefore normal and important that it be assumed in part at the national level. One of the issues today is the construction of global public policy. And, in doing so, we need to deepen the political dialogue at the highest level. We find here "high politics" issues - high policy - such as those that are known immediately after the second world war with the reconstruction of the international system. The post-war world. A country such as the France must contribute to the construction of the necessary global coalitions and defend its interests and values. Development finance institutions are, among other actors, and belts in the construction of this collective action, and it is one of the roles to strengthen bilateral policy of financing for development. A centralized approach to the problem, with a hat institution, would not be a good idea. So there is a role for all: the World Bank, the international monetary fund, the United Nations, the regional development banks, bilateral actors, NGOs, foundations, etc. It is a kind of "market of the aid" must learn to structure, by the Exchange and the flow of information, innovation and joint actions, the definition of principles shared.

Development assistance only could not be consolidated, reorganized, or reinvention

Financing for development policy in fact meet three major objectives that the term "assistance" describes only very imperfectly. The first is the beginning of a global social policy of redistribution of income, which need will persist even if eradicating "absolute" poverty, defined by the access to the conditions of survival, because the objective of reducing inequalities remain. The second is the quest for greater efficiency in the allocation of resources. It was believed naively that the liberalization and deregulation would allow resources to be allocated more effectively. However, the spontaneous functioning of markets does not guarantee this objective. We need global regulations, but also public funding aimed at correcting market failures. For example, the information asymmetry is one of the reasons, among others, for which foreign investment are very unevenly divided depending on the country. AFD being implemented locally, we have a thorough knowledge of countries allowing us, by our partnerships and our instruments, including security, bridging the information divide. The third objective is the search for international collective action to protect common interests. The climate, biodiversity, it is the case of all: there is a need for the Chinese, Indians, Americans. Thus, the AFD intervenes in China, not to the title "development assistance", but to initiate the search for common solutions and contribute to save tons of carbon emitted through the progress of energy efficiency in buildings and in the production.

Some argue that public development aid, as defined by the Committee for development of the OECD, to be "catch-all". Should reform and the Committee and this definition

The OECD (DAC) Development Assistance Committee plays a fundamental role in coordination of the donors. However, it is now facing two challenges. First, this coordination is essentially about traditional donors, while relevant actors include "new donors" of China and the India for example, but also, philanthropic foundations and many NGOs. Second, the CAD is custodian of a statistical definition of the public development aid that is more truly the different missions of the financing for development. While these measures feed the discussion, can reveal deficiencies and anomalies and discuss them. They should be completed in two directions. On the one hand, we would like to have a clearer view of the budgetary effort by donor countries, i.e. a measure of the cost of the public financing of development for the taxpayer. On the other hand, should follow a battery of indicators to assess the results of this budget effort: that is 1 euro for the taxpayer can do, in terms of volumes of available development financing and in terms of results Measurement plays a very important orientation role: "What gets measured, gets done."