Seoul G20 Summit: How can Asia help Africa?

Nov 10th, 2010 4:19 PM UTC
By Tom Wallace

This is the first blog post from ONE intern Tom Wallace, who works in our UK office. Please give him a warm welcome!

The G20, a combination of finance ministers from twenty of the world’s most influential economies, meet in Seoul this week to discuss how to promote development in the poorest nations. Building on commitments made at the G20 in Toronto, under the leadership of South Korea, the G20 has been looking at the conditions that generate development success.

The findings of this research will be presented in Seoul. It is expected that the research will highlight the importance of economic growth as a driving factor in generating poverty reduction. Building on this, it is expected that G20 governments will make commitments to focus more of their efforts on helping generate the conditions needed to stimulate economic growth. This will most likely mean a shift in the focus of government support toward improving infrastructure, increasing financial inclusion, securing private investments, assisting good governance and encouraging food security.

While some may consider this a departure from the traditional poverty reduction techniques Jamie Drummond, executive director of ONE, said “This isn’t a false choice between aid on the one hand and growth or governance on the other — we need a joint agenda combining good aid, good growth and good governance because smart assistance will be needed to help build infrastructure for growth and strengthen governance systems, as well as tackle basic needs in health and hunger in the medium term. Sustainable equitable growth can create the long term prosperity to reduce and ultimately eliminate the need for any aid.”

Want to learn more? Download a copy of “The G20 and Africa: Can an Asian tiger help the African lions roar?”, our Seoul summit pitch on inclusive growth in Africa.

TAGS: Africa, Development Assistance, G20, ONE, Policy News, South Korea