Senior-Level Meeting of the OECD DAC

Date: 3-4 April 2012

Place: Paris

The 2012 DAC Senior Level Meeting (SLM) opened with a lunchtime discussion to explore the potential contributions of the DAC to UN-led discussions on a post-2015 development framework. To begin the discussion, two experts were invited to share their views.

• Mr. Dirk Messner, Director of the German Development Institute, called for a two-pronged approach to global reflections: building on and broadening the MDGs and addressing global systemic risks. He proposed that the DAC create a highly inclusive reflection group to support UN debates. He also advocated for strong collaboration among OECD policy communities, to reflect a broadening of the development agenda and leverage OECD wide expertise on indicators and measuring progress.
• Mr. Jan Vandemoortele, independent expert on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), stressed the importance of a disciplined, empirical and legitimate process towards 2015 and encouraged the DAC to develop joint positions.

In their comments, members recalled the need to achieve the current MDGs and stressed that discussions on a post-2015 framework would need to consider why (and where) some MDGs were being achieved more successfully than others. They agreed that the process would be as important as the substance, underlining the need for developing country ownership, UN-led co-ordination and an inclusive dialogue with all relevant stakeholders. Members also pointed to a range of broader challenges in the areas of inequality, food security, productivity, governance and sustainable development.

See the background paper for the meeting "Mapping of the Global Development Goals Beyond 2015" here.

More information about the discussions of this meeting can be found in this article published by ITUC.