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The CGD Podcast
CGD Podcast: Development Leadership with Siti Nugraha Mauludiah and Bård Vegar Solhjell
00:33:56
The co-hosts of the 2024 Development Leaders Conference—CGD's Mikaela Gavas, Siti Nugraha Mauludiah from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Indonesia, and Norad's Bård Vegar Solhjell—share their takeaways from the event, including the diverse...
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Covid climate and conflicts, the United nations, the World bank, private actors, locally rooted.
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Institutions, locally rooted experts.
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What we're really talking about is a very complex ecosystem. How do we find the interlinks to innovate and come up with the best solutions to actually rethink what we do as a broader development community?
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You're listening to the CGD podcast where we explore smarter policies for a better world.
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Welcome to CGD's podcast. I'm Michaela Gavas. I'm the Managing Director of the center for Global Development. And I'm joined today by two distinguished colleagues. Siti Maulodia, Director General of Information and Public Diplomacy at the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign affairs, and Bord Vega Solel, Director General of norad, both of whom we have partnered with as the co hosts of the Development Leaders Conference that we have just concluded here in Bali, Indonesia. Now, the Development Leaders Conference is CGD's annual conference, now in its seventh year. And the conference brings together senior officials from bilateral agencies, multilateral organizations and development banks, as well as policy strategists and leading thinkers in a unique and private setting under the Chatham House rule, where they really focus on the strategic challenges and opportunities they face, where they can exchange views and experiences, and crucially, where they can learn about each other, about their different approaches, and work towards forging new partnerships. Now, this year's conference was particularly noteworthy for the enhanced participation of the emerging development cooperation providers, some of whom are also recipients of international support at the same time. And I was particularly struck by both the differences, but also the similarities in the perspectives across these two groups. So I'd like to ask you both what your overall takeaways were from the conversations which we've just concluded over the past two days. And perhaps I can start with you, Siti.
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B
Well, I would like to echo the broader participation of emerging development partners, enrich the discussion. We heard so many perspectives. Even within the groups, there's also different perspectives. This is the second time I joined the Farmer Leaders Conference and the first time it was in Oslo. I think at that time the conversation more towards the developed donors, you know, the traditional donors, the issues and challenges that you were facing. But today, in these two days meeting in Bali, the issues are also very pertinent to us. You know, the issues discussed from the first session until the fifth session, for instance, the ODA reform. Before listening to the conversation here, we see it rather skeptical, you know, that you are taking away the 30% of ODA for one specific focus. For instance, climate change. We were wary about that. But then listening to the reason behind it yesterday, we understand more that it's not about only, you know, focusing on climate change, but some initiatives also, you know, creating the adaptation to climate change. So for us it's encouraging so that, okay, there's a shifting, but we are still talking about, you know, the need for developing countries to adapt and then mitigate climate change. The reform of ODA really is very timely because in Global south we are going to have the 70th anniversary of African Asia African Conference where we would like to show that the solidarity of Global south is enhanced. But at the same time this is also being supported by the Global north because, you know, no matter how much we are doing, how many or much resources we put into it, it cannot really, you know, like replace what the Global north has provided. So I think in the conversation of the reform, we would like to really involved in that so that we make sure that the interest of the Global south is also represented in the reform itself.
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A
Thank you. Thank you. Siti Bordveka, your takeaways.
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D
I agree with, you know, Siti and what you said also, Michaela, that the big difference between this conference, this roundtable compared to many other events aroundtables. I do, of course, that we both had the Global north and the Global south here as providers or donors of development assistance. While you largely tend to think about traditional European and East Korea, Japan, USS providers and just give, you know, the listeners an idea what kind of countries we're talking about. Of course, Indonesia and Thailand for instance in Asia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Colombia, Argentina, to mention a few that were here. And all these are now providers of development assistance, sometimes referred to as new or emerging. I don't like those words. Many of them aren't especially new really, but still. So two takeaways. First, that it's quite common in our world that a country goes from being poor and receives development assistance to becoming rich. So France received a World bank loan in 1947. So Finland and Japan, no rich countries today received development assistance. And I also know that Greece and Portugal, as late as in the 90s, they were countries that could receive development assistance. ODA were ODA eligible, as we say. So I think that's an important mindset. You know, development is happening, countries are graduating, becoming richer, and that's a very common road for countries. A second takeaway is of course, a bit, you know, the other way around. So if you look at the numbers, if you take away China and some of the Gulf states, it's still totally dominated by what we could refer to as the traditional donors. So many of the emerging donors, in lack of a better word, are still, you know, if you look at the amounts, it's quite, quite limited. So of course what happens in Europe, in North America, in East Asia, the Pacific is still very important to the large sums of development systems.
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A
That's great. So let's talk a little bit more about oda. And clearly something that came out of the conference was around the fact that resource constrained governments are using ODA to meet a broadening array of financing demands, including global challenges such as climate change. And all of this alongside traditional country focused action. And they're doing this at the same time as, without, in fact growing these ODA flows in line with the scale of the challenges faced. So Bordvega, in your view, what should ODA be used for?
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D
So in a generation or so, ODA has grown, you know, it's almost doubled. But in real terms, when you take inflation into account, it hasn't grown a lot. No, rather stable or a little growth, while what it is used for has grown and changed substantially, I would say. And it's not that, you know, this is legal, it's in with, on in the requirements because they are very broad. Its original purpose is of course to reduce or alleviate poverty. Then humanitarian assistance has grown a lot, especially the last 10, 15 years. But because of the rising number of conflicts, it's growing a lot now. Then the big novelty is of course, that it's increasingly being used for global challenges, especially climate mitigation. And if you look at the growth the last 10 years, almost all of it is climate mitigation. Then of course, the last few years, especially in European Development Assistance, but which is a big part of it, support to Ukraine and support to refugee costs in countries has grown a lot. So last year was the first year, at least I know that total ODA development assistance for Europe was bigger than total development assistance for sub Saharan Africa. And I think this kind of challenges are so, you know, when people talk to me about my job, you know, I lead a development agency in Norway and they think I work with the poorest countries in the world helping out poor people there. And I do that. But I also work a lot with climate, you know, and global issues or pandemic preparedness. And now Ukraine is by far the biggest recipient of Norwegian development assistance. So it's like we have a box and we have put a lot more into that box without growing the box a lot. I don't have a solution, but I think we need to have a more structured conversation whether we should think differently about how we support these issues. Poverty elevation is very different from a global challenge like mitigation or I would say a pandemic, the latter one. A pandemic or climate mitigation you can do anywhere in the world. You should do it where it's most effective and it's in this interest of everyone. While of course reducing poverty in a specific country, Somalia or Mali or wherever. It's mostly about solidarity, about helping others out. And maybe we need to think about this. I think one of the challenges, of course there is only one really a tool in the international toolbox of financing and that's development assistance. While challenges have grown and changed. So I think it's a bigger conversation than this. But that's been the best part of the meeting today. I think a lot of people in this room see that we have a challenge here.
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Yeah, and differentiating between those places where aid is absolutely essential for basic services, you know, health, education, and those places where issues are more global in nature.
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Swell, that's correct. And let's say there are now, you know, maybe 20, 30, 40 countries where aid is still quite big part of their budget and financing. Often the poorest countries in the world, many of them in sub Saharan Africa, not all, but many. On the other hand, many of the global challenges I mentioned, for instance, mitigation, of course private capital will have to play a much bigger role. And also in many big middle income countries, they have to take a bigger part of the responsibility than the poorest countries are able to do. So that's true. At the same time, I think everyone understands that the world collectively needs to deal with better and more with the global challenges like climate change. Because the problem is historically largely created in rich countries, but also big middle income countries which now have really, really high emissions and also need to be a part of that financing.
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Exactly.
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And Siti, let's talk a bit about south south cooperation. I mean, what are some of the financing challenges you're facing when conducting south south cooperation? And how do you incorporate global challenges like climate into your south south cooperation?
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Well, of course our resources are limited, so we cannot really do whatever it needs to be done. But we have to prioritize it. You know, like we have to make sure that whatever we spend are really on target. Climate change, for instance, the global challenge for climate change to include that in the development cooperation from Indonesia to South countries is necessary and, you know, strategic, so we should do that. But then like back at home, people would say why you're giving aid or assistance on climate change, we need to help them came out from poverty and the same in recipient countries. If we said, you know, labeling it in climate change, they would say, I need food. I don't care whether it's hot or rain. That's a basic question, actually. But then I think whatever we are doing, when we think about climate change, while doing it, I think that's also putting the climate change issues in priority. For instance, if we are providing technical assistance on how to ensure increased productivity on agriculture, for instance, on, you know, like a rice field, for instance, it would end up, you know, like that they are using the land more effectively so it means less resources needed. And so it would at the end contribute to the attainment of adaption of the climate change. So I think what we have to do here is like mainstreaming the climate change issues in whatever we are doing.
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Let's turn to another hot topic of discussion at the development leaders conference, that of demonstrating to the general public that development programs work and that they can be very effective when done right. So just going back to the narrative, the question to you both is how can development leaders articulate narratives that best build public support for their endeavors? So both Indonesia with its new communication strategy and Norway with the public discourse on the future of ODA provider, interesting examples of how the narrative is evolving and how we can learn from those experiences. So, Bordviga, your experience?
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Yeah.
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D
So I think the discussion about support of the narrative is largely about two different things. So one is, do we need it? You know, the idea behind it? And the other is about results. Does it work? Is it effective? So the first part, of course, we already talked a little bit about that, but I think the motivation is important. What we see is that still humanitarian development systems has quite broad support almost everywhere. You know, you need to help people in need when there's an earthquake or a disaster or war. The traditional mandate in Norway, it's still strong. We hear here that that's different in many countries, you know, support for the idea of helping people out is not that strong. And then again, climate is growing again, as, you know, as a, you know, a motivation. But it's very different levels of support in different countries broadly. In Scandinavia, where I come from, I think it's still fair to say that development assistance has quite strong support, but it's being challenged. And I think the main reason is a tougher fiscal situation for governments and also a social and economic situation in all European and so global north countries where with rising Interest rates, higher prices, inflation and so on. So then turning to effectiveness. So I have this internal slogan in norad. It's in Norwegian, it's facta harmakta. It means fact should have the power, you know, but it rhymes in new Norwegian. So, yeah, it works better. But I think when you look at that, it's clear from this conversation that in some fields, like in education or health care, sexual and reproductive health and rights, we have a quite good evidence base, especially on the intervention level, meaning exactly what you do on the ground. While I think it's a big challenge, we know much less what to do on adaptation and mitigation. Thus, on climate change, which is becoming so big and so urgent, really a big challenge we're taking away from here. Another challenge is that we know a lot what works on the intervention level, but if you go to the system level, you know, how to build an education system together with the country, how to partner on integrating climate or human rights or whatever into your work, then it is much more challenging to measure and to show results. And I see that in many European countries that where it's hard to not argue that you are actually saving lives or achieving very concrete things, then it's also tougher to argue that this is an effective and good use of public resources.
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Exactly. And Siti, from the Indonesian experience, any lessons?
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Well, yes, we've been providing assistance for quite some time now, around 40 years, even though it was institutionalized formerly early 20s. You know, at the moment, if we are talking about providing humanitarian assistance, it's okay. Everybody says, yes, we need to do it humanitarian assistance, be it as conflict, you know, conflict, state conflicts, or disaster relief. So it's okay. Nobody's questioning it. Yes, we have to be first giving the help because we have had help greatly from the international community, for instance, during the tsunami. And we perceive that we did benefit from all this international assistance when the tsunami hit in 2006. And then when it goes up to the technical assistance, when it's come to grant or infrastructure development, for instance, that we started doing it since we have innovation aid, people reject.
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Really?
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Are you sure? We need to have that kind of, you know, facilities, for instance, or we need to build something in the remote villages. So you see the perspective. But then again, we come from. No, from the technical assistant. Now it's okay, you know, hopefully by the time we are growing our budget for development assistance, they would say okay to also grant. Then we really have to have a good narrative for that. Of course, we have to see who are we talking about, you know, it's like we are talking to the public or we are talking to the Member of Parliament, we are talking to other stakeholders. It's different, you know, like different way. But again it's really still a challenge for us. And I, you know, from the discussion I realized that it's not only the challenge for the developed, the emerging development partners, but the traditional donors are still having some challenges, different challenges. But it's interesting to listen to them and we will get there somewhere and so we get to be ready to address that.
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A
Yes, yes. So in both the emerging and the traditional countries there is this precariousness of development. Cooperation in the perceptions of, of the public is very real. One of the other topics that we discussed quite a lot and a crucial topic for the development leaders conference is the development of partnerships. And we heard from many colleagues here over the conference how they structure their partnerships with both recipient countries, but also with local partners. So what aspects did you find particularly interesting and what do you take away from the conversation?
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D
So that development has to be locally led and in a way demand driven. And I think a really interesting thing that I've learned from not only Citi but you and others and what we refer to as emerging donors, countries that are also receiving developments. This is even more obvious and crucial to put this even more at the center of what we do. But I also see it even with many of the least developed countries that they, which is I think is a really great thing, they demand to be in the driver's seat to a much bigger degree. And I think that also to get results that are lasting and sustainable, you need to have that dimension there. And this is of course something many development practitioners or people in an agency would say. But to me it becomes clearer in a conversation like this one. And I think it's getting to a level where we just have to do that better. So it affects how we do development assistance. We demand more of our partners that they are actually localized, whether they're UN partners or. And GEOs. And I also said that it's about getting resources to the gun, but also the power relation, the way we're kind of understanding that the power relation has to change.
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A
Yeah. And something that came out very clearly from the conversations was this central feature of trust as a basis for partnership. Siti, what were your perspectives on this?
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I agree with you. It has to be locally owned and it has to be in line with the national interest. We don't like to have traditional donor, our partner for development coming here and then said okay, we are going to do this. This is because this is our national priorities. Well, okay, that's your national priorities, but do we really need that? Right, Our national priorities, development priorities, is this, this, this. So if you want to help us, this is that we have to work on. I'm talking about you as a recipient, right? But then this experience of being the recipient really prepare us when we are becoming the provider. You know that even now I was surprised that some of our colleagues still says that traditional donors have some vested interest in providing the assistance. Right. So the trust was not there for us. We used to think like that. But because traditional donor partners has aligned their development assistance to our priority, we gradually trust them more that yes, you are helping us because we need assistance. It's not because you see something in your benefit in helping us. So trust is really important here. And so when we are providing assistance, we show them that this is genuine, this is genuine partnership. No one, no hand is above and one hand is down. You know, it's something like that because you mentioned about power play here. No, whatever you need, we will provide. We have budget restriction. But to our capability, we are helping you. So that's the thing in making a long lasting partnership.
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Bordv, how do you build trust in a world which is increasingly insecure, geopolitically fragmented? How do you do it?
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D
So that's a great question. Because it's so difficult. It's harder to build that trust now than when I started in my position 4 1/2 years ago. And it's a changing, quite short time. It's driven by several events. Of course, Russia's brutal attack on Ukraine, the war now in Gaza. But I would also say the world's collective handling of COVID All these three events had a negative effect on maybe especially, you know, global north south trust, but also of course, a challenging geopolitical tension between Western Europe and Russia and between the US and China. So first dialogue, talking to people is always at the center of building trust. So, you know, some people say that, you know, and they're so tired of endless talk. But the only thing is worse is that you don't talk. Right? So actually talking to people, having a dialogue, meeting people, you know, cross traditional borders is extremely important. I also think that it's a challenge if we were to reduce, you know, development assistance and cut it in a period where we need to show that we're willing to finance development and climate and the other goals we have with development assistance is an issue. It's an argument I often Use and I hear others using it also in the Nordic debate, for instance. Then of course also the focus of our attention and saying this may be mainly to Westerners, but so the war that has killed most people the last few years is of course the war in northern Ethiopia and Tigray by far. We don't know how many scientists agree that this has been the worst war in modern times. I think if you're European or probably also North American, you, you have heard a lot more about the war in Gaza or in Ukraine. And they are very important, every good reason. Ukraine is our neighborhood. We are neighbor to Russia and so on. But we also have to have the ability to care about other conflicts. Right now, for instance, Sudan, a terrible conflict. I think that's extremely important that there is a truly global agenda and outreach to how we spend our resources and also to our mindset.
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B
Exactly.
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A
And the list is growing. Yemen, Afghanistan, so on. Burkina Faso. Okay, so finally the ultimate question that I would put to you both. So first, Siti, when you head back to Jakarta, is there anything that you think you might do differently or attempt to change following our two days of discussion here in Bali?
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B
Well, this meeting, the DLSC meeting, was preceded by Emerging Development Partners meeting, thanks to you. Because we are able to have this meeting. We agreed that there is no need for us to have the regular meeting after these two days. I was more convinced that we still need to have the conversation with the traditional donor. So that's why maybe it's good if we have the same format like today, because then we could have our own meeting separately. But then having this conversation in a broader audience with the traditional donors. So it's not up to me because I want the collective ownership of this EDP's meeting. But truly there is no such one of meeting yet. It used to be one held by the UN Office of South South Cooperation, but it's not a regular basis. We want to have it regular so that it has the impact, you know, and we have a forum that we could seek for, you know, like answer if we couldn't find it ourselves. So that's, I think that's what I'm going to do differently.
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A
That's great. That's great. Thank you. Siti Port Vega, when you go back to Oslo, anything you're going to do differently or maybe do more of.
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D
So two very different things for me. So first, I'm energized by working with the two of you and your institution. So the center for Global Development, in my view is probably the leading global think tank on development. So really a lot of deep thinking and good word data the that you are presenting. It's important for our work. And of course Indonesia and Norway, we, we have a very deep and broad collaboration even though we are two very different countries. You are 50 times as many people and a huge country. We are ocean nations. We, we work very closely on forests and also on, you know, have strong foreign policy relations. So it's been really good to work with UCT Then one, you know, there are different takeaways but one stays with me longer. We need to discuss both the size and structure of what we spend on development assistance and global issues in the future. By the size I mean so there's simply a bigger difference between what, what's available and the challenges now than in the former decades. We are doing slower Progress on the SDGs. There are bigger humanitarian needs. Climate mitigation and adaptation is a huge need and climate alone could take many times our older budgets and we're not getting enough traction out of mobilizing private capital. There's simply a need to finance more global challenge of finance, more of what we our common chalice internationally and also about the structure. I'm returning to the first part of this conversation. We need to discuss whether this one box is the right tool for all these things or we need to divide more clearly between different goals and different streams of financing. And we need to, you know, address the conversation about stepping up, stepping up from the richest countries, stepping up from new middle income countries that have developed. And I think that conversation needs to be taken more clearly. And I knew it from before, but these two days have made it very clear to me.
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A
Thank you. Thank you. I mean certainly my takeaway from the conference is that, well, I walk away with a much better understanding of both traditional and emerging donors, what their the real sort of strategic and practical challenges that they face. And I think, you know, everybody did agree that change is needed. There's not so much of an agreement as to what that change is at this point, but this is just the beginning of a journey and hopefully we can continue the conversation and really pin down what we need to do differently to be as effective as possible in what is a very difficult world. So thank you very much to both you, CT and Bordve. We will be hosting next year's Development Leaders conference, that's in 2025 in Germany together with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. And we very much look forward to continuing the conversation with both of you and please do look out for more content from cgd. Thank you.
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C
Thanks for listening to the CGD podcast. You can learn more about the topics discussed on our website, cgdev.org that's cgdev.org.org see you next time.