WASHINGTON (MNI) – The following is the communique issued after the
G20 Ministerial Meeting on Development Friday:

1. We, the G20 Finance Ministers and Ministers in charge of
development and international cooperation, met today for the first time
to address development challenges as part of the global economic agenda.
With developing countries acting as key poles of growth in the global
economy, support for development is an investment in the prosperity of
all countries.

2. In Seoul, the Leaders approved the Seoul Development
Consensus and the Multi-Year Action Plan. The Seoul Development
Consensus sets out our commitment to work in partnership with other
developing countries, and LICs in particular, to help them tackle the
bottlenecks to a stronger and more equitable, sustainable and resilient
growth. The G20 Multi-Year Action Plan embodies this commitment and
highlights several areas of actions to maximize growth potential and
economic resilience in developing countries, in particular
infrastructures, private investment, domestic resources mobilization,
trade, food security, social protection, remittances, financial
inclusion and human resources. It complements the efforts of the UN
system and multilateral and bilateral donors in assisting developing
countries to achieve Millennium Development Goals, in particular for
LDCs as articulated in the Istanbul Program of Action.

3. G20 Leaders decided in Seoul, in the wake of the most
severe economic shock in recent history, to put development as a key
element of the agenda for global recovery. We reaffirm that the
Development agenda will remain at the core of G20 priorities and that
the G20 will continue its work to promote a strong, balanced and
sustainable growth, to narrow gaps in levels of prosperity, to foster a
shared and inclusive growth, to further reduce poverty, promote gender
equality and contribute to job creation. We welcome the progress made by
the Development Working Group in advancing the Seoul Development
Consensus on Shared Growth and its Multi-Year Action Plan, and look
forward to its report to Leaders for the Cannes Summit.

4. Today we reviewed the two following priority areas of
actions to maximize growth potential and economic resilience in
developing countries, food security and infrastructure, that will be
taken forward by our Leaders in Cannes.

5. The humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa requires an
international response. The international community has come together to
support the people of the region but more needs to be done. This crisis
highlights the urgent need to strengthen the emergency and long-term
response to food insecurity. To feed more than 9 billion people in 2050,
agricultural production will have to double in developing countries. It
is time to reinvest in the agricultural sector. In light of the G20
Agriculture Ministers Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and
Agriculture, we aim at improving global food security through a set of
concrete actions, prepared on the basis of the work of international
organizations which was coordinated by FAO and OECD. These actions
include strengthening research, innovation and disseminationmobilizing
the G20 agriculture research networks, promotingefforts to scale up
responsible investments and activities related to agricultural
production and food security in cooperation with MDBs and the private
sector, including through the Global Agriculture and Food Security
Program. Other initiatives aim at improving protection for the most
vulnerable against excessive price volatility through risk management
strategies, tools and instruments, drawing on the work of the MDBs,
enhancing nutrition and access to humanitarian food supply in the
framework of country and region-led initiatives, such as the development
of the pilot project led by Economic Community of Western African States
(ECOWAS) for a targeted regional emergency humanitarian food reserve,
and the ASEAN +3 emergency rice reserve initiative, complementing
existing national food reserves. In this context, we stress the
importance of the work being done under the guidance of Finance
ministers on commodity financial markets regulation.

6. The lack of infrastructure dramatically hampers the growth
potential in many developing countries. We agree that this challenge
needs to be addressed without delay, especially in Low Income Countries
and whilst not exclusively, with a special emphasis on Sub-Saharan
Africa. We welcome the efforts of the Multilateral Development Banks to
develop a joint Infrastructure Action Plan to address bottlenecks and
constraints and call on them to present their recommendations ahead of
the Cannes Summit, in particular on quality of data available to
investors, incentive to support regional projects, improved assistance
for public-private partnerships, transparency in the construction
sector, efficiency of project preparation and harmonization of MDBs
procurement rules and practices. We also welcome the proposal of the
Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA) to open its membership.

7. We welcome the contribution of the High Level Panel on
Infrastructure Investment and ask it to finalize its innovative work
under the three workstreams responding to its mandate, notably for
promoting enabling environments, diversifying sources of funding and
identifying sustainable infrastructure projects to be presented to our
Leaders in Cannes. We take note of the set of criteria proposed by the
HLP, in close cooperation with the MDBs, for identifying exemplary
infrastructure investment projects, with due consideration to
environmental sustainability, food security, trade and regional
integration.

8. The global economic crisis affected disproportionately the
most vulnerable people. In the context of global risks, there is a
growing need to develop mechanisms to offer better protection and ensure
a more inclusive growth path. In that perspective, we welcome proposals
to implement and expand national social protection floors defined by the
countries themselves according to their individual circumstances, to
reduce the cost of remittances transfer, to promote private investment,
job creation and human resource development, to enhance domestic
resource mobilization and to enable a growth-enhancing regional and
global trade environment. We support the implementation of the Action
Plan of the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion.

9. Following the presentation of the preliminary findings of
the report prepared by Bill Gates on financing for development, we
recognize the importance of the involvement of all actors, both public
and private, and of the appropriate mobilization of domestic, external
and innovative sources of finance. We look forward to the presentation
of Bill Gates’ final report to our Leaders at the Cannes Summit. We also
look forward to receiving the joint report on mobilizing climate
finance, coordinated by the World Bank Group, in close partnership with
the IMF, regional development banks and the OECD, aimed at analyzing
options for expanding the flow of climate change finance to developing
countries in pragmatic and cost-effective ways, drawing inter alia on
the AGF report consistent with the objectives, provisions and principles
of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

10. We look forward to a successful replenishment of the Asian
Development Fund and the International Fund for Agriculture Development.

11. We firmly believe that we pave new ways of cooperation through
the Development Working Group sharing our diversified experience and
knowledge as well as making synergies with other fora in development
cooperation, including the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to
be held in Busan in November. We will further strengthen our collective
efforts for the G20 Development agenda for the Cannes Summit and beyond.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **

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