Thousands of government, private aid officials to meet in South Korea for development aid summit

Thousands of government and private aid officials will meet in Busan, South Korea, on Tuesday for the beginning of the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, which is "aimed at making sure billions of dollars in global aid money gets to the people who need it most," the Associated Press/Washington Post reports (11/29). "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will attend [the] summit in Busan, held against a backdrop of economic crisis in the United States and Europe and the rich world's repeated failure to meet its targets for helping the poorest nations," Reuters writes (Quinn, 11/28).

"This is the first time a U.S. secretary of state has attended such a conference," CNN notes, adding it "also is the first time representatives of the private sector will be participating" (Dougherty, 11/28). According to the AP, Clinton and Ban "will try to use the ... forum to argue that, despite mounting economic uncertainties, the world needs stronger aid programs with better coordination and transparency" (11/29). The "meeting is also expected to focus on a new class of funders like China and Brazil, which run their own bilateral aid programs that at times compete with traditional donors and often do not adhere to the same principles of transparency and accountability," according to Reuters (11/28).