BRIEFING AND DIALOGUE ON DEVELOPMENT WITH THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF THE FRANCOPHONIE

• AMEXCID Executive Director, Ambassador Rogelio Granguillhome, chaired the meeting convened as part of the Mexican presidency of the G20.

As part of the outreach activities of the Mexican presidency of the G20 and during the IMF/WB spring session, a briefing was held today with the countries of the Commonwealth and the Francophonie, which represent about 80 developing countries, many with high levels of poverty and highly vulnerable populations.

The Commonwealth is an intergovernmental organization for cooperation with common values and goals (language, culture, law, education and democratic traditions, among others). It is made up of 54 member countries, most of which were part of the British Empire.

The International Organization of the Francophonie (IOF), founded in 1970, is committed to concrete examples of active solidarity among its 70 member states and governments and to implementing multilateral cooperation policies for the benefit of French-speaking populations.

The meeting, chaired by the Foreign Ministry’s Executive Director of the Mexican Agency for International Development (AMEXCID), Ambassador Rogelio Granguillhome, and the chairman of the G20 Development Working Group (DWG), was held to discuss the progress made by the group leading up to the G20 Leaders’ Summit to be held in Los Cabos.

The Mexican presidency reviewed the work of the DWG since adoption of the Multi-Year Development Action Plan at the Seoul Summit in 2010. It highlighted the work done last year under the French presidency and the early months of this presidency, with specific reference to the priorities in which the Commonwealth and Francophonie have shown particular interest: infrastructure, food security and inclusive green growth.

On food safety monitoring, implementation of previous DWG commitments were discussed, as was the Mexican initiative on cooperation to strengthen the competitiveness of small-scale farmers in developing countries in a sustainable fashion.

The DWG seeks to recommend best practices to support countries that volunteer to design inclusive green growth policies, and to help them mobilize more resources for sustainable development, including increasing private sector participation.

Lastly, Australia, as current president of the Commonwealth, thanked the Mexican presidency of the DWG for the opportunity to hold discussions between the two organizations and the Presidency of the G20.