Efficiency is the essence in using foreign assistance, Victor Bodiu

“Efficiency is the essence in using the foreign assistance offered to Moldova. We must know how to use this money provided by the donors, what the set objectives are and how they can be achieved. These things are not characteristic of us only,” the Government’s secretary general Victor Bodiu said in a public debate, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. He said that at the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness that will be held in Busan, the Moldovan official delegation and representatives of civil society will explain their position based on the conclusions of the assessment of the performance indicators of the Paris Declaration for 2010. Victor Bodiu stressed that the Government’s message and subsequent steps will focus on ensuring greater transparency in the process of using foreign assistance and on strengthening the national monitoring and evaluation system. “We want to see how our foreign donors can align to our priorities laid down in the national development strategy “Moldova 2020”. We will also ask the donors to ensure better coordination of the assistance between them and to concentrate the assistance based on the comparative advantage of every agency and on the labor division between them,” said the secretary general. Ros-Mary Balow, the head of the International Development Cooperation Division of the Swedish Embassy, said that before initiating a dialogue with the Government of Moldova, Sweden, as Moldova’s donor, plans to join efforts with the EU member states. According to Ros-Mary Balow, it is hard to coordinate the assistance with the EU member states as the countries have their own views. According to her, the promotion of gender equality as a human right is a priority for Sweden. Sweden, as other donors of Moldova, lobbies for including gender equality in all the national strategies. The participants in the debates also discussed the key messages that the Moldovan delegation will convey at the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness and at the Global Civil Society Forum that will take place in South Korea on November 26 – December 1.