31st March 2003

In the frame of the cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UNDP and the HUN-IDA International Development Assistance Non- profit Co. a professional conference was held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This event, as the first step of a continuous guidance, was organized for supporting the preparation of the leaders concerned of the Hungarian state administration.

„ Hungary will become donor country from 2003. After joining the EU in 2004, she will continue its activity within the framework of the collated international development cooperation of the member states.”
The conference was opened with this thought by Ms. Ibolya Barany, Director of HUN-IDA, who reviewed the history of the Hungarian technical-scientific development cooperation of the previous decade and then she spoke briefly about the aims of HUN-IDA.

In his opening presentation, Mr. Gábor Szentiványi, Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, emphasized that on the basis of the real potentials of the acceeding countries, as an EU member we could take part in those particular fields of international development coope-ration, where we have comparative advantages (previous assistant experiences, knowlegde sharing on transition period, experiences of internationally recognized projects

and professional technical cooperation) taking the potential fields of national sectors such as agriculture, education, health, water and environment for example.

Therefore, the main target of the conference was to enlarge the knowledge of the invited officers by presenting international examples: the first such presentation was about concept and mechanism of the international development cooperation of the EU, which was presented by Mr. Leonidas Antonakopoulos, Head of Department for Information and Communication Development DG.

The United Nations as a global player, is the leading coordinative institue for the execution of the Millenium Goals. The UNDP with the help of its Central European Regional Center gives assistance to the joining countries to get ready for the donor function. Mr. Ben Slay, representative of the UNDP Regional Office in Bratislava gave a lecture on these results.
The president of the Hungarian UN Association, professor Mihály Simai, academician, drew the attention of the audiance to the global challenges and the trend of international cooperation in his presentation.
In the series of presentations, Mr. David Chaplin representative of CIDA, Canadian International Development Agency, reviewed his bilateral concept and his program concerning this professional field. Furthermore, he presented the program package, which will support the institutional prepared-ness and also the implementation of the first joint projects of the V4 countries.

Ms. Ritva Jolkkonen, Director of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs International Development Cooperation Department, displayed the Finnish bilateral international cooperation activity, as a working model. This presentation pointed out a potential alternative in the frame of a review of the Finnish donor policy, which enjoys bigger tradition in this professional field.

Hungary’s accession to the international donor community means not only the harmonization of the development policy goals, but also the knowledge of the operative mechanism, adapted by international organizations, and donor countries.
The conference reviewed the professional content and goals of the 2 year long preparation program between UNDP and MFA, and asked for the support and professional cooperation of the invited representavites of the different institiutions and organizations.