Panel discussion moderated by minister Bert Koenders (standing left) with panel members (sitting from left to right): Dirk Elsen; Peter van Lieshout, Scientific Council for Government Policy; Onno Ruding, former minister for Finance and former director IMF; Sigrid Kaag, Regional Director UNICEF; Jan-Kees Vis, director Unilever; Ruud Lubbers, former Prime Minister, former UN High Commissioner. (photo by John Thüring)

The Hague - “The multilateral channel should not be considered the preferred channel in the distribution of Dutch development aid”, SNV Director, Dirk Elsen, stated in a panel discussion yesterday on the roles of Multilateral development organisations in Dutch development policy.

Elsen was invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to react on their new policy paper ‘The Netherlands and Multilateral Development Organisations’. “I believe in a proper balance between the different aid channels - bilateral, multilateral and civil society - in The Netherlands. Each channel is particularly well suited to do certain thing and not so well suited to do other things. As an example, I believe NGOs are more successful in positioning their work in local settings then multilaterals ever will be. At the same time multilaterals have impressive convening power that NGOs do not have to that extent”, Dirk Elsen stated.

Moreover, multilaterals are in the position to scale up the impact of a program. As an example, Dirk Elsen mentioned the recent launch of the Energy for All Partnership on renewable energy by a consortium leaded by the Asian Development Bank - and including SNV - which targets 100 million people in the Asia-Pacific region by 2015.

In the panel discussion, Minister for Development Cooperation, Bert Koenders, called for reforms to multilateral development cooperation. He announced the introduction of a score card to be able to better compare the effectiveness of multilateral organisations.