28.06.2010
17:30 - 19:30

Is This Least Known But Largest Development Project Key To The MDGs?

Friends of Europe
Bibliothèque Solvay,Parc Léopold,Rue Belliard 137
B-1040 Brussels, Belgium
Phone: +32 2 737 9145
Fax: +32 2 738 7597
Email: info@friendsofeurope.org

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Agriculture & Fisheries

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Bibliothéque Solvay, Parc Léopold
137, rue Belliard
1040 Brussels

Saving the MDGs requires not only maintaining ODA commitments, but also shifting to greener economies, improving access to new technologies, financing climate change mitigation and adaptation, and collective and long-term commitment. Could development projects such as the one undertaken in India’s Anantapur region by the Foundation Vicente Ferrer, which since its modest beginnings 40 years ago has now transformed the fortunes of 2.5 million people throughout thousands of villages, inspire the EU and other policymakers? Can this, the world’s largest social development project, be replicated elsewhere as an innovative way to fight poverty and achieve the UN’s MDGs?

This DPF debate will be co-hosted in partnership with the Foundation Vincente Furrer, which runs the above mentioned project.

The Foundation Vicente Ferrer’s Rural Development Trust focuses on improvement in six key areas: health, the environment, education, housing, women, and the situation of the disabled. Thanks to the success of the project, India’s Anantapur region, which was predicted to become a desert, now benefits from over 10,000 irrigation systems restoring fertility.

Miguel Angel Moratinos, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain; Richard Addis, Journalist and former Editor of Daily Express, Globe and Mail and Financial Times Weekend; Giles Merritt, Secretary General of Friends of Europe.