ORIO Facility 2012 kick-off meeting

Toespraak | 30-05-2012

Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

Last week I happened to be in Bangladesh. My visit coincided with the jackfruit harvest, which is always a very busy time of year. These enormous fruits weigh up to 40 kilos. They have a rough, slightly thorny skin and soft, yellow flesh. It is a popular fruit, eaten in all sorts of ways from chips to ice cream. Once the ripe fruits have been picked, farmers have to take them to market. That means a lot of business. Which means extra traffic in a town already congested with traffic. Rickshaws weaving between long lines of cars on roads that cannot cope with the fast-growing, car-owning middle class. You can all guess what happens then: total gridlock. A trip of only a few kilometres can take hours.

It is difficult to create a healthy climate for trade without the right conditions. Without roads, ports or electricity, companies and farmers alike cannot do business and products cannot be taken to market. Good infrastructure is a basic condition for economic growth. And for economic development.

Governments of course know that infrastructure is important and that it is directly linked to growing prosperity. Because without hospitals, schools or roads, there can be no health care, education or trade.

But governments don’t always succeed in putting good infrastructure in place. This is where the Netherlands and the Infrastructure Development Facility – ORIO – can offer a helping hand.

By helping these countries develop expertise and providing financial support. It gives me great pleasure to launch the renewed ORIO fund today. And to see it received with such interest. In just one week, over a hundred people applied to attend this kick-off meeting – not a bad score.

The private sector plays a key role in my development cooperation policy. The days of traditional aid are over. It is not the flow of donor funding from North to South that lifts countries out of poverty, but trade and investment. My aim is for countries to become self-reliant and create the conditions for economic growth. Of course this requires efficient cooperation between governments and the private sector.

It is not new that international companies can apply for Dutch funding to build infrastructure in third countries. Before ORIO we had ORET, a grant programme for Dutch companies to carry out construction projects in developing countries. ORIO is focused on development, rather than on export transactions alone. ORIO applications must concern products and services that are sustainable and meet the actual needs of developing countries.

We’ve been doing that via the ORIO fund since 2009. There have been 56 projects in, for instance, the water sector, transport and health care, in 26 countries such as Ghana, Tanzania and Vietnam. I don’t really need to list examples, since you are all involved in one way or another in them.

All these projects are still in the development phase. Like you, I would rather see this infrastructure finished today than tomorrow. So I’ve decided, based on past experiences, to change my approach. As of next year, we will engage governments more in the development phase of ORIO projects. This will also raise the overall quality of the projects and ensure that we no longer have to fund this phase in full. This way, we can focus more on construction.

Policy effectiveness is a primary objective for me. After three years it was time to evaluate ORIO. I asked the Social and Economic Council to advise me. And I asked business people, users and governments to give me feedback. In short: we listened to you.

I received positive responses about the quality of the proposals, which is a great compliment to you all. And they were reason for me to decide to raise the yearly budget for ORIO from 140 million euros to 180 million euros, despite the cutbacks in the overall development budget.

The Social and Economic Council also made a number of recommendations for a simpler, faster and more transparent ORIO fund. Mr Janse of NL Agency will tell you more about the new fund. But let me say a word about the three main changes.

Applying to ORIO has been made easier and less time-consuming. We don’t need as much information, so the application form is simpler than the old one.

In the future, project applications will be processed on the basis of ‘first come, first served’. We are not going to compare projects for building schools with projects for digging wells. Each project will be assessed on its own merits. Applications that meet all the necessary criteria will be accepted, but only until the budget runs out.

We will keep the criteria as simple as possible. And please note: it is not the cheapest tender that will win, but the best bid at the lowest price. In other words, the company that delivers good quality and takes its corporate social responsibility seriously. Our standards are high; just as high as they would be for projects in the Netherlands.

Of course, an essential criterion for ORIO projects is their contribution to development. Bangladesh, for instance, is situated in an enormous delta formed by three major rivers. The delta provides fertile soil. But it poses risks, too. In such a densely-populated country, the toll of flooding is high – in terms of both human suffering and damage to economic growth. The Bangladeshi government wants a permanent solution to the flooding, and I have pledged Dutch support. The Netherlands and Bangladesh are going to collaborate on a major water project: a Delta Plan that may take up to a hundred years to complete. So that Dutch expertise may contribute to development, prosperity and flood safety in Bangladesh.

I am sure the businesspeople here today can see what a wonderful opportunity this might be. Bridges and roads will need to be built, and dikes raised. Exactly what Dutch companies in the water sector are good at. These are great opportunities for you to tap into the new ORIO facility.

Of course, Bangladesh is not the only country of opportunity worldwide. There is so much demand for new hospitals and roads, for land to be reclaimed. Excellencies, I can set your minds at rest: we increased the budget and we haven’t cut back the country list. The new ORIO fund is open to you all.

In this way, developing countries as well as companies will benefit from the new ORIO facility. So that government, private sector, civil society and users – all parties represented here today – can together develop countries around the world. Just like in Bangladesh.

Thank you.