“A leading operator for the European Union”

As we confront the greatest technological, economic, and climate challenges the world has ever faced, the French government, under the leadership of President Emmanuel Macron, has committed to reducing the gap between North and South.

For the past seven years, we have been actively working to strengthen France’s international development and solidarity policy. We have made it more effective, to better serve our partners, informed by our desire to promote our knowledge, know-how, and expertise.

2023 was a particularly decisive year in this regard, with several important meetings: the President’s Council for Development (CPD), the Interministerial Committee on International Cooperation and Development (CICID), and the Summit on a New Global Financing Pact held in France, which led to the Paris Pact for People and the Planet. These events offer new momentum and a clear direction for the coming years, which will apply to all development policy stakeholders, particularly AFD Group and Expertise France.

The CICID identified the main priorities of France’s development policy: reducing inequality, fighting climate change, and protecting global public goods. It also called for significant changes to our ways of working: gone is the list of priority countries, replaced by a more agile geographic distribution; greater balance between efficacy and impact (the development approach) with the promotion of our values and strengths to better serve our partners (the influence approach); and the need to bolster private sector involvement to help meet wide-ranging needs in developing countries.

In all these fields, Expertise France must play a significant role within AFD Group. The CICID’s conclusions clearly call for Expertise France to play a stronger role, particularly through the deployment of international technical experts. We must also develop solutions that combine financing with expertise and increased European funding to support our bilateral priorities.

Expertise France is already a leading operator for the European Union. I know I can count on all the staff of Expertise France, in the field and at headquarters, to advance the government’s ambitions. I’m counting on you to further deploy our expertise, particularly in areas that are important to the Ministry of the Economy, Finance, and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty. This includes helping to mobilize domestic resources, supporting entrepreneurship, and contributing French expertise to our partners’ sectoral policies.

Finally, given the need to control public spending across the entire public sector, I will remain particularly attentive to consolidating the economic model of Expertise France, the search for synergies within AFD Group, and the efficiency of your actions.

Remarks collected in May 2024.