On July 3-5, conference titled “Advancing South–South Cooperation and Learning in Asia“, was held in Seoul, Korea, organized by Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Korea Development Institute (KDI). Representatives of agencies under the Ministry of Finance of Georgia – Investigation Service, LEPL Service Agency, LEPL Academy of the Ministry of Finance and Treasury Service, attended the conference with the invitation of ADB.

Conference held in Korea Development Institute, was opened by Director of Independent Evaluation Department of Asian Development Bank – Marvin Taylor and Vice-President of Korea Development Institute – Yungjae Lim. Importance of South-South cooperation, which represents the main model of Sustainable Development Program for 2030 was the key topic for discussion on the event. During the recent period, South-South Cooperation became an important fundament of development of the countries in this region as South-South trades, foreign direct investments and transfer of technologies have been increased. In above mentioned time frame, countries of the south received important knowledge and experience for their development. South-South Cooperation had an important impact on the developing countries as well as on the donors and providers of technical cooperation. On the event held in KDI, participants reviewed successful cases of South-South Cooperation, discussed current challenges and the ways how to solve them. Guests of the conference were introduced to history of development of post-war Korea and results achieved in the last 70 years.

Within the frames of the conference, representatives of Independent Evaluation Department (IED) of Asian Development Bank – Mr Farzana Ahmed and Brahm Prakash held the training for participants in design and closure evaluation of the project. Starting and final stages of the project, project management, criteria and context of the project evaluation were also discussed in details on the training. In the end of the training, panel discussion was held covering topic – “modules of project evaluation”.

Together with the representatives from Georgia, conference in Seoul was attended by the representatives of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Albania, Malaysia, Nepal, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Indonesia and other countries. At the end of the event, participants held bilateral meetings where they discussed future cooperation issues.