A cinematic cliché it may be, but it rings true: Development professionals will always have Paris. The French capital is home to the headquarters of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, along with a key outpost of the U.N. Environment Program; since France is a major player for bilateral and multilateral official development assistance, the French Development Agency is a required stop for many; and the Paris embassies of Africa’s two dozen Francophone countries often offer chances for serious face-to-face meetings without the agony of a red-eye flight to a far-flung capital. Plus all those French NGOs. Not to mention the fact that international African-bound travelers often need to make a European stop en route.
With the OECD Global Forum on Development happening this week, why not schedule 48 hours in Paris?
Paris is organized by arrondissements, or districts that are famously numbered in an expanding clockwise fashion, and that people like to compare to the swirl on a snail’s shell. There are 20 in all. About a half-dozen are of particular interest to development professionals in town on business.