Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Distinguished Fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya has said an inclusive stakeholder partnership among recipient countries is critical for effective development cooperation.
Speaking on the first day of the three-day 2022 Effective Development Cooperation Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, Dr Debapriya on Monday highlighted the key themes underpinning the international development cooperation landscape.
The summit was organised by the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC), which is the official global platform that brings together the provider countries of development finance and its recipient developing countries, according to a press release.
Dr Debapriya said, in the recent past, the international development cooperation landscape has undergone significant changes, including in the profiles of recipients and providers of development finance.
He said many recipients are now low middle income countries (LMIC), and many are graduating from the least developed countries (LDC) category.
“The evolving situation is also witnessing the rise of new providers such as private philanthropy and Southern institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).”
Moreover, due to the post-Covid-19 aftermath, the fallout from the Ukraine war and the looming global recession, there has been a palpable decline in the political traction for foreign aid in provider countries, he said.
Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya stated that the GPEDC agenda is based on the grand assumption that good processes will inevitably lead to good results. However, experience shows that this is more complex than that and is greatly dependent on contextual realities at the country level.
He noted the GPEDC principles were still relevant but needed to be revitalised and reenergised by uptaking new content and being responsive to evolving realities.
He emphasised the necessity for development cooperation to build on new evidence and knowledge to make it more relevant and robust.
CPD Senior Research Fellow Towfiqul Islam Khan delivered the keynote presentation during the session.
The keynote presentation was based on the findings of a global research project, anchored in CPD, and conducted in six countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
He said there is a lack of accountability mechanisms for countries providing development finance. The lack of familiarity with regard to the GPEDC agenda and its processes in both provider and recipient countries was also pointed out as a major hurdle.
Towfiqul highlighted that there was a lack of shared understanding between the providers and the recipient countries’ key stakeholders regarding the design of results indicators and the process of attaining sustainable development outcomes.
However, he pointed out that the extent of inclusive partnership required to reach a consensus on the design of results indicators was largely dependent on the democratic accountability prevalent within the recipient country.
Moreover, he said the extent of ownership of key stakeholders within the scope of foreign development financing was largely concentrated at the project design level and declined down the process chain.
The session was also addressed by Dr Rachel Gisselquist, senior research fellow, UNU-WIDER, Karla de Palma, general director of the International Cooperation Agency of El Salvador (ESCO), Laura Aghilarre, deputy director general for development cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Italy, and Blanche Simonny Abegue, regional representative, Dynamique OSCAF-Gabon.
