Development effectiveness agenda deserves a revival

After many years of progress in expanding the community of stakeholders engaged in advancing common principles to improve development practice, global efforts to promote development effectiveness have stagnated.

This policy brief highlights that slowed momentum around the effectiveness agenda is traceable both to disengagement among governments that increasingly prefer bilateral approaches and to unclear mandates of the global platforms tasked with advancing the agenda.

Upcoming discussions on how to implement the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development provide an opportunity to reflect on the achievements, comparative advantage, and future direction of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. The brief outlines challenges that the Partnership has experienced since it was established in 2012 and underlines the importance of distinguishing its role in promoting effective development cooperation from that of the United Nations Development Cooperation Forum, a multi-stakeholder platform pursuing similar objectives.