Paper 4.4 Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC)

Paper 4.4

Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC)

Yuko Suzuki

How can the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation contribute to the implementation of the Post-2015?

As recognized in the Monterrey Consensus, increases in volumes of financing for development must be coupled with more effective actions. International efforts to improve the quality and effectiveness of development cooperation have helped to strengthen standards of partnerships and have supported the demand from developing countries that commitments and good practice be observed by development partners (Wood et al, 2011). For the post-2015 agenda, such collective efforts to maximize the impact of development cooperation will constitute a vital component of the means of implementation.

While Official Development Assistance (ODA) remains an essential catalyst and enabler for developing countries, cooperation efforts beyond ODA have grown in magnitude and relevance in international development architecture. Furthermore, the shift that has been made from aid to development co-operation, and from the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) agenda that mainly focused on social services towards a universal agenda that encompasses inclusive growth, will have implications on the post-2015 means of implementation and accountability framework. It will be important that the full range of development cooperation actions and partnerships are conducted as effectively as possible to enhance their impact. Principles of effective development cooperation – including country ownership, results focus, inclusive partnerships, and transparency and accountability – can help guide our efforts in this regard (UNGA A/69/416, 2014).

The GPEDC brings unique value to support the post-2015 agenda and the means of its implementation. This was the crosscutting topic of the GPEDC’s First High-Level Meeting (Mexico City, April 2014). Particularly, the GPEDC

• Offers a unique, voluntary and dynamic platform for dialogue on the coherence of policy and practice. The post-2015 development agenda will recognize the importance of traditional and non-traditional partnerships in development co-operation, and a degree of universalization of development co-operation through flows that are characterized as South-South, or private sector engagement in development and inclusive civil society participation. While the multiplicities of co-operation modalities are a welcome development, they call for a degree of coherence and collaboration among all development stakeholders to achieve ‘best-impact’ results and minimise fragmentation.
• Provides a platform for mutual accountability and learning. The Global Partnership monitoring framework aims at promoting behavior change. Regular monitoring efforts convene the full range of development co-operation stakeholders to track progress and hold each other to account for commitments made. Monitoring the quality of development partnerships provides valuable evidence on how partnerships can be rooted in developing country priorities and leadership, geared towards impact, and transformed into transparent and inclusive approaches that help countries and citizens reach the results they need. Monitoring is also vital for learning lessons on what works, what doesn’t, and how development stakeholders can improve the way they work together at the country level to deliver sustainable results.
• In the context of monitoring, the Global Partnership can offer the UN process a concrete example and lessons learned of a methodology and a multi-stakeholder consultation process that can help implement the future Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with particular focus on the quality and effectiveness of development co-operation. Such inputs can inform UNDESA’s work on preparation of the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), the development co-operation accountability framework within the UN Development Cooperation Forum (DCF), as well as the monitoring and accountability work of the High-Level Political Forum. With a view to provide concrete proposals to support global implementation efforts towards the SDGs, the Partnership is currently undertaking an in-depth review of the methodologies and relevance of its indicators. Some of these indicators also go beyond the traditional donor-recipient co-operation framework to assessing the effectiveness of inclusive partnerships with private sector and civil society, for example by focusing on the Busan commitment to promote an enabling environment for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).
• The Partnership spurs action on the ground by building its monitoring efforts on developing countries own data and processes to support country-led efforts for more effective cooperation on the ground. This country-led monitoring approach helps to strengthen countries own monitoring and accountability processes, which is vital to help build effective and accountable institutions  the foundation for global accountability in the context of the Post-2015 framework.
• The Partnership encourages developing countries to make concrete efforts towards strengthening their ownership of development priorities. It does so by advancing the transparency, accountability and alignment of development co-operation policies with national development strategies and by acknowledging developing countries leadership in setting their own priorities in pursuit of the future SDGs, through a vision that is strongly anchored in national development and accountability processes.
• The Partnership provides an umbrella to broker and cultivate multi-actor initiatives and partnerships where champions join forces and translate shared commitments into action that leaves no-one behind in developing countries. In the context of post-2015 means of implementation, there will be strong demand for coherence between various development co-operation flows, policies and actors. Concrete impacts from these multi-stakeholder initiatives and inclusive partnerships can inform the post-2015 means of implementation. Further efforts will be needed to broaden the scope and participation of all development actors in post-2015 implementation.
• As an existing platform that engages the full range of development constituencies through its ministerial Co-Chairs and Steering Committee, and with the support of UNDP and OECD, the GPEDC can help sustain political focus on high-quality development partnerships, consistent with agreed international rights, which offer a global mechanism to monitor that co-operation is based on developing countries ownership, transparency and accountability to deliver tangible results on the post-2015 objectives.

The contribution of the GPEDC can complement the UN processes which will anchor a renewed global partnership for development and the post-2015 accountability framework. As a voluntary forum, the Partnership can offer lessons learned from the dialogue between equal partners, and testing of approaches, that can spur innovation and effective development practices beyond traditional “donor-recipient approaches to ones built on south-south, triangular and beyond-government co-operation. The GPEDC lessons and messages can meaningfully inform the global implementation efforts and discussions that take place at the UN.

Accountability and Monitoring within the GPEDC

The Global Partnership monitoring framework is both innovative and inclusive. It provides an evidence-based approach to accountability, geared towards multi-stakeholder learning and sharing of lessons. This framework is well placed to support the implementation of the new SDGs, in particular with regard to strengthening the means of implementation and a global partnership for sustainable development (e.g. Open Working Group Goal 17) and monitoring the quality of partnerships and their impact on attaining the SDGs.

Global monitoring of commitments on aid effectiveness began in 2005, building on references to the quality of aid in the Monterrey Consensus. At the Busan High-Level Forum in 2011, developing countries called for the continuation of a global monitoring framework to uphold accountability and support implementation efforts for effective development co-operation in individual countries. The ten global indicators of the monitoring framework (Table 1) are grounded in the four principles of country ownership, results focus, inclusive partnerships; and transparency and accountability. Each indicator currently includes a target for 2015, providing a foundation to measure progress in making development co-operation practices more effective. Periodic monitoring of progress on the indicators complemented by other qualitative evidence serves as the basis for discussions at the ministerial level. The first progress report, released in 2014 ahead of the Mexico High-Level Meeting, demonstrated the relevance of operational evidence to inform political discussions on the effectiveness of collective efforts, and to spur concrete action to accelerate progress. 46 countries participated in the first round of the monitoring, with over 70 cooperation providers data reported (representing 46% of total country programmable aid).

Table 1. Ten Indicator and Targets of the Global Partnership Monitoring Framework

INDICATORS

TARGETS FOR 2015

1.	Development co-operation is focused on results that meet developing countries’ priorities
Â	Extent of use of country results frameworks by co-operation providers	All providers of development co-operation use country results frameworks
2.	Civil society operates within an environment which maximises its engagement in and contribution to development
Â	A preliminary assessment of CSO Enabling Environment building on qualitative, multi-stakeholder information	Continued progress over time
3.	Engagement and contribution of the private sector to development
Â	A three-dimension index providing a measure of the quality of public-private dialogue	Continued progress over time Â
4.	Transparency: information on development co-operation is publicly available
	Measure of state of implementation of the common standard by co-operation providers	Implement the common standard All development co-operation providers are on track to implement a common, open standard for electronic publication of timely, comprehensive and forward-looking information on development co-operation
5.	Development co-operation is more predictable
Â	(a) annual: proportion of development cooperation funding disbursed within the fiscal year within which it was scheduled by co-operation providers;	Halve the gap  halve the proportion of aid not disbursed within the fiscal year for which it was scheduled (Baseline year 2010)
	(b) medium-term: proportion of development cooperation funding covered by indicative forward spending plans provided at country level	Halve the gap halve the proportion of development cooperation funding not covered by indicative forward spending plans provided at a country level.
6.	Aid is on budgets which are subject to parliamentary scrutiny
	% of development cooperation funding scheduled for disbursement that is recorded in the annual budgets approved by the legislatures of developing countries	Halve the gap  halve the proportion of development cooperation   flows to the government sector not reported on government budget(s) (with at least 85% reported on budget) (Baseline year 2010)
7.	Mutual accountability among development co-operation actors is strengthened through inclusive reviews
Â	% of countries that undertake inclusive mutual assessments of progress in implementing agreed commitments	All developing countries have inclusive mutual assessment reviews in place (Baseline year 2010)
8.	Gender equality and women’s empowerment
Â	% of countries with systems that track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment	All developing countries have systems that track and make public resource allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment
9.	Effective institutions: developing countries systems are strengthened and used
	(a) Quality of developing country PFM systems;	Half of developing countries move up at least one measure (i.e. 0.5 points) on the PFM/CPIA scale of performance (Baseline year 2010)
Â	(b) Use of country PFM and procurement systems	Reduce the gap. [use the same logic as in Paris – close the gap by two-thirds where CPIA score is >=5; or by one-third where between 3.5 and 4.5] (Baseline year 2010)
10.	Aid is untied
Â	% of aid that is fully untied	Continued progress over time (Baseline year 2010)

The purpose of the framework is to encourage all stakeholders to improve the effectiveness of their development co-operation in order to maximize their impact. Alongside a mechanism to advance high-quality development co-operation, the framework provides a model for:

• Country-led accountability: monitoring efforts are founded on developing country leadership and ownership of development priorities, building on countries own accountability mechanisms and information systems;
• An international framework platform to reinforce mutual learning and knowledge sharing, linking national, regional and global levels;
• Global multi-stakeholder dialogue to learn how to deliver better results; an inclusive space for dialogue and shared lessons between governments, multilateral and regional organizations, private sector, foundations, GSOs and others; and
• Supporting accountability for post-2015 implementation: participation in the GPEDC monitoring process is voluntary and determined through self-selection. This demonstrates the political will to be held to account by each other, which provides the starting point for genuine partnership.

Drawing on its existing monitoring framework and process, the Partnership is embarking on a consultative process to strengthen the methodology and relevance of its indicators with a view to providing concrete proposals to support global implementation efforts towards the SDGs.

Quality and results of development financing (ODA, South-South Cooperation, Foreign Direct Investment, etc.) represent important elements of the Financing for Development process and the post-2015 means of implementation. Development finance becomes effective when complemented by impact-oriented cooperation; effective partnerships that yield concrete results will help the international community to deliver on its goals. The Global Partnership can support the accountability framework by providing an existing, inclusive platform for dialogue and learning to ensure continued improvements in the quality of development co-operation.

References

UNGA A/69/416 (2014), Report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing

Wood et. (2011) ‘Evaluation of the implementation of the Paris Declaration: Synthesis Report,, OECD

Yuko Suzuki is currently serving as a Team Leader and Policy Adviser-Effective Development Cooperation. In this capacity, she provides substantive policy and analytical support on country implementation and monitoring of the effective development cooperation agenda as part of the Joint UNDP/OECD Support Team for the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. She also manages a global policy advisory and advocacy portfolio on effective development cooperation including institutional and policy framework for effective development cooperation; transparent systems for planning, monitoring and reporting; and evidence-based accountability frameworks for effective development cooperation. She also provides strategic oversight/guidance on the UNDP coordination role in the Secretariat consortium of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). Prior to her current position, she served as an Aid Effectiveness Advisor with UNDP Rwanda/Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and an Aid Coordination Specialist with UNDP Tanzania.