Partnership For Effective Development Cooperation Research Articles

The Green Climate Fund and private sector climate finance in the Global South

ABSTRACT Governments and international organizations are increasingly using public funds to mobilize and leverage private finance for climate projects in the Global South. An important international organization in the effort to mobilize the private sector for financing climate mitigation and adaptation in the Global South is the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The GCF was established under the UNFCCC in 2010 and is the world’s largest dedicated multilateral climate fund. The GCF differs from other intergovernmental institutions through its fund-wide inclusion of the private sector, ranging from project design and financing to project implementation. In this paper, we investigate private sector involvement in the GCF through a qualitative exploratory research approach. We ask two main questions: Do private sector projects deliver on their ambitious goals? What are the tensions, if any, between private sector engagement and other principles of the GCF (most importantly the principles of country ownership, mitigation/adaptation balance, transparency, and civil society participation)? This paper argues that private sector involvement does not provide an easy way out of the financial constraints of public climate financing. We show that the GCF fails to deliver on its ambitious goals in private sector engagement for a number of reasons. First, private sector interest in GCF projects is thus far underwhelming. Second, there are strong tradeoffs between private sector projects and the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) principles of country ownership, transparency, and civil society participation. Third, private sector involvement is creating a mitigation bias within the GCF portfolio. Fourth, while the private sector portfolio is good at channeling funds to particularly vulnerable countries, it does so mostly through large multi-country projects with weak country ownership. Fifth, there is a danger that private climate financing based on loans and equity might add to the debt burden of developing countries, destabilize financial markets, and further increase dependency on the Global North.

Exploring ‘Country Ownership’: An Analysis of Development Cooperation Practices of Selected European Partners in Bangladesh

Recognizing that the political environment that once fostered a global culture of top down, conditionality-driven aid delivery is no longer in place, this theoretically informed study provides insight into the emerging ‘aid and/or development effectiveness’ narrative. By exploring a case study of Bangladesh, it offers a nuanced analytical perspective on the role of donor agencies in managing development partnership at the country level. It interweaves a critical review of the concept of country ownership, the historical role of three major European donors, namely FCDO, DANIDA, and GIZ, and the conversation with select stakeholders to illuminate the ineptness of the ‘development effectiveness’ narrative in guiding our efforts aimed at creating a new aid architecture. In particular, our research findings call into question the assumption that donors are committed to the principles of country ownership. Contrary to the claims of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC), our study observes that the new language of development effectiveness and/or country ownership did not create a positive space for Bangladesh to manage its own development agenda. Instead of demonstrating their desire to promote self-reliant development, donor agencies and countries appear to have leveraged the development effectiveness rhetoric for advancing their own sociopolitical interests.

A Decade Since Busan: Towards Legitimacy or a ‘New Tyranny’ of Global Development Partnership?

In 2011, the Busan Forum on Development Effectiveness announced the creation of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC). The GPEDC promised to replace the old donor–recipient dynamic in international development with ‘an equator-less landscape of multistakeholder global partnership’ (Eyben & Savage, 2013). Multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) have since become the global governance modality of choice for the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Advocates maintain that MSPs provide more legitimate and effective governance than interstate multilateralism. But critics contend that MSPs co-opt subaltern voices and reinscribe power asymmetries: MSPs may, thus, constitute a ‘New Tyranny’ within global development governance (Cooke & Kothari, 2001). Drawing on extensive empirical research, this article examines the extent to which the GPEDC provides more legitimate governance or effects akin to a ‘New Tyranny’. Against dichotomous portrayals of MSPs as either inherently ‘legitimate’ or ‘tyrannical’, the article finds that MSPs such as the GPEDC constitute spaces wherein normative principles of world order are negotiated. Nevertheless, the article finds that we are no closer to a global development partnership than we were at Busan.

Aid, Multidimensional Poverty and Growth: Reversing the Micro-Macro Paradox in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone

This article analyses whether Official Development Assistance (ODA) is linked to multidimensional poverty indicators in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sustainable Development Indictors and the principles stated by the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation. Focused on three western Sub-Saharan Africa and least developing countries such as Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, this article uses Error Correction Vector Model to estimate if ODA and economic growth are cointegrated and a sectoral and spatial analysis to check if ODA are linked to Multidimensional Poverty Indicators in the sample countries. Despite the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the three countries have achieved noticeable good results in poverty alleviation. Results shows a certain macro-micro paradox because, despite a common trend between aid and growth identified at the macro level, we cannot find any sign of ODA contributions to the multidimensional poverty indicators when the micro level analysis is carried out. Our results may serve to increase the level of implementation of the ownership principle for effective development co-operation and achieve a significant improvement of several goals and targets included on the 2030 Agenda.

An Exploratory Strategy on the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC): Applying the Delphi Method

An Exploratory Strategy on the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC): Applying the Delphi Method

Global development governance in the ‘interregnum’

Global governance is widely perceived to be ‘gridlocked’, ‘unravelling’, and ‘unfit for purpose’. The legitimacy of old institutions is breaking down, yet new institutions struggle to establish themselves as viable alternatives. Though overlooked, global development governance is no exception. Heterogeneous development actors, approaches, and understandings increasingly characterize the field. However, attempts to create a common platform have foundered. This article contributes to a growing body of literature that depicts world order as a Gramscian ‘interregnum’ to account for the crisis facing global development. Its primary contribution lies in the examination of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation as a vantage point to explore the politics, dynamics and struggles over the means and ends of ‘development’ in the current conjuncture. Here, competing projects vie for influence, yet none command the support necessary to supplant the ‘old' order. Although this article finds that the condition of ‘interregnum’ will likely persist, it also explores what transformative elements of a possible future exist within present practices.

JessicaTrisko DardenAiding and Abetting: U.S. Foreign Assistance and State ViolencePalo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. 198 p. $30.00 (paper).

JessicaTrisko DardenAiding and Abetting: U.S. Foreign Assistance and State ViolencePalo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. 198 p. $30.00 (paper).

Aid Effectiveness in the Sustainable Development Goals Era Comment on ""It's About the Idea Hitting the Bull's Eye": How Aid Effectiveness Can Catalyse the Scale-up of Health Innovations".

Over just a six-year period from 2005-2011, five aid effectiveness initiatives were launched: the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005), the International Health Partnership plus (2007), the Accra Agenda for Action (2008), the Busan Partnership for Effective Cooperation (2011), and the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) (2011). More recently, in 2015, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) was signed at the third international conference on financing for development and the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) 2030 Global Compact was signed in 2017. Both documents espouse principles of aid effectiveness and would most likely guide financing decisions in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) era. This is therefore a good moment to assess whether the aid effectiveness agenda made a difference in development and its relevance in the SDG era.

Perspectives on the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation

The establishment of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) created the unique opportunity to bring together and explore synergies between South–South cooperation (SSC) and traditional aid, or North–South cooperation. However, the GPEDC lacks support from both sides due to a lack of trust and misconceptions among partner countries. This article discusses the challenges of operationalising the GPEDC as a truly global and inclusive partnership. This is done by analysing differences between North–South and South–South cooperation and the challenges of bringing them closer. Furthermore, the particular reasons of individual SSC providers, the rising powers in particular, for withholding support for the GPEDC are identified and looked at in the context of fundamental differences between SSC and OECD-DAC aid.

Development Cooperation: Between the Global and Regional Institutions: The Case of the UN Development Cooperation Forum and the OECD Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation

This paper is a first attempt to apply the regime complex analysis to the issue area of international development cooperation mainly applied for the study of international trade and environment regimes. We focus on the interactions between the UN Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) and the OECD-led Global Partnership for Effective Development (GPEDC). Following a synthetic approach combining the realist and institutionalist IOs theories, and drawing also from the literature on the interrelations between global and regional institutions, we tried to relate the strategic actions of state actors, mainly traditional and emerging development cooperation providers, to the dynamics of the interaction between the DCF and the GPEDC, and its observed patterns: cooperation, competition and division of labour.

In or Beyond Aid: The Difficult Path of Policy Coherence for Development

Analyses of Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) began to arise in the OECD more than two decades ago. These approaches have evolved while the discussions about the necessary reform of the system of international cooperation were taking place. However, the meetings in Rome, Paris, Accra and Busan, and the Aid Effectiveness Agenda, focused on a technocratic and unilateral vision of efficiency, away from the approach of CPD. Subsequently, the creation of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation has not meant a change of course on this issue. The article shows the striking absence of the CPD at conferences and declarations, which contrasts with its remarkable evolution in the doctrinal level, and raises the potentialities of the 2030 Agenda for the CPD.

Чья помощь более результативна? Традиционные и формирующиеся двусторонние доноры Киргизии

Various commentators often contrapose emerging development donors to the traditional ones on a number of factors including aid effectiveness. While such distinction can be productive for analyzing development assistance at a global level, it might bring less value when considering development aid milieu at a local level. In this article the author considersthe case of Kyrgyzstan and its main aid donors based on select criteria set out by the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. It draws on an analysis of databases, official documents, open sources including media and the country’s National Sustainable Development Strategy for 2013-2017. It concludes that traditional and emerging donors do not represent homogeneous groups; for Kyrgyzstan, differences within the group can be as significant as differences among the groups. Moreover, the analysis does not support the notion that assistance from traditional donors has greater effectiveness. On some parameters including alignment emerging donors’ assistance can be more effective. Nonetheless, serious gaps between the two groups remain in terms of transparency, mutual accountability and harmonization. The author also explores the stronger bargaining positions of aid recipient in their interactions with donors due to the increased diversity of sources of assistance, focusing on this trend in Kyrgyzstan. Given Kyrgyzstan’s position as a priority for Russia’s assistance and Russia’s rapidly increasing levels of support, the author also addresses the case of Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fundin detail.

Los Países Latinoamericanos de Renta Media Alta y su influencia en la configuración del régimen de la Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo

Este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar el rol que Países Latinoamericanos de Renta Media Alta (PLRMA) asumen en la reconfiguración del régimen de la Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (CID). Para ello, se parte de un enfoque teórico constructivista que sugiere que la identidad de los Estados desempeña un papel fundamental en las relaciones internacionales. Así, se contrastan los supuestos teóricos constructivista con el discurso asumido por estos países en la Primera Reunión de Alto Nivel de la Alianza Global para la Cooperación Eficaz al Desarrollo. Los resultados muestran que la postura de dichos países es resultado de un proceso intersubjetivo de identidades que incide en la transformación del régimen de la CID. El artículo concluye destacando la importancia de las identidades para determinar dos visiones de la CID en Latinoamérica, entre la conciliación y la alternancia del régimen actual.

The Rhetoric and Reality of Partnerships for International Development

AbstractOver the past 60 years, the international development landscape has become far more complex. There is now a much wider range and number of organisations involved in some aspect of poverty alleviation, and an increasing emphasis on collaborative activities and forming partnerships to achieve development goals. This approach has been reinforced by the eighth Millennium Development Goal, which calls for a global partnership for development, the emerging Sustainable Development Goals, as well as recent multi‐stakeholder partnerships including the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, which evolved from the Busan Partnership agreement devised at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. However, there are many challenges to partnerships, both in terms of defining their form and operation, but also achieving sustainable, mutually beneficial partnerships for development. The advocating of partnerships in development policy suggests significant normative advantages to a more collaborative approach; however, other literature are more cautious, highlighting a number of pitfalls including reductions in effectiveness, difficulties in implementation and conflicts of interest. This article reviews the contemporary nature of partnerships for international development and considers their role in achieving more effective development cooperation.

South–South cooperation and the international development battlefield: between the oecd and the UN

This article discusses the transformation in development architecture, focusing on the role of emerging powers and the growing relevance of South–South cooperation (ssc). Drawing on a conceptual toolkit based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, it aims to approach ssc as a narrative and to understand the processes of contestation that have turned international development into a battlefield since the end of the 1990s. The article argues that the emergence of ssc has contributed to decentring the field of international development, both in terms of the agents authorised to play and the practices considered legitimate. Within this process the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, led by the oecd’s Development Assistance Committee, and the United Nations Development Cooperation Forum have become two sites on the battlefield on which the borders of international development are being redrawn.

How to Shape Development Cooperation? The Global Partnership and the Development Cooperation Forum

2014 will be an important milestone for shaping the policy field of development cooperation in a post-2015 context. Two central events are taking place. The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) will convene for its first High-Level Meeting in April 2014 in Mexico City. The United Nations (UN) Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) will hold its biennial meeting in July 2014 in New York. How will these two platforms shape development cooperation and its future governance architecture? Development cooperation, as a policy field dealing with the mobilisation of budgetary resources for the purpose of promoting development, is in a transition phase. For a long period, development cooperation has been closely linked to “aid”, a concept developed by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). However, this system has increasingly come under pressure to adapt to a more differentiated global landscape characterised by newly emerging actors, new forms of cooperation and a growing awareness of global challenges such as climate change, financial regulation and security. The shifts in the policy field have given rise to competing global platforms for development cooperation and incentives for “forum shopping”. Still, any global platform to manage development cooperation needs to provide a set of principles, norms, and mechanisms for knowledge exchange around which actors’ expectations converge. In order to adequately fulfil this function, it will have to be legitimate, effective and relevant. Applying these criteria to the GPEDC and DCF, three models are possible: 1) Each platform for itself: This model describes a perpetuation of the status quo, characterised by a lack of cohesion between the GPEDC and the DCF. The continuation of parallel efforts on competing platforms will not sufficiently enable current challenges to be addressed. 2) Two platforms, different functions: Under this model, stakeholders in the GPEDC and the DCF agree to clearly describe their functions in support of the overarching post-2015 agenda. This model would mark an improvement over the status quo; however, challenges in day to day coordination between both platforms would remain. 3) One platform for all: This model envisions a merger of both platforms to consolidate discussions around the functioning of development cooperation. The platform would have universal membership and strong monitoring, evaluation and accountability mechanisms, combining the best features of DCF and GPEDC. It would draw on a clear UN mandate to manage development cooperation towards implementing the post-2015 agenda. Only such a common platform would be legitimate, effective and relevant at the same time.

Recent Trends in Aid Predictability and the Policy Implications

This paper mainly covers the medium-term aid predictability by reviewing the evolution of international-level discussions on the issue. This paper also provides a brief diagnosis on Korea’s current budgetary process and multi-year spending plan on ODA. Finally, it draws policy implications for Korea as a new DAC member as well as a steering committee member of the Busan Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation.