The theme of this year’s Busan Forum – Delivering Better Together for Sustainable Development: Leveraging Effective Development Cooperation – sought to underscore the link between effective cooperation, and sustainable development in the face of growing political, economic, and environmental crises. The Busan Forum, almost a full year on from the Summit in Geneva, brought together partners to hear diverse perspectives on the challenges faced by different constituencies in their efforts to uphold, and implement, the four principles of effective development co-operation; share knowledge on innovative solutions, and reflect on progress so far in the monitoring exercise.
Opening the Forum, Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, encouraged partners to “use the Busan Forum to leverage their Geneva commitments and redouble efforts for principle-guided and evidence-based development cooperation to accelerate SDG implementation.” She emphasized how investment in partnerships, guided by the four effectiveness principles, and strategic nationally-owned policies supported by international cooperation, can produce long-lasting solutions.
The 2023 Busan Forum focused the discussion around six sessions across Day 1 and Day 2:
Setting the Scene: Effective Development Cooperation in the Context of Global and Emerging Challenges
Locally-led development: exploring best practices for promoting agency, accountability, and results
Upholding civil society’s role and space to ensure inclusive partnerships and locally-led development
Effective Private Sector Engagement for Sustainable Development
Strengthening the Effectiveness of Partnerships in the context of South-South cooperation
Bringing it All Together with Country Level Action to Deliver Better Together
Colleagues exchanged on efforts toward the effectiveness commitments in their own work, and how priorities aligned with the Geneva Summit Declaration and the Partnership’s 2023-2036 Work Programme. As partner countries lead the 4th Monitoring Round with 53 participating (and counting), countries and non-governmental stakeholders alike were able to share experiences and best practices on quality of data and the use of monitoring results. H.E. Mr. Joseph Capuno, Undersecretary for Investment Planning of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) of the Philippines, emphasized the Philippines’ own journey of embedding the monitoring exercise into country processes (development partner and data-assessment forums, for reduced transaction costs and better informed policy.
As part of Co-chairs’ concluding remarks, Ms. Marie Ottosson, Deputy Director-General of the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency, committed the Partnership to putting the “the effectiveness agenda at the center of ongoing relevant political processes, where it belongs:” at the core of how partners work together to achieve the SDGs.
All material related to the 2023 Busan Forum can be found here.
