Throughout 2023, the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) engaged in a range of activities, including organizing three main events as a part of its advocacy and outreach strategy:
A side event at the 2023 UN Financing for Development Forum (FfD) in April 2023, with participation from Partner Countries, Development Partners, and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). The event highlighted the role of the GPEDC monitoring exercise in optimizing development finance to enhance the impact of development efforts.
A side event at the 2023 UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in July 2023, with participation from Partner Countries, Development Partners, CSOs, the private sector, academia, and multilateral organizations. The event underscored the significance of multi-stakeholder partnerships in catalyzing development progress at the country level, as well as the linkages between the Global Partnership monitoring exercise and the national reporting processes for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The 2023 Busan Global Partnership Forum, organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea, was held in December 2023. Under the theme “Delivering Better Together for Sustainable Development: Leveraging Effective Development Co-operation,” the 2023 Busan Forum facilitated an exchange of ideas among 165 policymakers and practitioners in development co-operation from various sectors. The discussions throughout the six sessions of the Forum focused on efforts to improve development effectiveness at the country level in different thematic contexts, including locally-led development, the role of civil society, private sector engagement, and South-South co-operation.
The outcomes and participants’ ideas shared at these events can be organized around a few key trends.
Setting the GPEDC Monitoring Exercise in Focus
Participants in all three events echoed the crucial role of the monitoring exercise in shaping a more informed development co-operation policy. In the UN FfD side event, representatives from partner countries highlighted the monitoring exercise as a valuable instrument for generating concrete data and evidence, or lack thereof, to discern “what works” within the country’s development co-operation landscape.
During the same event, different constituencies further underscored the importance of the monitoring exercise beyond mere data gathering. There was a call for more inclusive dialogue and strengthened country ownership. Both aspects were seen as imperative to guarantee the effective use of results derived from the monitoring exercise.
At the 2023 UN HLPF, different constituencies emphasized the catalytic impact of the monitoring exercise on advancing SDG progress. The side event offered an insightful discussion on the contribution of the monitoring exercise to SDG reporting, including SDG indicators 5.c.1, 17.15 and 17.16, and its role in informing Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) processes.
Development stakeholders participating in the event discussed how the monitoring exercise could elevate the quality of countries’ VNRs, fostering a more inclusive process. Representatives from the private sector and civil society elaborated on their active involvement in monitoring development co-operation, emphasizing shared value creation.
To tie together preceding discussions on the monitoring exercise, session six of the 2023 Busan Forum centered on utilizing the monitoring exercise as a tool to drive more effective development co-operation. In line with the views iterated in the UN FfD and UN HLPF side events, participants of this session shared comparable perspectives on using the role and results of the monitoring exercise to guide in-country development co-operation efforts. Additionally, representatives from partner countries demonstrated heightened country ownership by sharing their plans for navigating the different phases of the monitoring exercise, institutionalizing the process, ensuring inclusivity, and utilizing the results to spur in-country actions.
Furthermore, discussions shed light on several important aspects for the monitoring exercise at country level:
Raising awareness at the country level and political buy-in from various development stakeholders.
Guaranteeing the participation of all stakeholders to ensure comprehensive data.
Mobilizing support and, if needed, resources to facilitate an inclusive dialogue process in the country, involving all relevant development stakeholders with shared commitments, and facilitating the uptake of the findings from the monitoring exercise.
Cognisant of these important elements for the monitoring exercise – awareness, participation and mobilizing support – all stakeholders are called on to step up their engagement. This includes local development actors and development partners at country level to assist the partner country government with these three elements throughout the implementation of the monitoring exercise, and to generate momentum for the reflection and actions that should follow the results of the exercise.
Two GPEDC monitoring trainings also took place in 2023 and provided interesting insights. During these trainings, National Coordinators from partner country governments exchanged ideas to enhance the implementation of the monitoring exercise, ranging from communicating the added value of engaging different stakeholders in the monitoring exercise to maintaining strong networks with different stakeholder groups.
Heightened participation of Partner Country Governments
Throughout the three main GPEDC advocacy events in 2023, there was strong participation and engagement from partner country governments. This signals:
Strong ownership of the monitoring exercise and adherence to the effectiveness principles yields long-term development outcomes,
Leadership in steering development co-operation efforts in the country, ensuring alignment between different development interventions and national development strategies,
Awareness of the significance of data-driven and evidence-based development policies,
Shift in focus from government-centered to multi-stakeholder development partnerships, ensuring greater inclusivity in national dialogues, processes, and agenda-setting.
Furthermore, representatives from partner countries valued the events for fostering peer-to-peer learning and identifying avenues for collaboration, such as through South-South cooperation.
In addition to the heightened participation of partner country governments, there was strong participation of different constituencies in GPEDC events, such as civil society and the private sector. This indicates an increased focus on collective accountability and concerted action to improve development impact. In the different events, each participating constituency conveyed its role in supporting the government in achieving development outcomes. The different constituencies further emphasized the requirements for an enabling environment to facilitate effective participation.
Propelling the Partnership's advocacy and outreach work
Overall, all three events promoted the effectiveness agenda and fostered peer learning among partner country governments, development partners, private sector actors, civil society, and others. By exploring the practical implementation of the four effectiveness principles - country ownership, focus on results, transparency and mutual accountability, and inclusive partnerships - to steer action at the country level, the discussions explored different partnerships and delivery models for development co-operation within various national contexts.
In addition to raising political awareness on the effectiveness agenda, these three GPEDC 2023 events served as a platform for promoting the monitoring exercise. Partner Countries who have committed to undertaking the monitoring exercise in the 2023 – 2026 cycle used the events to:
articulate their motivations for participating in the monitoring exercise,
outline strategies for institutionalizing the exercise within national processes and mechanisms,
advocate for broadening outreach to non-participating countries and a more inclusive process.
In all three events, other development stakeholders complemented these perspectives by underscoring their contributions to the monitoring exercise and driving development co-operation towards greater inclusivity.