Last week, the Republic of Korea, with the Global Partnership, hosted the 2021 Busan Partnership Forum, bringing together diverse partners under the theme of ‘Promoting Development Effectiveness in the Era of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Innovative Approaches to Meeting the SDGs’.
”Let us make of this crisis a time for opportunity, a political momentum to reinvigorate the effectiveness agenda," said H.E. Mr. Choi Jongmoon (Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea) in his opening remarks. Amidst today’s multi-dimensional challenges of pandemics, climate change and inequalities, the Vice Minister called for an updated narrative on development effectiveness and stronger inclusive partnerships with new development actors such as non-DAC providers, entrepreneurs and philanthropists.
To that end, the upcoming 2022 Effectiveness Summit to be hosted in Geneva, Switzerland was announced by the Global Partnership Co-Chairs present during the Forum, H.E. Mr. Christian Nsimba (Minister of Planning, Democratic Republic of Congo), H.E. Mr Thomas Gass (Ambassador, Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation) and Mr. Meja Vitalice (Executive Director, Reality of Aid Africa). Through adapting a new narrative for effectiveness in new contexts and with new ways of partnering, the Summit will help to demonstrate that the shared principles are more important than ever to help build back better and achieve the 2030 Agenda.
Over the course of two days, governments, development partners, civil society organizations and private sector participants at the Forum centered their discussions and recommendations around:
- the need to. the update development effectiveness narrative for new contexts such as COVID and in challenging contexts such as the case for fragile states. Speakers from the United States, Mali, the United Nations, International Peace Institute and CrossBoundary spoke on the challenges around effective financing during COVID.
- the increasing importance of scaling innovative partnerships with lessons shared from Extreme Tech Challenge, Devex, MicKinsey, Gates Foundation, Giga-UNICEF, UNDP Accelerator Labs, OECD, World Bank, NewGlobe Education, CPDE, amongst many others.
- the focus on implementing the effectiveness principles at the country level, especially during the pandemic. Noting experiences of Bangladesh, Cambodia, The Gambia, Rwanda, Kenya, among others, there was a call to further align development co-operation with country systems, build inclusive partnerships, focus on results, and ensure systems for mutual accountability and transparency to effectively respond to the pandemic.
- the recognition that the Global Partnership monitoring reform comes at a critical time. As we fast approach the 2030 deadline, our monitoring efforts must continue to focus on gathering evidence and on holding development actors accountable to their commitments.
- the Global Partnership performance and governance review which shows that while the organization’s mandate remains relevant, partners need to bring the effectiveness principles into action through behavior change at the country level.
In looking ahead, Mr. Gass welcomed participation at the upcoming Summit which aims to tackle these recommendations head-on “to underscore how critical the effectiveness principles are for the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals”. Mr. Vitalice thanked the Republic of Korea’s efforts noting that it is “the only other Forum, after the Global Partnership high-level meetings, where practitioners can meet and share practical experiences, challenges and solutions to inclusive partnerships.”
More information on the 2022 High-Level Meeting will be available shortly.
All recordings of the Forum are available here.
The 2021 Busan Forum takes place 10 years after the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation, a ground-breaking agreement that set out shared principles for development effectiveness and endorsed by a broad range of governments, civil society organisations, private sector and other actors. The Busan Partnership agreement led to the establishment of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC).