What is the role of Effective Development Co-operation in financing results at country level?
Now that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) are underway, countries are acting to link finance flows with national development results. At the same time, many actors in the international community are reflecting on how their role in development should evolve.
There is strong consensus about countries as the primary drivers of their own development, with international public finance playing an important supportive role. For countries taking a more holistic, strategic approach to managing financing through an integrated national financing framework (INFF) called for by the AAAA, it is timely to ask what implications this has for development co-operation.
According to countries in the region, to understand the effectiveness of development co-operation at the country level, it is important to understand the extent to which it is achieving these roles:
Gap filling
- Finance – targeting needs
- Knowledge – technical co-operation, capacity development
Leveraging other flows to achieve results
- Private investments – blended finance, private sector development
- Other official finance – domestic resource mobilisation, triangular co-operation
Institutional development
- Technical cooperation – support for establishing an integrated national financing framework
- Use of INFF systems – strengthening institutions by using their processes
Monitoring development effectiveness
Now in its second round, the Global Partnership’s monitoring framework tracks progress in implementing four principles of effective development co-operation: ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships and transparency and accountability.
The framework focuses on the effectiveness of the systems, processes and co-operation rather than the direct outcomes of those systems. As such, a number of its indicators capture information that is relevant to the concept of integrated national financing frameworks, and understanding the extent to which development co-operation works effectively in engaging with countries’ financing systems.
An INFF foundational principal emphasizes aligning development actors around a core, common set of results in order to increase effectiveness in realizing those results in practice.
Indicator 1 of the GPEDC monitoring framework tracks the extent to which development co-operation providers use the results frameworks of the countries they are working in. The measures within this indicator give insights into alignment between development co-operation and the results articulated through countries’ existing results frameworks.
The results from the 26 Asia-Pacific countries that participated in the survey highlight the extent to which donors align their programming to countries’ existing financing frameworks. The results show that core aspects of many projects are aligned to national systems, although there is still much room for improvement.
How does this feed into the Second High-Level Meeting (HLM2)?
Going into greater detail of realities on the ground, the 2016 AP-DEF Regional Report: Achieving the SDGs in the Era of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda – Progress on integrated national financing frameworks in the Asia-Pacific region, to be released ahead of HLM2, will delve deeper into the building blocks of the INFF and what is means at country level for governments and partners to link finance with results for the achievement of the SDGs.
The Asia-Pacific consultation “Linking Development Finance with Results: Achieving the SDGs in the Asia-Pacific Region – Consultation for the 2nd High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation” 26-27 October in Bangkok, Thailand will tackle this topic and more.
Follow @APDEFplatorm for updates on key messages from the Asia-Pacific region to the GPEDC.