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UN PhotoEconomic and Social Council
28th Plenary Meeting of Economic and Social Council 2018 Session
Hard‑won development gains were being threatened by numerous challenges, including inequality, migration, climate change, the rise of violent extremism, populism and the shrinking of civic space, speakers warned today, as the Economic and Social Council’s annual high-level meeting of the Development Cooperation Forum got under way.
Despite the new and emerging challenges that were being witnessed around the world, development cooperation could help turn many of those negative trends around, while promoting the “sustainable development for all” vision of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, said Marie Chatardová (Czechia), President of the Economic and Social Council.
When exploring the role of development cooperation in reaching the 2030 Agenda, efforts must be made to look at more than financial flows and include an examination of the role of capacity support, sharing of technical know-how, policy change and multi-stakeholder partnerships, she continued.
Although some remarkable advances had been witnessed, there was still a long way to go to building sustainable and resilient societies, said Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General, adding that inclusive development was critical for ensuring a life of dignity for all and defending against rising populism and violent extremism.
“All our actions must be guided by our commitment to leave no one behind,” she stressed, underscoring that too little official development assistance (ODA) was going to least developed countries with special situations. Some 767 million people still lived on less than $1.90 per day, while about 793 million suffered from undernourishment between 2014 and 2016.
Forging partnerships and encouraging and facilitating alignment of institutions, policies and actions with the 2030 Agenda would be critical, she continued, emphasizing that engaging the private sector would be indispensable for bringing the needed innovation, capacity-building, technology development and transfer and to dramatically scale up investment.
In a keynote address, Jeremy Heimans, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Purpose, noted that development cooperation was traditionally organized in an “old power” fashion, in which top-down dynamics were most prevalent. In that structure, beneficiaries were not directly involved in the decision-making that would most affect their lives due to an unequal power dynamic and lack of agency.
Yet, a “new power” structure was emerging, he said, in which power was distributed more equally among stakeholders. In that context, he underlined that more efforts must be undertaken to build institutions that fuelled citizens’ hunger to “take part”, pointing to online platforms as being highly effective at engaging people. He noted that there was a lot that could be learned from such social movements, many of which were maximizing collective action dynamics. In that connection, development cooperation should be shifted in a way that actively engaged people and gave them opportunities to shape their own future, he said.
Presenting the Secretary-General’s report on “Trends and progress in international development cooperation”, Liu Zhenmin, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, stressed that development cooperation must remain focused on achieving the 2030 Agenda. Countries with limited capacities required tailored support to move from managing disasters to managing and reducing risk and building resilience.
ODA remained a distinct and vital source of development finance, he said, although allocation patterns were changing and a smaller portion of such assistance went to special spending. “This raises concerns, especially for countries that still rely on ODA for funding their social programmes,” he said, calling attention to the importance of specific steps to ensure development assistance commitments were met, particularly for countries in special situations.
Capacity-building played an important role in putting developing countries in the driver’s seat, he said, emphasizing the need for South-South and triangular cooperation. He highlighted the importance of expanding the space for the private sector to be involved in sustainable development, while also underscoring the need for strengthened engagement with other stakeholders.
Also throughout the day, participants took part in three panel discussions, the first of which focused on “Building sustainability and resilience through development cooperation”. The second panel was titled, “Mainstreaming inclusive multi-stakeholder partnerships and approaches in development cooperation: policy and legal frameworks”, while the third was on “Getting better results for sustainable development: the role of National Development Cooperation Policies”. In the afternoon, three parallel dialogues also took place.
The Development Cooperation Forum will continue on Tuesday, 22 May at 10 a.m.
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