ECOSOC - Access Cutting Edge Analysis

The world has seen the fastest reduction of poverty for the past 15 years, along with reaching several other MDG targets. Despite these remarkable achievements, there remain a number of unfinished and emerging challenges for the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to address. These include, among others, extreme poverty, inequalities within and among countries as well as other challenges associated with weak governance, natural disasters, environmental degradation, unsustainable consumption and production patterns, climate change and a volatile global financial system. The least developed countries (LDCs), in particular remain among the most vulnerable and poorest countries that have been lagging behind in achieving the MDGs.

Through the Paris Agreement, developed country Parties agreed to provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation, in continuation of their existing obligations under the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Other Parties are encouraged to provide or continue to provide such support voluntarily.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing sustainable development, emphasises the use of resources beyond official development assistance (ODA). This shift necessitates deeper consideration and understanding of the comparative advantage that each resource has in different contexts and situations. This is perhaps most imperative in the case of ODA, as the smallest resource in overall terms and one with unique qualities. Being concessional, stable and non-profit seeking, ODA can target specific areas of need and reach the poorest and most vulnerable people.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development challenges traditional international development cooperation thinking in two key ways. It strengthens the call to mobilise resources beyond official development assistance (ODA) toward achieving development outcomes. It also emphasises the need for 'means of implementation' to go beyond finance, and to include both systemic and context-specific measures.

Inequality has received wide attention as one of the most daunting challenges of our time. While income inequality has been in the spotlight amid staggering examples of economic imbalances, inequalities arise from a wide range of factors in the economic, social and political spheres. 

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development emphasises the importance of recognizing sustainable development as multidimensional, requiring balanced policy action across economic, social and environmental dimensions. This characteristic of sustainable development poses a key challenge: integrating policies across its different dimensions and levels of implementation.

Trends and progress in international development cooperation - Report of the Secretary-General

Mutual Accountability (MA), that is, the accountability between the providers and recipients of development cooperation, is deemed an essential principle and framework for the effectiveness of development cooperation. The Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) convened by the United Nations Economic and Social (ECOSOC), commissioned a study on national mutual accountability. 

Development cooperation in the era of Agenda 2030 for Sustain-able Development must be premised on a new partnership among development stakeholders globally.

A transformative post-2015 development agenda will require a multi-layered framework for monitoring and review of development cooperation.

International development cooperation, for the purpose of this policy brief, is understood as "international action intended to support development in developing countries".

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) commissioned this scoping study on “Monitoring, Review and Accountability for Development Cooperation to support implementation of a post-2015 development agenda”.

In preparation for the 2010 Development Cooperation Forum, one of the thematic areas on which the DCF is focusing as part of its review of trends in development cooperation, is the strengthening of South-South cooperation (SSC).

South-South Cooperation (SSC) received considerable attention as a philosophy for development during the 1960s and 1970s.