The first United Nations Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) took place in the first week of July in New York.The main topic was reforming aid. Can it deliver where other institutions have struggled?
The 2005 UN World Summit decided “to convene a biennial high-level Development
Cooperation Forum (DCF) that would review trends in international development cooperation, including strategies, policies and financing; promote greater coherence among the development activities of different development partners and strengthen the normative and operational link in the work of the United Nations.”
However, there are key challenges to this move. Needless to say, political feasibility is the first challenge. It is unlikely that donor governments will want to give up an institutional framework that they fully control – OECD DAC – to get themselves into another one – the DCF – where they have less. Moreover, transferring these debates to the UN would implicitly mean politicising the aid effectiveness negotiations, which so far donors have tried to keep very “technical” in tone.
Challenges can be addressed if the political will to reform the aid architecture is in place. However, the first DCF in New York was still dominated by a general sense of uncertainty about what the future holds for the DCF.
Report by Eurodad’s Nuria Molina, who attended the recent DCF meeting in New York
Filed under: Beyond WECA
