Introduction
Development assistance has always been critical to responding to shocks and disasters: to care for the injured, to rebuild the damaged, to help restore society and return from calamity. In 2016, 12.5 percent of Official Development Assistance (ODA) was provided in response to humanitarian needs. Of this, close to 90% was in response to emergency response.
Resilience – the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, and to be less reliant on development assistance even in the face of disaster – cannot, on the other hand, be achieved with development assistance alone. Achieving resilience is a longer-term process, addressing environmental, social and economic vulnerability and exclusion, and the root causes of conflicts and fragility, while strengthening enabling institutions and policy environments. It is a process that requires a broader and longer engagement, supported by adequate and effective financing, knowledge and asset transfers, and innovation. As much as anything else, it requires engaging a range of development actors.
The Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) brings together such a range, from recipients to providers, from local government to civil society, from trade unions to the private sector, and beyond, to work together, and make commitments based on long-term partnerships, and mutual transparency.
It is a forum for advice, shared accountability, and shared learning to support the implementation of four principles1 that are the foundation of effective development co-operation, agreed at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea in 2011 and re-asserted at the Mexico and Nairobi High-Level Meetings (HLMs) of the Global Partnership: (i) ownership by developing countries; (ii) a focus on results; (iii) inclusive development partnerships; and (iv) transparency and accountability to one another.
It represents a holistic development co-operation approach that can, and is already, underscoring meaningful progress towards more resilient societies and the 2030 Agenda...