This brief highlights how the outbreak of the global COVID 19 pandemic has posed new demands on development cooperation in its various forms: finance, capacity support, policy change and multi-stakeholder partnerships. Observably, the South-South and triangular cooperation showcased signs of resilience in the pandemic period, particularly in the areas of technical cooperation, in-kind support and multi-stakeholder partnership, as well as mobilizing financial support.
The brief also highlights some recommendations in order to reduce risk, and enable recovery and build resilience and these include:
- Countries need to support equitable access to COVID-19 to COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and related tools as global public goods. Reinforcing solidarity and coordination is cardinal to advance the production, supply and distribution of vaccines, particularly in the most vulnerable countries.
- Development partners should focus at meeting the ODA target of 0.7 per cent of GNI for ODA to developing countries and 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of ODA/GNI to LDCs, aligned with developing country priorities and strategies. The provision of grants rather than loans should be emphasized, particularly for LDCs and SIDS. Supporting middle-income countries (MICs) is also an imperative for recovery, including through non-concessional lending windows of multilateral development banks that can provide long-term finance at below-market rates.
- International development cooperation partners and developing countries should focus at strengthening efforts to enhance their development cooperation systems, thmaking them more risk-informed, resilient and climate-smart. Platforms such as the ECOSOC Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) and its biennial Survey exercise offer an opportunity to link global policy dialogue and innovative action in development cooperation on the ground in support of such efforts.