The Palgrave Handbook of Development Cooperation for Achieving the 2030 Agenda

This chapter argues that most efforts to mobilise non-state and subnational actor engagement so far has insufficiently contributed to goal coherence—the balanced implementation of internationally agreed goals. Despite the increased level of attention being given to the polycentric nature of sustainable development and climate governance—especially the role of non-state and subnational actors—the predominant focus of both policy-makers and researchers has been on filling functional gaps, for example closing the global mitigation gap, or financing gaps. As a result, voluntariness and self-organisation in polycentric governance could increase the level of incoherence. Insights on emerging polycentric structures should be combined with tools that map (goal) coherence. The combination of these fields of knowledge could inform supportive policies, for instance in development cooperation to ensure greater coherence in implementing sustainable development priorities.

In their attempt to stimulate an exponential financing rise of “billions to trillions”, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda are helping to normalise and promote a radical shift in development finance. A growing concern is that private finance is not forthcoming, calling into question the “billions to trillions” model. In this chapter, however, I focus on the risks of “successfully” moving in this direction. The mainstream bilateral and multilateral community appear too sanguine, and even naïve, about the financial sector. Any analysis of the SDGs must be attentive to the possibilities and risks of the emerging development finance regime that they are helping to legitimate.1

With the 2030 Agenda, the development paradigm has shifted towards global sustainable development, but modes of cooperation between actors in the Global North and South still cling to traditional patterns of cooperation, reproducing antiquated knowledge hierarchies. Departing from technical cooperation, transnational research cooperation may be a more equitable mode of cooperation with the potential of developing innovative solutions for sustainable development. Yet, its potential is not fully realised. Science policies on the national level and global governance mechanisms need to set a beneficial framework, ensuring that expectations of partnerships and outcomes for global sustainable development can be met. The current incoherence of national science and development cooperation policies may be aggravated by existing gaps in global governance mechanisms in view of sustainability-oriented transnational research cooperation.

With a collective commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the worlds of development cooperation, in general, and development finance, in particular, are keenly looking for new and innovative sources of financing for effective and timely outcomes. This chapter considers three successful efforts at providing global public goods for the goal of achieving the 2030 Agenda that operationalise development cooperation in a more “shared” manner, thereby opening up space for engagement by multiple stakeholders in a less hierarchical manner. It identifies three common ingredients that make meaningful contributions to the success of these efforts: access to resources, access to participatory institutions, and ensuring multi-stakeholder participation.

This chapter explains why bilateral aid donors often look and act alike, despite distinct national interests and histories—a phenomenon previously identified as “the globalisation of foreign aid”. It identifies processes that drive the similarity of aid actors and the diffusion of aid priorities, contributing to the globalisation of aid. The chapter reflects upon: (1) how the isomorphism of aid institutions and the homogenisation of aid policy represent the effects of these common processes of globalisation; (2) the implications of the globalisation of aid on the 2030 Agenda; and (3) how the globalisation of aid contributes to the “contested cooperation” framework woven through this volume.

Universality is one of the key novel characteristics of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. By applying a functional approach to external policies, this chapter challenges traditional notions of development cooperation and shows that the agenda’s means of implementation as well as their application are lopsided towards so-called developing countries. However, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals critically depends on the agenda’s implementation also within the so-called developed countries as well as between them. Therefore, the function of development cooperation to shape conditions within other countries by using cooperative and promotional instruments should be exerted also vis-à-vis “developed countries”. International cooperation for sustainable development needs to become universal, multimodal, mutual, and transformative if it wants to deliver change, not aid.

The adoption of the 2030 Agenda was only the end of the beginning. To realise the goals, the challenge that lies ahead—prompted by its universal nature—is to implement the agenda’s rapid diffusion into national policies and reforms needed all over the world. This is no easy task. The historical legacies of global normative agreements have taught us that global norms rarely bring about the forms of change that we expect them to. How can we explain these apparent challenges of spreading global norms across the world? We argue that the diffusion of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals is not only challenged because of contemporary political circumstances, but also because of the fundamental situated nature of how actors engage with global norms.

Development cooperation (DC) is shaped by norms. We aim at filling a gap of research on DC by using the academic debates in international relations on norms. Contrary to interpretations that consider developed countries as norm-makers and developing countries as norm-takers, our analysis provides evidence that—and highlights how—Southern agents have influenced the processes of norm-setting and norm-diffusion for DC. The OECD was the dominant norms “entrepreneur” for a long period of time; more recently, developing countries have played a significant role in setting DC norms. We identify the diverging norms for official development assistance and South-South cooperation and the interrelationship between both norm systems. Thus, norm-making, norm-taking, and norm-diffusion of two competing norm clusters are key terms of the contribution.

This chapter analyses the development discourse on foreign aid to explore areas of convergence between the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors and Chinese development cooperation. We apply the concept of “coalition magnets”—the capacity of an idea to appeal to a diverse set of individuals and groups, and to be used strategically by policy entrepreneurs to frame interests, mobilise support, and build coalitions. Three coalition magnets are identified: mutual benefit, development results, and the 2030 Agenda. The chapter finds that coalition magnets can be used to influence political change and concludes that applying a discursive approach provides a new conceptual opportunity for fostering closer engagement between OECD-DAC and Chinese development cooperation actors.

Countries and governments are divided on the fora and mechanisms for agreeing on effective development cooperation. But progress can be made on measuring what countries are doing in different areas of cooperation. This chapter looks at how we can assess the quality of development cooperation. It sets out a framework for measuring development cooperation across three areas: development finance; country policies affecting the exchange of goods, people, ideas, and capital; and global public goods. It considers the availability of measures against that framework and concludes on how these measures can be developed, or where new measures are needed, to provide a holistic assessment of development cooperation.

The motives for providing development assistance change according to historical and political trajectories but always combine varying degrees of altruism and selfishness. Currently, we are witnessing disruptive change in development cooperation as political leaders forward an increasingly self-regarding rationale for international assistance. In an empirical analysis of Northern donors’ narratives and aid allocation strategies, we define the meaning of the “national interest” in development cooperation and distinguish its principled and parochial formats. Our empirical analysis suggests Northern donors continue to allocate based on principled norms, though there is a noticeable deterioration in their public spiritedness as they simultaneously seek short-term domestic benefits from overseas giving. Calls for a principled national interest narrative may, however, enable normative collaboration across Northern and Southern actors.

Pakistan is a key country in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) where the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is under implementation. An investment model of financing through loans, grants and private investments, CPEC is an example of South-South cooperation (SSC) having a number of benefits for both countries. Aimed at developing energy, industry, and communication infrastructure, the corridor initially valued at $46 billion but is now worth $62 billion. CPEC is expected to contribute significantly to socio-economic development and regional connectivity and trade. The main research question is, while implementing projects in Pakistan, to what extent China adheres to its avowed principles comprising features such as mutual respect, non-conditionality, equality, building local capacity and addressing actual needs of partner countries. Based mainly on the analysis of primary data collected during fieldwork in Pakistan, this research explores the extent to which the official narrative influences the actual practice of China’s development cooperation on the ground. To critically examine CPEC, this chapter uses a monitoring and evaluation framework developed by the Network of Southern Think Tanks (NeST), which is dedicated to generating systematic and clearly comparable knowledge on SSC (Besharati et al. 2017). The findings illustrate that, as per the five broad dimensions of the SSC framework, the China–Pakistan partnership under CPEC has performed well in the four areas of inclusive national ownership, horizontality, self-reliance and sustainability, and development effectiveness, but it has lagged in accountability and transparency.

Achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires significant behavioural changes from a variety of actors, including actors in development cooperation. Within this context, this chapter discusses important political as well as technical factors that influence the contribution of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) and its monitoring framework to the implementation of the SDGs. These are, among other things, the complementarity of the GPEDC monitoring framework to the SDGs; the limited enthusiasm of development partners from the Global South, in particular China and India; the limited attention paid to the platform in general and the monitoring framework in particular by member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); as well as the missing interpretative evaluations and follow-up processes in the aftermath of the respective monitoring rounds.

Rolando Avendano (Asian Development Bank), Johannes Jütting, and Manuel Kuhm (PARIS21) focus on the challenges and opportunities of the SDG indicator framework. They analyse three core problems associated with the data demands of the framework: the overburdening of national statistical systems, the increasing number of coordination failures between different actors of the data ecosystem, and a persistent lack of funding for statistical modernisation. The authors argue that the alignment of global requirements with national priorities; new forms of inclusive cooperation fostering trust, mutual learning, and accountability; and a global financing facility for development data are possible solutions to overcome key challenges of tracking progress towards the 2030 Agenda. The chapter concludes with an outlook on the role of data in the future of development cooperation.

This chapter addresses two main questions. First, would a global development cooperation regime serve the 2030 Agenda better than current institutions? Second, how can recent failures to build such a regime be explained given attempts to render the GPEDC more inclusive and legitimate? Drawing from mainstream regime theory and examining recent transformations in the nature of global development cooperation, I argue that a broader regime is necessary and preferable to the status quo for reasons of efficiency. I also resort to models of stakeholder participation in governance institutions to suggest that Brazil, India, and China exited the GPEDC not because of incompatibility of interests with OECD countries, but because they did not value the regime sufficiently and found it difficult to exert influence in it.

In 2011 the International Community came together in Busan to create the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) as a common space to promote aid effectiveness. By 2014, however, the main providers of South-South cooperation (China, India, and Brazil) had left the GPEDC. This chapter seeks to understand why. Using an abstract model inspired by game theory to analyse the situation, it concludes that the main cause was that traditional donors and new Southern providers failed to agree on a consensual burden-sharing formula. The episode, meaningful in itself, illustrates the difficulties that the International Community faces to make room for the new emerging Southern powers in the post-war liberal order.

The Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) is regarded as being the twenty-first-century epitome of a partnership within a polycentric world in the arena of international development cooperation. The chapter argues that, among the group of emerging economies, the GPEDC is considered to be just another form of the DAC’s recent transformation. That is why the emerging powers are sceptical—they are not a part of it; hence, they are reluctant to join it. However, we also explain why the GPEDC is a valuable platform for continuing the role of development cooperation for global development and implementing the 2030 Agenda. The chapter suggests how different stakeholders—including the emerging ones, particularly China—can work together to make the GPEDC a genuine partnership.

Since 1994, post-apartheid South Africa has embraced its Southern and African identity, with its foreign policy reflecting its aim to engage in international fora to advance Southern principles and the African voice. It also developed instruments to undertake South-South cooperation that focused largely on sharing its own lessons from its political transformation with post-conflict countries. This chapter explores the tensions between cooperation and contestation in South Africa’s involvement in global development and in its own development cooperation. South Africa has worked on global reforms with large emerging powers, but their interests are not always aligned with those of Africa. South Africa and Africa have derived leverage from their numbers and the related legitimacy in selecting what initiatives of more influential actors they will support.

This chapter analyses the foreign aid discourses of South Korea and Turkey in international development cooperation under the framework of middle-power theory. Korea and Turkey make use of their middle-power identity with the aim of increasing their presence around the globe, where foreign aid is used as an important foreign policy tool. They claim to be like-minded peers playing a bridging role between the developed and developing worlds. Despite opting for similar results in global politics, they show divergent strategic and ideational pathways in foreign aid. This creates significant implications for cooperation at the global level, especially because it questions the role of middle-power collaboration in facilitating possible rapprochement between traditional and emerging donors as well as within the Southern providers.

This chapter describes Bangladesh’s successes with advancing gender equality in the period of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), locating their origins in elite commitment to including women in the development process, and in the partnerships and aid that built the state and NGO capacity to reach them. The chapter reflects on the lessons of Bangladesh’s innovative and unexpected advances in the light of the new challenges posed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), notably those of early marriage and the achievement of decent work. The chapter asks whether contemporary conditions suggest that the elite commitment and state capacity that drove progress on the MDGs are up to meeting the more contentious and complex goals of the SDGs.

The chapter looks at the current developments in Russia’s official development assistance (ODA). In spite of its international isolation, the Russian government has expanded its ODA allocations since 2015, which total to about $1 billion annually. The chapter describes the sectoral and channel distribution of Russian aid. Moreover, it identifies the key challenges of the Russian government in the framework of its ODA activities, such as monitoring and evaluation (M&E), achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and its engagement with the business sector. Under consideration of the government’s undertakings in its striving to address these issues, the author reflects in conclusion on the prospects of establishing a national ODA M&E system, and options to contribute towards the achievement of the SDGs by 2030.

The United States, whose leadership through the Marshall Plan created the basis for modern-day development cooperation, has veered abruptly from its traditional role. An analysis of US funding trends shows that it has increasingly shifted from collective to specific interests, even as it has increased its multilateral aid. The United States is now actively shunning multilateral settings as part of its America First foreign policy, even when multilateral policies reinforce the international development priorities of the Trump administration, and its growing geopolitical competition with China is spilling into development assistance. This chapter explores the implications for development cooperation and whether these changes signal a more durable shift in US perspective.

Asia’s rise is having a profound impact on the policies and practices of development and South-South cooperation (SSC). This chapter describes the contours of these trends in relation to the sustainable development agenda. China and India are dominant players with their large-scale connectivity schemes, increasing multilateralism, and diversified partnerships. The author discusses the controversy, contestation, and opportunities these approaches generate. Finally, this chapter offers a set of recommendations for improving the effectiveness of Asian SSC to deliver the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This chapter investigates the widespread claim that South-South development cooperation (SSDC) differs from North-South cooperation, as it is said to be based on horizontality, to be demand-driven, to create mutualmutual benefits, and to provide “Southern” solutions to development challenges through knowledge exchange. Based on an analysis of Brazil’s cooperation with Mozambique, the chapter shows that cooperation practices do not always follow the narrative around SSDC as a modality contesting established cooperation. The chapter further assesses what this means for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and for the growing relevance ascribed to SSDC providers in international development cooperation.

As South Africa looks to consolidate its role as a development partner, it remains an open question whether it can maintain a strong presence in Africa while facing significant challenges at home. With the economy struggling to grow and the government increasingly cutting back on expenditure, one has to wonder whether these cuts are translating into a reduction of its role as a development partner in Africa. With the eagerly awaited South African Development Partnership Agency in mind, this chapter examines data from the African Renaissance and International Cooperation Fund (ARF) between 2003 and 2015. It shows empirically that, despite increasing allocations and disbursements in the years following its inception, the global financial crisis and domestic challenges have taken their toll on the ARF’s activities.

In the past decade, a number of studies, reports, and data have been produced on triangular cooperation (TrC). The focus of these publications is mainly on (i) the project level and/or (ii) political relations between stakeholders. I argue that, beyond being an effective modality for the implementation of development projects, TrC is an enabler of policy negotiation spaces. Through TrC, the clashes of traditional principles and practices with a new narrative of Southern providers are loosened, enabling spaces that do not directly confront contested political positions jeopardising the dialogue. The chapter identifies that TrC serves as a bridge for coordination between stakeholders. Findings suggest that it has been used for sharing costs and solutions as well as for the development of joint guidelines and processes.

Climate change poses a significant threat to socio-economic development in Africa. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will not be possible without fostering low-emission development and addressing the adverse impacts of climatic changes on the continent. China has emerged as a key development partner and is increasingly cooperating with African countries on climate change adaptation and mitigation. This chapter looks at the evolution of South-South cooperation on climate change between African countries and China over the past decades. We argue that South-South cooperation with China has a tremendous potential for African countries to realise their climate action priorities, and thus enable the achievement of their SDGs. However, to realise this potential, both sides need a more ambitious and targeted approach.

The chapter argues that India’s emerging practice of triangular cooperation does not fit easily with established definitions and concepts. India’s special brand of engagement in triangular cooperation has the potential to reshape important aspects of the global architecture of development cooperation and make significant contributions to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The chapter suggests how Indian experience can inform the analysis and international practice to increase the value of triangular cooperation for developing countries.

Partnerships with private-sector actors are widely considered crucial for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but the ways of how to engage best with actors from the private sector in development cooperation are contested. Often it is feared that influential companies will hijack unregulated partnership initiatives for their own benefits. This chapter investigates different levels of engagement for partnerships with private-sector actors and discusses how they can be more successful. We show that it matters whether it is envisioned to incentivise and regulate private-sector engagement at the global or at the country level. The chapter’s main findings support context-specific approaches and emphasise the need to strengthen national development agencies as focal points for private-sector engagement in development cooperation.

Research has focussed on the function rather than volume of NGOs’ contributions to development cooperation. That a deeply managerial-driven aid system has constrained NGO effectiveness has been a critical focus, highlighting how this has led NGOs to prioritise service delivery over social justice. Yet, a lack of systematic analysis of development NGO sectors within donor countries means it has made it impossible to measure their full contributions to development cooperation. We explore new evidence of their growing and significant contributions vis-à-vis official development assistance and look at new donor policy innovations that move from a managerial to a transformative ideology for civil society funding. Such innovations have the potential to enhance partnerships and cooperation and reduce the contested nature of NGOs’ contributions to development cooperation.

Think tanks are important actors in global policy-making, and those from the Global South are gaining relevance. One premise of this chapter is that the 2030 Agenda’s calls for more effective partnerships and new types of knowledge. A second premise is that partnerships reflect a power distribution among partners; in some cases, these are horizontal, and in others asymmetrical. In this context, the chapter explores the relationships between think tanks from the Global South with each other, their Northern peers, and the broader international community. It concludes that think tanks can enable collaborations with a diversity of actors. To do so, however, think tanks need to adapt their business models and develop trust with other policy actors in order to remain effective.

This chapter provides an overview of how different narratives and norms in development cooperation can be reconciled towards achieving the 2030 Agenda based on the overall handbook. Drawing on key insights from different handbook chapters, we recap the narratives and norms that are shaping development cooperation, highlight the existing as well as new institutional sites of contestations, and provide examples of how international governance structures can enhance collaboration and cooperation. Looking forward, we conclude that researchers should continue to explore the duality of contestation and cooperation, as it is key to understanding and shaping the policy field of development cooperation.