20 December 2018
Development Co-operation Report Proposes Framework to Leave No One Behind
Tea pickers in Mt. Kenya region / Photo credit Neil Palmer (CIAT)
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The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Co-operation Report 2018 explores how countries can deliver on the SDGs’ commitment to leave no one behind.

The report identifies inclusion, equity and sustainability as key pillars of leaving no one behind, as well as eight critical issues to address before one can claim success, and highlights challenges around investment, policies and data.

A series of case studies and a set of data visualizations accompany the report, which also features profiles of all OECD Development Assistance Committee members and other development cooperation providers.

11 December 2018: The 2018 edition of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Co-operation Report addresses how UN Member States can deliver on the SDGs’ commitment to leave no one behind. The report identifies what such a commitment means in practice, reviews the latest evidence on reaching the most vulnerable and marginalized populations, and discusses ways in which development cooperation policies, financing and programming can be made fit for purpose to realize the ambition of the SDGs.

Leaving no one behind, the authors assert, centers on inclusion, equity and sustainability, and cannot be achieved through economic growth alone. Chapter 3 identifies eight issues requisite to leaving no one behind: ending extreme poverty; tackling rising income inequality; addressing fragility; enabling inclusive governance; taking action on climate; empowering women and achieving gender equality; including young people in sustainable development; and ensuring that persons with disabilities are no longer left behind.

Success in these areas requires an understanding of their multidimensional drivers, the acceleration of progress for poor people, and the confronting of discrimination and vulnerability. The report thus issues a call for donors to update development cooperation frameworks, noting that providers need to “make new deliberate, systematic and coordinated efforts to adapt their narratives, management practices and financing to maximize individual and collective impact.”

According to the report’s highlights document and executive summary note, such efforts manifest in three ways. They demand:

  1. A new narrative that spells out the mutual benefits of leaving no one behind for everyone;
  2. The deliberate mainstreaming of the objective of inclusive, equitable and sustainable development through development cooperation portfolios, and harnessing agents of change, innovation and data; and
  3. Smarter use and allocation of Official Development Assistance (ODA) as an integral part of broader efforts to increase the volume of financing to achieve the SDGs for all.

Strategic challenges to address – noted in Chapter 4 – include investment, policies and data. The report emphasizes that means of overcoming them include strong institutions and policy coherence, which can help coordinate actions and create an enabling environment that fosters the raising of additional financial resources. Civil society and the private sector, covered in Chapters 6 and 7 respectively, also play a significant role, through on-the-ground, mission-driven work, the filling of data gaps, and the provision of jobs and services for the poor. On financing for development (FFD) more broadly, Chapter 10 explores actions to mobilize greater volumes and more targeted allocations of finance, with emphases on external private investment, domestic public resources and official development finance.

A final section of the report profiles all OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members individually, as well as other development cooperation providers reporting to the OECD (including the United Arab Emirates and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), and provides estimates for UN Member States that provide development cooperation but do not report to the OECD, such as Brazil and China.

The report also includes a series of opinion pieces by OECD staff, civil society and government leaders. These articles, featured throughout the report, augment the main analyses and findings by highlighting the imperative to make growth more inclusive, demanding new ways of working on humanitarian issues and fulfilling aid commitments, and fostering collaborative approaches to joining forces.

A series of case studies accompanies the report, and highlights experiences from a range of projects and programmes in reaching the furthest behind. They are presented under two categories: 1) reaching and including people and places; and 2) the enabling role of international cooperation – policies, partnerships and data.

The report is also complemented by a set of data visualizations that project current trends and compare scenarios in areas of poverty, hunger and aid. [Publication: Development Co-operation Report 2018: Joining Forces to Leave No One Behind]

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