The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) released a Communiqué noting its need to “evolve in order to better align with the new realities of the 2030 Agenda and development coordination.” The Committee observes that wider, deeper collaboration with non-DAC partners will be necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and commits to making proposals and recommendations to support sustainable development efforts, and to evolve to reflect the needs of a larger array of development actors.
19 February 2016: The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) released a Communiqué noting its need to “evolve in order to better align with the new realities of the 2030 Agenda and development coordination.” The Committee observes that wider, deeper collaboration with non-DAC partners will be necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and commits to making proposals and recommendations to support sustainable development efforts, and to evolve to reflect the needs of a larger array of development actors.
The DAC High Level Meeting (HLM) convened in Paris, France, from 18-19 February 2016.
On adapting its statistical framework in response to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA), Financing for Development (FfD) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, DAC says it has made progress on: updating guidance for applying the Rio Markers for climate change adaptation and mitigation; enhancing the coverage and quality of reporting on finance flows targeting the Rio Conventions’ objectives; and tracking support to gender equality and tax systems. The DAC requests an assessment on how to achieve further improvements in the quality, comparability and transparency of reporting on environment-related development finance flows.
On strengthening private sector engagement in development, the DAC agrees to principles to ensure that its statistical system reflects the efforts of the official sector to provide private sector instruments in credible, transparent ways, while also removing disincentives and offering incentives in the use of these instruments. The DAC states its intention to develop proposals for implementing the principles by its 2016 Senior Level Meeting, including details on assessment criteria, definition of additionally, reporting requirements and data disclosure. To maximize the potential of blended finance approaches, the DAC agrees to develop an inclusive, results-oriented work programme on finance mobilized to identify and promote best practice on delivering development impact.
On peace and security, the DAC stresses its commitment to supporting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, access to justice, and building accountable, effective and inclusive institutions. It maintains, however, that development cooperation should not promote providers’ security interests. The DAC commits to update and modernize its reporting directives on peace and security expenditures and to revise the Casebook on activities related to peace and security.
On the Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) framework, the DAC agrees to further develop a proposal for a comprehensive TOSSD measurement and monitoring mechanism by its Senior Level Meeting in October 2016.
On the humanitarian and refugee crises, the DAC says it will strive to balance humanitarian needs with longer-term development assistance commitments and priorities, and commits to: enhancing the effectiveness of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to respond to the refugee crises; identifying and addressing the root causes of conflicts, displacement and refugee flows; and aligning methods for calculating costs.
The Communiqué affirms that DAC partnerships, products and tools as essential to global development and SDG implementation. DAC reiterates its support for the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) and commits to participate in its monitoring framework and to strengthen efforts to promote development effectiveness principles and the GPEDC to the wider development cooperation community, including on ways to design effective modes of delivery to achieve the SDGs.
It also expresses DAC’s commitment to contribute to OECD efforts towards SDG implementation, including on policy coherence for sustainable development and gender equality and women’s empowerment.
The DAC HLM was the first since ministers’ agreement in December 2014 to modernize the DAC’s statistical system and its measurement of development finance. [DAC High Level Meeting Communiqué] [HLM Webpage]