The United Nations Development Cooperation Forum is unique in convening all actors under the UN umbrella to address issues that are elsewhere discussed in disparate institutional and policy silos, yet it struggles to gain influence and traction.  Strengthening this forum can be a first step towards renewing and heightening global commitments on international development cooperation.

In this blog, Eurodad's Matthew Simonds and Maria Jose Romero assess the key takeaways from this week's OECD conference 'Mobilising private finance towards 2030 and beyond’.

Following the close of the Summit of the Future, a common belief and consistent narrative seem to be taking shape among civil society and other critical actors that has not yet been reflected within the official proceedings. That belief and narrative? That the current international aid architecture is failing and a new and transformative approach to how international development cooperation is governed at the global level is needed. The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), taking place in Sevilla (Spain) next year, is a major opportunity to achieve that.

Aid data from 2023 has called into question the direction in which Official Development Assistance (ODA) is headed. More worryingly still, some rich countries have already announced budget cuts for 2024. This report provides a basis for discussion and debate at a time when the value of ODA is more relevant than ever.

• New figures published today by the OECD show that hosting refugees in donor countries accounts for more than US$31 billion (equivalent to 13.8 per cent of total ODA)
• Despite a small rise in ODA across all wealthy countries in 2023, in the EU aid fell by a shocking 7.7 per cent, with only a few members reporting increases

The OECD Development Assistance Committee (ODA) is conducting a review of its Recommendation on Untying ODA (Official Development Assistance, or aid). In this blog, our aid expert examines how wealthy countries are continuing to profit from both formal and informal tied aid. With one week to go until the publication of preliminary data from the OECD DAC outlining the ODA distributed by donor countries in 2023, this article shines a light on one of the practices that continues to call into question the integrity of aid. It also outlines five issues that must be addressed.