An IDC Convention has as its cornerstone a shift in governance away from exclusive, closed-door decision-making institutions to a more representative and democratic process at the UN, where all countries can participate on an equal footing. More specifically, an IDC Convention would:

• provide the necessary scale, scope and leverage to house all commitments, new and existing, in a single instrument;
• provide a universally understood and airtight definition of IDC and common norms on the use of aid flows;
• be binding to avoid another decade of unmet commitments;
• include systems of monitoring and accountability;
• create a level playing field for agreeing on the definition, purpose and implementation of IDC;
• overcome the fragmentation of IDC through a shift to a single decision-making instrument housed under the UN;
• extend to all forms of providers, including non-traditional providers, which have also raised concerns regarding accountability and inclusive participation in development cooperation.

Many of the existing commitments on Official Development Assistance (ODA), or aid, were made by the Organisation for Economic Development's Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC) - which is made up of a group of wealthy countries and the EU - or adjacent institutions. The problem is that the OECD-DAC lacks accountability and does not seem to have an appetite to acknowledge that. Despite commitments on aid quality and quantity, there is a clear lack of progress. A stronger binding framework which can convene all actors under one roof and hold them to account is what is missing. An IDC Convention would bring together all existing commitments while creating the normative framework to establish new ones under one umbrella. This new umbrella would not only cover OECD-DAC governments, but also other non-traditional aid providers, to whom agreed commitments on development effectiveness and quantity of ODA would also be extended.

At the same time, there is a need to protect against the dilution of commitments through rule changes made behind closed doors, among an exclusive set of countries, as was the case with the OECD-DAC’s ODA modernisation process. A new, more inclusive global governance would ensure that any rule changes enjoy the legitimacy and buy-in of the full membership of the UN. Ultimately, aid commitments are supposed to benefit countries in the global south and should be driven by those countries' national development priorities.

There is no hard limit to the number of conventions that governments can take on. The only limitation is political will on the part of governments/United Nations member states. There is no limit either on the number of conventions that governments can agree on at a UN Conference. For example, the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the ‘Earth Summit’, delivered three conventions at one time, known as the Rio Conventions: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity, and a Convention to Combat Desertification. These conventions guide the UN’s work on climate and environment to this day. This and other recent calls for Conventions are a reflection of the urgent need for better representation of countries from the global south within the global financial architecture.

A UN multilateral treaty - a legally binding instrument of the UN which includes Conventions - is often used by Member States and in intergovernmental processes to generate strong buy-in for agreed commitments. While a treaty may signal an increased level of ambition, it is hardly a rare instrument reserved for only the most special of circumstances. To date there are upwards of 550 multilateral treaties under the UN’s multilateral treaty framework.

Looking at geopolitics today, an agreement for an overhaul of the governance of IDC might seem too ambitious or unrealistic. But the beauty of multilateralism and the UN is that it only takes the political will of a few to start a process to make what seems impossible an achievable reality. By actively and constructively engaging in a discussion on how to democratise the governance of IDC, countries from the global north can show leadership in promoting reforms that can have a significant impact on the quantity and quality of resources that countries of the global south receive. If we delay action, we risk further eroding the legitimacy and credibility of ODA statistics, something CSOs and other actors argue began with the OECD-DAC modernisation process. Given the geopolitical reality, this is an essential move towards buttressing the multilateral system and to protecting gains made to date.

The OECD-DAC

An IDC Convention at the UN does not mean that existing institutions must cease to exist. Instead it could recognise the distinct roles and capacities of the different institutions towards implementing the Convention and its varying parts and commitments. For instance, the OECD-DAC could continue as a space for peer learning, knowledge exchange and technical expertise. The DAC’s subsidiary bodies, like the Working Party on Development Finance Statistics, house important expertise and experience that should continue to be part of, and contribute to, a UN-led process.

The UN-Development Cooperation Forum (DCF)

A major role would be seen for the UN-DCF, potentially as the home of the Convention and the new global governance of IDC. The UN-DCF has the benefit of being a UN forum that already convenes the relevant policy- and decision-makers working on IDC. However, it lacks the procedural strength and political backing to play a normative and rule-setting role. With calls to strengthen the UN-DCF and give it a more robust mandate already starting to emerge, it could potentially have the key convening role to play in the future.

The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC)

The GPEDC is the place where the commitments on effective development cooperation are meant to be supported. While it has struggled to fulfill this role, it still offers some very valuable contributions to the IDC community, most notably in its progressive approach to governance. CSOs are represented at the highest levels, and also through its regular effectiveness monitoring framework. In this regard, the GPEDC could still support a new UN-led process with its contributions on effective development cooperation.

The rationale for an IDC Convention is largely grounded in the failure to deliver on existing commitments on both the quantity and quality of aid. Using OECD data, Oxfam calculated “the ‘aid debt’ by totalling the gap between what was promised, 0.7% of GNI, and what has been delivered. This aid debt goes back to 1970 when the 0.7% target was set. We found that this gap has grown to $7.2 trillion.” The foundation of the Convention would be this and the many already universally recognised commitments.

A new Convention would not imply walking back existing commitments, but would aim to incorporate and strengthen the existing commitments that governments have already made. A Convention could draw inspiration from the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities where all governments convene under a shared framework but have different obligations and responsibilities under that framework.

In recent years the critiques of having a closed-door “rich countries’ club” deciding on the rules that govern ODA have increased significantly.

The UN is the only global space where countries from across the global south would also have a seat at the table, and could bring their own on-the-ground expertise of what must be prioritised for higher ODA impact. Non-traditional aid providers would also have to improve the transparency and accountability of their own systems and cooperation, and would be evaluated on an equal footing with traditional aid providers.

Civil Society in the global south and north has been calling for a Convention on IDC for more than a decade. However, these calls have been heightened with recent developments on how and where aid is being deployed. This, coupled with the opportunity of FfD4 as a once-in-a-decade moment, means CSOs are elevating this call as a transformative proposal that can address the root causes of the failure of ODA to be truly transformative, as it should be.

In addition to CSOs from south and north, the call for a Convention (or something similar) can now be heard from some UN Member States. For instance, Malawi on behalf of the group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Tanzania in a December Statement, and Zambia in a written submission. Other Member States and groupings have also called for a strengthened role for the UN in these discussions.