Opening Development Forum, Speakers in Economic and Social Council Urge Reform to Meet Changing Times
Amid major challenges to international development cooperation, dwindling global solidarity and shrinking development assistance, a paradigm shift is urgently needed, speakers at the Economic and Social Council’s 2025 Development Cooperation Forum stressed as they opened its annual session in New York today.
“We find ourselves in a moment of profound change,” said Robert Rae (Canada), President of the Economic and Social Council, underlining the need to reform international development cooperation to keep pace. With limited fiscal space, many developing countries cannot alter their development trajectory, he observed, stating that international financial institutions must also reform. This is especially important, he said, as Member States will agree on a new outcome document at the fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, to be held from 30 June to 3 July in Seville, Spain.
He also underscored: “Now, more than ever, there is no place for duplication, inefficiency and needless competition for scarce dollars.” A holistic UN approach to the humanitarian-peace-development nexus and a renewed look at the UN development system are essential. Further, this new coherence must include multilateral financial institutions and the private sector, as he emphasized that “the notion that this is somehow a UN-alone project is wrong”.
Development cooperation must be adapted to today’s realities, driven by long-term development needs and priorities and delivered with high quality, impact and effectiveness, he continued. The international community must also protect development gains by addressing the drivers of conflict, social inequities and the climate crisis. On the latter, he advocated for more accessible climate finance, which remains beyond reach for those who need it most — and are often disproportionately affected by the phenomenon.
Nearly 600 million people could still be living in extreme poverty by 2030, warned Li Junhua, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, as he next addressed the Forum. Climate finance — “vital to our planet’s survival” — remains insufficient, and too many countries are burdened by unsustainable debt, shrinking fiscal space and a fragmented development system that does not align with their urgent needs and priorities, he asserted.
He also pointed out that women and girls are disproportionately impacted, which threatens decades of hard-earned progress on gender equality. Against this backdrop, he underlined the need to ensure predictable, sustainable support for the most vulnerable, calling on those present to find common ground for a “smarter and more effective development cooperation”.
Next, Navid Hanif, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, highlighted four imperatives for transforming development cooperation — the first of which is “restoring the integrity, impact, quality and effectiveness of official development assistance (ODA)”. Second, it is crucial to scale up and simplify access to climate finance, he said, underscoring the need to facilitate direct access for vulnerable countries, streamline reporting mechanisms and reduce reliance on debt-based instruments.
Third, the international community must ensure that development cooperation modalities are aligned with development impact, and he called for a new approach to blended finance. Finally, it is necessary to modernize international-development-cooperation architecture, as the current, complex web of bilateral donors, multilateral banks, vertical funds and private financiers — each with different conditions, reporting structures and priorities — undermines national ownership.
Finally, Cristina Duarte, Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa to the Secretary-General, said that, while poverty alleviation is a byproduct of globalization, “it does not belong to the DNA” of that phenomenon. The multilateral system — including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organization (WTO) — has promoted financial liberalization, trade facilitation and infrastructure investments, thereby fuelling economic expansion.
However, she pointed out this process has resulted in enormous systemic imbalances, and multilateral frameworks were meant to counteract these imbalances by fostering development cooperation and addressing financial and environmental instability. Unfortunately, this oversight function has been “crowded out” and marginalized, she observed. Global institutions lack enforcement mechanisms, as evidenced by the 2008 financial crisis, when regulatory failures led to systemic collapse without meaningful reform. “We development-cooperation soldiers need to fight for our space,” she stressed.
Official Development Assistance Must Be Refocused, Reallocated and Reinforced
After this opening session, the Forum held a panel on “Making development cooperation work for today’s world”, moderated by Shahrokh Fardoust, Research Professor at the Global Research Institute in the College of William and Mary.
Carsten Staur, Chair of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), highlighted the “very real risk of rapid backsliding in the volume of ODA this year”. Accordingly, it is crucial to refocus the use of ODA even more, and he said that its original purpose — to assist the most vulnerable — must be re-emphasized.
Further, he urged that humanitarian assistance and support for low-income and conflict-affected countries be prioritized. Concurrently, it is vital to consider ODA’s ability to catalyse other resources, he said, adding that domestic resource mobilization is largely untapped. ODA — even in the best of circumstances — is only part of the picture, and he stressed that there is no place for unproductive “turf battles” or duplication of efforts.
Highlighting the need to review the criteria for ODA allocation, Noela Pantoja Crespo, Executive Director of the Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation, said that it is essential to move towards a multidimensional development approach that properly reflects — beyond income — the vulnerabilities, structural gaps and inequalities of developing countries. For example, she recommended that social mobility be incorporated as an eligibility criterion for development cooperation resources.
This, she said, would represent an equitable increase in opportunities to promote health, education and income throughout an individual’s life and across generations. She also called on the Council to study social mobility as a multidimensional development indicator. Further, she said that international cooperation must align with countries’ national development priorities — and that leadership from developing countries is crucial.
Håvard Mokleiv Nygård, Director of Knowledge and Innovation at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, then noted that current estimates indicate a decrease in total ODA flows by 25 per cent in 2027 — “in an optimistic scenario”. This necessitates fundamental reconsideration of what development is for and what it can achieve. “We are, and have for a long time, been asking too much of development assistance,” he pointed out, adding that, for donors, the development assistance budget has become “the pot of money we reach for to solve most challenges outside our own borders”.
On that, he noted that these funds are used not only for poverty reduction, economic growth and humanitarian assistance, but also to provide essential global public goods. “We are increasingly using development systems to put out fires instead of preventing them,” he said. Underscoring the need to focus on prevention and resilience, he stressed — “whether we are talking about extreme weather and climate disasters, conflicts, financial instability or infectious disease” — these problems will not be solved merely by dealing with their symptoms.
Development Cooperation Must Reposition around Tailored Support
In the afternoon, the Forum held a panel on “Improving modalities to better respond to evolving needs, vulnerabilities and priorities”, moderated by Paul Smoke, Professor of Public Finance and Planning at New York University.
“In an era of constrained development assistance, we must make a compelling case for scaling up and improving financing for the most vulnerable,” stressed Rabab Fatima, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States, as she addressed the Forum’s afternoon session by video.
The lives and livelihoods of millions in such States, she stressed, “depend on it”. Therefore, development-cooperation architecture must be reformed to be inclusive, responsive and aligned with the needs of those most at risk. She added: “Vulnerable countries must be at the centre, supported by partnerships that deliver real and lasting impact.”
Marco Riccardo Rusconi, Director of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, then underscored that sustainable financing for development is not only a matter of quantity, tools and resources, but also modalities — approach, quality, effectiveness and tailored intervention. Concessional loans are “an important instrument” — efficient when combined with grants — which can provide local capacity-building and enable an environment for sustainable development in fragile contexts, he said. Debt swaps are also highly effective in supporting strategic development sectors while easing fiscal pressure on partner countries.
These swaps, he said, represent an effective financial tool to channel resources to development objectives across sectors. By helping bridge the SDG financing gap, the development cooperation system is undertaking action to improve collaboration with multilateral development banks and the private sector. “Quantity alone is not enough; achieving the SDGs requires quality financing — the right instrument, in the right context, with the right partnership, balancing short-term crisis-response with long-term resilience-building,” he said.
“Governments face dynamic challenges that require adaptive response strategies in various potentially chaotic situations,” said Paul Ruddy Mentor, Special Adviser to the Minister, Haiti, next to address the Forum. On how development aid can better respond to the mounting needs of vulnerable populations, he said that donors can use cooperation modalities to channel and disburse ODA funds. However, these mechanisms must be aligned with Government policy.
Turning to the changing landscape faced by least developed countries and small island developing States, he called for participatory decision-making, data analysis, AI-driven predictive analysis, integrated digital platforms and real-time data-sharing among governmental agencies. Relatedly, he noted the recent decision of Washington, D.C., to close its aid fund.
Pamela Kauseni, Director of Development Cooperation in Zambia’s Ministry of Finance and National Planning, then observed that ODA — a significant part of the international development cooperation system — has declined. As a developing country, Zambia has made efforts to tap into new financing sources, including the private sector, philanthropy and civil society.
She stressed that the international development-cooperation system must reposition itself to work within a constrained environment where results are attained with reduced development financing. Detailing her country’s experience, she said the main modalities used include project, sector budget and general budget support. Also, Zambia had to reform its public financial system, she said, citing grants and loans as sources of support.
The Forum also held a second panel in the afternoon, exploring the question “What drives quality, impact and real country leadership in international development cooperation?”
Moderated by Jürgen Karl Zattler, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Global Development, speakers included Thabani Buthelezi, Acting Chief Executive Officer of the National Development Agency of South Africa; Ali Naseer Mohamed, Permanent Representative of Maldives to the United Nations; Francisco Carneiro, Economic Adviser to the Vice-President of Development Finance at the World Bank; and Maria Victoria del Campo, Economic Specialist in the Strategic Development Effectiveness Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).