Publications & Documents

To support its most vulnerable citizens in the context of the Russian large-scale aggression against its territory, Ukraine needs both immediate actions and long-term policies. The war is exacerbating pre-existing disadvantages of children, women, elderly people, and people with disabilities. In the short term, actions are urgently needed to rebuild critical assets for providing adequate housing and access to quality basic services for all. Significant medium-to-long term employment and social priorities pre-existing to the invasion must also be addressed, such as youth unemployment and access of internally displaced persons to public employment services.

The Sahel and West Africa continue to face significant challenges in advancing towards gender equality and women’s empowerment. While much progress has been made in health and educational outcomes for women and girls in the region, much more has yet to be done. Official development assistance (ODA) can serve a crucial role in this respect, by mobilising support for gender equality. This paper aims to highlight the current financing for the gender equality landscape in the region. It points to a need to increase the share of ODA supporting gender equality objectives; to support local women’s organisations as key actors in reaching the most vulnerable women and girls; to invest in the evaluation of gender-sensitive programmes and learning around them; and to support the generation of gender-disaggregated data to identify where action can be most effective.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected Fiji, hitting at backbone economic sectors, such as international tourism and export fisheries. It has also brought to the fore the need to embark on a more sustainable model of development. This report examines Fiji’s economic and sustainability trends, as well as the governance and financing of its ocean economy before and during the COVID-19 crisis. It provides an initial mapping of promising initiatives and funding instruments that can be developed and scaled up to foster a sustainable blue recovery, focusing on four main areas: sustainable fisheries, sustainable tourism, green shipping and marine conservation.

Initially launched in 2017, the OECD annual Blended finance Funds and Facilities Survey compiles and analyses information on collective investment vehicles, one of the primary channels for blended finance. In 2020, the third annual edition captured 198 vehicles, representing USD 75 billion assets under management. The survey helps policy makers and private sector actors better grasp the size and shape of a segment of the blended finance market. By bringing together data of different development actors that, collectively, are a significant contributor to sustainable finance, this survey makes an important contribution to enhancing understanding and transparency. Transparency is increased through the data collection and analysis, and understanding is increased through the aggregation of the data that highlight the main investments trends. The quantitative analysis is complemented by OECD statistics on private finance mobilised by official development interventions, as well as by information provided by other specialised institutions. This new evidence confirms trends observed on the broader blended finance market in terms of priority sectors, geographical coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals targeted. This year’s edition also explores additional aspects such as investors, clients and investment instruments, and has a particular focus on gender.

In February 2019, the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) adopted its Recommendation on the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus, in order to foster greater coherence among actors working to strengthen resilience in fragile contexts and address the root causes of humanitarian challenges. In advance of the monitoring report due in 2024, this interim progress review analyses adherents’ efforts to align their work with the principles of the Recommendation. It documents the progress of DAC and United Nations adherents in taking forward the triple nexus approach, while pointing to remaining gaps between the Recommendation’s aspirations and these adherents’ practice across co-ordination, programming, and financing. The report identifies nine areas where to accelerate the move from policy to action.

Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls are prerequisites to the realisation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This Guidance is a practical handbook for development partners supporting those global ambitions. Designed around the programme cycle and beyond, it provides practical steps for practitioners and examples of good practices, as well as checklists and recommendations on how to drive change.

Despite years of donor country engagement, developing countries’ efforts to fight climate change and its consequences remain stifled by important capacity gaps. This paper reviews the experience of development co-operation partners in strengthening capacities in this area. It provides an in-depth analysis of official development assistance trends and flows, as well as an overview of the enabling factors, obstacles and good practices. Finally, it suggests ways to overcome a number of technical, political and organisational challenges, and to accelerate capacity development for more effective climate action in partner countries.

This case study explores whether the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be used as a shared framework by all actors to manage development co-operation for results in lower middle-income countries, taking Bangladesh as a case study. The study offers an introduction to Bangladesh’s progress in mainstreaming the Goals in national policy making, as well as in monitoring the SDG targets and indicators. The report then focuses on the experiences of development co-operation partners in aligning their country-level programmes and frameworks with the SDGs, and identifies enabling factors, drivers and obstacles that contribute to SDG alignment and monitoring in Bangladesh. The study concludes with recommendations for both the government and its development partners to increase the collective use of the SDG framework and improve the policy coherence, effectiveness and sustainable impact of all development efforts.

The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts peer reviews of individual members once every five to six years. Reviews seek to improve the quality and effectiveness of members’ development co-operation, highlighting good practices and recommending improvements. Portugal mobilises its whole of government expertise with a strong focus on partner country ownership. Building on long-standing and close bilateral relations, it concentrates its funding on countries most in need. Through effective international advocacy, the country champions triangular co-operation and has fostered agreement amongst European Union (EU) members on issues such as strengthening Team Europe’s commitment to human development when it held the Presidency of the EU Council. However, Portugal can make more out of the wide participation of state and non-state actors in its development co-operation. This peer review provides a set of recommendations to improve co-ordination across government, pull bilateral efforts together, focus more on outcomes and take action to increase official development assistance (ODA).