There have been four significant shifts in the global development landscape since the Busan Agreement in 2011, each of which has profound implications for the work of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC):

1. a new financing landscape;
2. new delivery models, including investing public finance into private enterprises;
3. new commitments to ‘leave no one behind’; and
4. new evidence about effective development practice.

At its second High Level Meeting in Nairobi, the GPEDC should set out how it will respond to these shifts, including by updating the development effectiveness principles and Monitoring Framework so that they remain fit for purpose.

Over a decade since the Paris Agreement on Aid Effectiveness, the GPEDC now faces two fundamental challenges to which it must adapt: waning political engagement, and questions over its function in support of the 2013 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Agenda 2030). Addressing these will require a clear articulation of the GPEDC’s theory of change and its role within the global architecture in support of Agenda 2030; a strong voice from developing countries about their needs and priorities for effective development cooperation in the SDG era; and a frank reality check to come to terms with slow or even reversing progress and what is feasible to achieve in the future.

The GPEDC could make itself more relevant to developing countries by working more at country level on analysis of effective cooperation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in specific contexts; to cooperation providers by more strongly linking effectiveness to the value-for-money agenda; and to all stakeholders by becoming the ‘go-to’ place for high-quality evidence and peer learning and by building common understanding between very diverse actors.