View Concept Note and Session Notes here.

November 2021 marked the tenth anniversary of the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, a ground-breaking agreement that set out shared principles for development effectiveness. The Busan Partnership agreement, endorsed by a broad range of governments, CSOs, the private sector and other actors, led to the establishment of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC), a multi-stakeholder forum aimed at driving progress on development effectiveness.

Since 2014, the ROK has hosted on a biannual basis the Busan Global Partnership Forum with the goal to contribute to the measurement of progress in implementing the development effectiveness principles at the country level. The forums organized so far have periodically brought together policymakers and practitioners to share their experiences, explore factors that have led to successful development outcomes that align with the 2030 Agenda, and take stock of such outcomes to discuss the way forward.

This year’s forum, taking place one year before the next GPEDC High-Level Meeting, reflected on the progress achieved in the ten years since the first Busan High-Level Forum and focused on new and innovative thinking, ideas and practices as it looks forward to next year’s Summit on Development Effectiveness.

The 2021 Busan Forum kicked off with the first session, moderated by UNDP Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Director of the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA), Ms. Gülden Türköz-Cosslett, discussing the relevance of development effectiveness narratives in achieving the SDGs in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. As highlighted throughout the session, the pandemic has reversed decades of progress on development and put key SDG targets at risk, with latest estimates showing that around 97 million more people were pushed into extreme poverty in 2020, while COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated multi-dimensional inequalities. Development cooperation itself has been affected by the pandemic, with some donors increasing their funding in response to the crisis while others have significantly reduced their contributions as a result of pressure on domestic budgets and pandemic response policies. In this context, the effectiveness of development cooperation is all the more urgent in ensuring that funding is mobilized and utilized in ways that maximizes a sustained impact on poverty and inequality and accelerates – and even restores - progress towards the SDGs.

The Forum was held over two days with a total of six sessions, respectively discussing (2) innovative and inclusive partnerships, (3) development effectiveness in fragile contexts, (4) the implementation of development cooperation effectiveness principles at the country level, (5) Monitoring Reform of the GPEDC, and (6) the future of the GPEDC and the way forward.

On the final day, UNDP BERA Director, Ms. Ulrika Modéer, along with the Deputy Foreign Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs of the ROK MOFA, Mr. Ham Sang-wook and the Director General and Head of the South Cooperation Department, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (GPEDC Co-Chair), Ambassador Thomas Gass, closed the Forum, calling for continuous engagement of decision-makers across the globe and close partnerships with partner countries.