We have 7 years left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and the international community has to make the most of the remaining time to achieve much-needed progress, despite adverse conditions on the rise since 2020.
Against this backdrop, the recently published book « Retooling Development Aid in the 21st Century: The Importance of Budget Support » is a timely contribution to revive the conversation on development effectiveness. It highlights the critical part that budget support can play to address both essential global public goods and tackle country-specific development challenges.
The publication revisits the principles of ownership, predictability, policy dialogue and incentives for reforms and results. It looks at prospects of budget support to address further fragility, enhance resilience to climate change and play a catalytic role for private investments in the current global financial architecture.
Although the book focuses on World Bank’s experience with budget support, lessons can be drawn for EU budget support. The EU is amongst the top providers of grant budget support, which has accounted for 15 to 20% of EU external assistance over the last two decades with a peak to 24% in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Budget support has been pivotal in the EU toolbox and demonstrated its effectiveness in various contexts. It has proved agile enough to adapt to crises, and lately to help Ukraine and neighbouring countries to cope with the Russian war of aggression.
- the EU's international role | international cooperation
- Wednesday 5 July 2023, 14:00 - 15:30 (CEST)
Practical information
- When
- Wednesday 5 July 2023, 14:00 - 15:30 (CEST)
- Where
- InfoPoint
- Languages
- English
- Organisers
- International Partnerships InfoPoint
Description
The book comes with a wealth of information, building on the extensive experience of its five authors:
- Shahrokh Fardoust, Research Professor, Global Research Institute, College of William and Mary;
- Stefan G. Koeberle, Director of Strategy and Operations, World Bank;
- Moritz Piatti-Fünfkirchen, Senior Economist, World Bank;
- Lodewijk Smets, Senior Economist, World Bank;
- Mark Sundberg, Deputy Vice President and Chief Economist, Millenium Challenge Corporation.
It brings us back at the outset of the instrument and takes us through the many conversations which have framed development cooperation for the last decades, from the time of structural adjustment to the shift to poverty reduction and the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005. It draws on this experience to underline emerging trends in the use of budget support and to recommend improvements in both the focus and design of budget support operations by the World Bank and other multilateral banks, but also by the EU and bilateral players.
After the presentation by the authors, the Directorate-General for International Partnerships will provide the Commission’s perspective on the questions raised by the publication before opening up for discussions with the audience.
Speakers
- Stefan G. Koeberle, Mark Sundberg, Shahrokh Fardoust, Moritz Piatti-Fünfkirchen, Lodewijk Smets, authors of Retooling Development Aid in the 21st Century: The Importance of Budget Support
- Xavier Le Mounier, DG INTPA E1, Macro-economic Analysis, Fiscal Policies and Budget Support
- Moderated by Micong Klimes, DG INTPA E1, Macro-economic Analysis, Fiscal Policies and Budget Support
Language of conference: English
Language of Q&A session: English
Registration