According to the 2020 Sustainable Development Goals Report, governments and other actors are off track to reach the SDGs and in mobilise the necessary resources. The current COVID-19 global pandemic only adds to the challenges faced by all development actors and risks undoing hard-won development gains and undermining efforts to achieve national development priorities and the SDGs by 2030. The socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 are already being felt and will have lasting consequences, and the rapidly unfolding economic crisis further constrains fiscal space in many countries. In this context, the international community will have to redouble its resolve to work together, using the 2030 Agenda as the shared framework to build back better. The approaching midpoint of the implementation period for the 2030 Agenda will coincide with the next High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership in 2022 (HLM 3) and further increase the urgency to engage in effective partnerships and co-operation that can accelerate SDG implementation in this unprecedented global context.
Improving how we partner and work together, by making a difference in quality and impact of partnerships, is essential to the ‘trajectory shift’ that is needed. Under the new 2020-2022 Work Programme (launched in May 2020), the Global Partnership renews its focus on partner-country realities, opportunities and challenges, placing them front and centre. The need for such focus is even greater in the context of COVID-19, particularly for the role of effective partnerships that help respond to and mitigate the pandemic’s impact in all sectors and priority dimensions of sustainable development.
The Global Partnership catalyses country-level change towards more effective development co-operation. It supports partner countries’ sustainable development efforts by:
(1) promoting mutual accountability for effective development co-operation;
(2) facilitating and supporting conditions to drive behavioral change across government institutions and different development stakeholders; and
(3) generating evidence for mutual learning and strengthening of political momentum for the effectiveness agenda.
The next 2-3 years will be a decisive time for the international community to address the significant socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 and to get back on track to reaching the SDGs by 2030. This Global Partnership offer provides engagement opportunities for partner country governments to get involved in spearheading effectiveness efforts and progress on more effective development co-operation that also helps to ‘build back better’ for reaching the joint vision of improved lives for all and a world transformed for the better.
