Upskilling UN capacities and breaking the cycle of dependence

Five years ahead of the target set for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we are not yet on track. At the SDG Summit, the United Nations Secretary-General called for “a global rescue plan.”¹ Subsequently, he started putting forward specific proposals to address the bottlenecks preventing progress in implementation. However, the necessary measures to bring about transformative change are yet to be adopted.

As the United Nations Secretary-General has underscored before, the main challenge in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is the outdated business model of international development structures.² From the configuration of the international financial architecture to the approach to development cooperation, the world continues to operate as it did 80 years ago. The current challenges in implementing Agenda 2030 are a direct result of this mismatch.³ If the world is to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the set deadline, urgent action is needed at three different levels to make this business model fit for purpose.

First, international frameworks need to be restructured to recognize the changes of the past 80 years. When the United Nations and the international financial institutions were established, after World War II, Africa was still subject to colonial rule. As a result, it was denied representation. Even if African countries gained independence more than 50 years ago, international institutions continue to function as if they were still colonies.⁴ They have been given testimonial seats at the table, but no real distribution of power has been undertaken to acknowledge their entitlement to a voice in the geopolitical arena as any sovereign state.⁵ This is indispensable to ensure that African countries don’t have to approach international financial institutions as “beggars” looking for charity, but rather they are able to leverage them as one of the tools that sovereign governments have to address their financial needs.⁶ The SDG Stimulus provides a clear roadmap on how to address the short-term financing needs of African countries while at the same time addressing long-term structural issues of the financial architecture.⁷

Second, development cooperation cannot continue to be approached as an economic market in which African countries need to find partners who are interested in investing in their development priorities. Respecting African countries’ ownership over their national development paths implies shifting from a zero-sum approach to a win-win approach where a middle ground is built based on all parties’ interests and aspirations. It also involves defining a joint agenda to build strong institutions and country systems so that African countries cannot only lead national development efforts, but actually break their dependence on international support. The last three reports of the United Nations Secretary-General on Africa’s development propose a clear strategy to address this challenge building on the primacy of domestic resource mobilization and national institutions.⁸

Third, we must move from a project approach and a short-term focus to a policy approach that maximizes the potential of the United Nations as the greatest knowledge hub in the world. The United Nations has the opportunity to increase the efficiency of official development assistance by promoting its utilization for long-term impact actions such as the strengthening of institutional capacities and the development of strategic policy frameworks. The United Nations 2.0 proposed by the Secretary-General is an ambitious but necessary plan to upskill the United Nation’s capacity and ensure we can provide such support and break the cycle of dependence.⁹

Let us rally together behind this transformative agenda.