Relevance and coherence
Development needs and country ownership
over setting their priorities and strategies for tackling the needs that they, themselves, view as most pressing. Country ownership also increases the likelihood that development interventions are coherent, i.e. e ff ectively complement (and don’t overlap with, or counteract) other interventions and actions by the government or other development partners. In short,
Development projects that are considered highly relevant by both the developing country and their development partner are more likely to be successful, and their benefits sustained over time, because the importance of their success is clear to, and accepted by, all parties involved in project planning and implementation. Relevance ensures that all parties pull indeed in the same direction and hard enough for there to be movement. Assessing the extent to which development projects respond to actual development needs at the country and global level, as well as align to country and financier priorities, is therefore important. A lack of relevance can imply a higher risk of project failure or unsustainability. The same is true for coherence – if an intervention is inconsistent with, or overlaps with other interventions by the government or other development partners, scarce development finance resources may be wasted on duplicated, ine ff ective or unsustainable e ff orts.
Ensuring the success of development intervention usually requires hard work from all involved. The chances that development interventions are relevant to, and therefore fully supported by, developing countries are higher when the recipient countries take ownership
Developing countries’ priorities should drive the need for development aid and not the other way around.
Ulrike Haarsager, OPEC Fund, Head of Development E ff ectiveness
THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
In 2015 all UN member states adopted the 17 SDGs, a set of broad goals aimed at ending poverty and other deprivations such as inequality, low growth and lack of access to education and healthcare, all “while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans
and forests” 9 . Although the achievement of these goals is tracked at the country level, development organizations, companies and other stakeholders have increasingly worked to show how their activities aim to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs.
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