Al-Mashat Launches 4th Evaluation Round of GPEDC

Dr. Rania A. Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation, held a joint multi-stakeholder platform for launching the fourth evaluation round of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC), through which progress in development cooperation efforts in Egypt is followed up, in cooperation with multilateral and bilateral development partners, representatives of development partners, the private sector and civil society, alongside physical presence and virtual participation.

It included Elena Panova, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Egypt, Alessandro Fracassetti, Director of the United Nations Development Program in Egypt, and representatives of the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the French Development Agency, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), in addition to the technician team at the Ministry of International Cooperation.

The GPEDC is the main platform for relevant parties and stakeholders to exchange knowledge, experience and information about development cooperation and its evaluation, to maximize benefit in order to achieve development and promote mutual benefit. It was agreed to launch this partnership in 2011 in Nairobi, with more than 161 countries and 56 organizations, which is the result of the high-level forum on development cooperation activities that took place in Busan, South Korea, as it helps track progress in achieving the SDGs and strengthen development partnerships to support the goals, and through which periodic evaluation of the effectiveness of development cooperation takes place in each country based on 4 principles that are: country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships, transparency and accountability. 

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) provide technical support to the GPEDC.

This comes within the framework of the role played by the Ministry of International Cooperation, to develop and strengthen economic cooperation relations between the Arab Republic of Egypt and international and regional countries and organizations, follow up on development partners, as well as follow up on foreign grant beneficiaries in use, and manage economic relations in the Arab Republic of Egypt with organizations, economic cooperation entities and institutions, international financial institutions and UN specialized agencies, with the aim of enhancing the effectiveness of development cooperation and supporting the National Development Vision 2030.

In her speech, Al-Mashat said that Egypt had been actively contributing to the GPEDC since its inception, as it participated in the past three sessions of its follow-up, also conducting a study in cooperation with the OECD in 2018 to measure the impact of the private sector's contribution to development through international cooperation, and to study available solutions and tools to push and stimulate its contribution further in all aspects of development. 

Noting that this study was used as a basic reference for the Kampala Principles for Enhancing the Role of the Private Sector through International Cooperation, which were launched in 2019.

Al-Mashat indicated that the current evaluation rounds aim to identify priorities in addition to the available opportunities for development partnerships to maximize their effects and benefit from them, as the follow-up framework for the GPEDC has been updated during the past three years to ensure positive change, address common issues, thus promoting inclusive dialogue, shared responsibility and results tracking while consolidating national priorities.

Al-Mashat gave a presentation on the results of the last follow-up session that the ministry conducted in 2018, explaining the improvement in performance indicators, especially those related to strengthening state ownership, national planning, public financial management systems, follow-up systems, and the ability to predict future needs, as Egypt made progress at the level of “The Four Principles”, including 61% progress to become more able to predict the annual disbursement rates of development cooperation programs, the increase in Egypt’s ability to plan and manage development cooperation programs by 93%, focus on national priorities in international partnerships by 73%, and the percentage of transparency in development cooperation programs was recorded at 70%, and the parliamentary oversight of development cooperation programs at 91%. 

These results were presented in the Ministry’s annual report for the year 2020.

Al-Mashat also highlighted some indicators of the progress made in the governance of development cooperation over the past period, including the launch of the automated system for data management and follow-up on concessional development financing projects, within the framework of the state’s direction for digital transformation and to enhance the principles of transparency and governance around development cooperation efforts with multilateral and bilateral development partners.

For their part, development partners and representatives of relevant parties applauded the periodic evaluation rounds of development cooperation efforts in Egypt, and its ability to enhance the process of information exchange and follow-up on achieved results.