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Second, there is a need for development partners and partner governments to develop new approaches and use technical instruments in order to address the increasing level of fragmentation. For instance, the European Union is employing the “Code of Conduct on Complementarity” and the “Division of Labour” in Development Policy, while the United Nations is using joint programming and the “Delivering as One” approach. At the same time, it is artificial to compare specialist development organisations, for example single-issue funds such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, with the United Nations Development Programme, which is more general in nature. It is not a case of “either... or...”, but rather “both... and...”.

This is where the limitations lie in seeking to rely primarily on technical approaches to effectively tackle the challenges of fragmentation, which have their origins in political, economic and other interests. As political support wanes, the pressure on development cooperation actors to focus on justifying their own existence is rising once more. Earmarking national donor contributions separately counteracts efforts to promote consolidation and harmonisation and may potentially cause more fragmentation. Brexit is likely to further hinder efforts to improve coordination of development cooperation work.

Consequently, in many cases, it is not in the interests of development actors to pro-actively address fragmentation issues. With annual costs for implementing the 2030 Agenda estimated at between USD 3 trillion and USD 5 trillion, more efficient and effective resource deployment could deliver huge savings. Intensive efforts to tackle the issue of fragmentation from the first year of the 2030 Agenda onwards are therefore the urgent order of the day.