The major development challenge, underlined by The Future We Want, is the implementation of international commitments (United Nations, 2012). In a context of the capping of public budgets, how can donor countries strengthen their contributions to the SDGs, to generate more commitment and ultimately success than was achieved by the less ambitious and underfunded Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? It will be a wasted opportunity if DAC countries, particularly France, fail to provide valuable input to address this question. Proposed solutions should [...] highlight France’s assets [...] in terms of: flexibility and innovation in mobilizing finance; strengthening the institutional expenditure framework; and supporting the fight against illicit financial flows and enhancing tax transparency.
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
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France has the potential to convey a unifying political message in Addis Ababa. Through its resources and flexible and diverse financing mechanisms, France is able to meet the requirements of sustainable development, provided that it can ensure, in particular: the underlying consistency of blended finance (a mixture of loans and donations); support for public policies at the operational level; as well as – more upstream – the strengthening of its efforts to elucidate the modus operandi of its financing operations that combine loans and donations. Blending could be particularly effective in mobilizing additional resources to the existing levels of official development assistance (ODA), public and private, provided they are associated with demands for accountability and traceability.
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Beyond blending, France could bring a package of proposals to the European Union, which has a leading role to play in the Addis Ababa negotiations, to fight against illicit financial flows (measures to tackle corruption and tax evasion, support for capacity building in poor countries, and promoting open government for the transparent management of state resources), an area in which France is acknowledged to have expertise.
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Finally, it seems both inevitable and appropriate that proposals are made for the targeting of ODA spending towards the most vulnerable countries, with a road map for the implementation of past and present commitments. These anticipated – and in some cases already drafted – proposals were stimulated in December 2014 by reforms, in which France was particularly involved, to revise the treatment of ODA loan concessionality by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC).
