DAC Peer Review 2019 MEMORANDUM of SWEDEN
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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development __________________________________ DAC Peer Review 2019 MEMORANDUM OF SWEDEN September 2018 Executive summary Sweden contributes actively to global efforts toward reaching the 2030 Agenda. Through its many contributions to the negotiations of the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing for development, the Sendai Framework for Action on Disaster Risk Reduction, Sweden helped secure key elements and strengthen the frameworks for a new global agenda for sustainable development. Sweden also continues to be a powerful voice in multilateral organisations and has taken an active role in many areas and processes, demonstrating its commitment to joint action and leadership for global sustainable development. As the first country in the world, Sweden adopted a Feminist Foreign Policy in 2014. The Policy seeks to enhance the rights, representation and resources of all women and girls, and emphasizes that gender equality is a prerequisite for peaceful, democratic and sustainable development. The Feminist Foreign Policy constitutes a backbone to the Government’s development cooperation and humanitarian assistance and its approach to sustainable development. The Government of Sweden follows an ambitious coherence policy, aligning policies and management structures. Through the re-launch of Sweden’s policy for policy coherence for development, the Policy for Global Development in 2014, Sweden ensures that all Swedish policy areas jointly and coherently contribute to an effective implementation of the 2030 Agenda, nationally and internationally. Recognizing that participation from all levels of society is key to reaching the 2030 Agenda, the Swedish Government recently adopted a national action plan, facilitating the contribution of all actors to the national and global implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Policy vision and Framework: Since the last Peer Review, the Government of Sweden has undertaken significant work to reshape policies and guidance, identifying how to best contribute to achieving the aim and objectives of Sweden’s development cooperation and humanitarian assistance. In 2016 the Policy Framework for Swedish Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Assistance was adopted, clearly setting out the goals, priorities and direction of Sweden’s development cooperation. It provides a hierarchy of policies and steering documents, and indicates how the goals of the Swedish development cooperation and humanitarian assistance are to be translated into implementation. The Policy Framework’s takes as point of departure the current global development landscape and relates to the 2030 Agenda, the Addis Agenda and the Paris Agreement. The development cooperation of Sweden is characterised by two overarching perspectives: the perspective of poor people on development and a rights-based perspective. These two perspectives are integrated throughout Sweden’s development cooperation. In addition to the two overarching perspectives, the Policy Framework also highlights three key thematic perspectives: a conflict perspective, a gender perspective and an environmental and climate perspective. Financing for Development: Sweden has a long tradition of a generous and ambitious development cooperation and is committed to allocating 1% of GNI to international development cooperation. Sweden recognizes the importance of the Financing for Development agenda, as outlined in the Addis Agenda, and the central role of private finance in realizing the 2030 Agenda. Over the last five years, Sweden has encouraged the engagement of the private sector and in particular the national private sector, academia and civil society in sustainable development, identifying ways to leverage additional funding as a complement to ODA. Sweden recognizes that development cooperation has an important catalytic role to increase financial flows to support development. Sweden works extensively with innovative financing, including green bonds, guarantees and blended finance. Sida’s guarantee instrument enables mobilisation of additional capital for development and encourages innovative ways of private sector engagement for global poverty eradication. During the period, Sweden has also capitalized, revamped and focused the mandate of its bilateral development finance institute, Swedfund International. 1 Structure and system: Sweden has continued to strengthen the structure and guidance for the implementation of its development cooperation. The new Guidelines for strategies, clarify roles and responsibilities between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and state agencies responsible for the implementation of the Government strategies for development cooperation. The Guidelines also lay out the process to develop, implement and follow up the strategies. As main implementing agency, Sida has continued to focus on increased field presence, to strengthen the capacity for dialogue and partnership as well as follow-up and monitoring of programmes. Through cooperation on several training courses, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Sida have also strengthen competences in thematic and cross-cutting issues. Since the last review, the Folke Bernadotte Academy and the Swedish Institute has been commissioned to contribute to the implementation of the Government strategies, together with Sida. Delivery modalities and partnership: Swedish development cooperation rests on internationally agreed principles of effective development cooperation, as emphasized in the Policy Framework. Sweden is to ensure that the principles are followed and developed further in Swedish development cooperation as an important prerequisite for planning, implementation and monitoring. A core value in Swedish development cooperation is the respect for partner countries’ ownership for their own development agenda, as manifested in Sida’s partnership approach. In line with the new Policy Framework, and consistent with Sweden’s commitments to aid- and development effectiveness, Sida strives to ensure good partnership and to increase predictability and flexibility for partner countries. Sweden is also committed to joint programs and donor harmonization with other development partners, and taking a leadership role in donor coordination at the country level. Consistent with its commitment to the principle of untied aid, Sweden has since the last peer review accelerated its efforts to increase its levels of untied aid. In 2016, 99.6 % of Sweden’s aid was untied. Results management, evaluation and learning: The Government of Sweden has in recent years put a stronger emphasis on long term results and sustainability, on working holistically and on the principles of aid- and development effectiveness. Sida has worked systematically to strengthen its management for development results and the use of result-based management (RBM), maximizing achievements and continuous learning. Partner organisations have the primary responsibility for monitoring and results and Sida focuses on partner dialogue and capacity building. Reporting of results is based on a context- driven approach and there is no standard set of indicators. As of the new strategy guidelines, there is a stronger focus on results at all stages of the strategy process. The MFA uses results information to inform decision-making for the portfolio at the strategy level. Humanitarian assistance: Sweden’s humanitarian assistance is adapted to the growing humanitarian needs and limited financial resources, and is committed to the Grand Bargain. Flexible humanitarian funding has continued to be a top priority for Sweden as it enables more principled support and increased effectiveness. Seeking to improve synergies, coordination and cooperation between humanitarian assistance and long-term development cooperation several of Sweden’s strategies for development cooperation have been elaborated since the last Peer Review, with the aim of strengthening resilience of vulnerable people, addressing root causes of crises, and seeking synergies and complementarities with humanitarian assistance. Globally, Sweden participates actively in humanitarian coordination fora. As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council (2017-2018), Sweden promotes a strengthened focus on a principled, non-politicized, humanitarian action. This Memorandum outlines the steps Sweden is taking to contribute to sustainable development, through effective delivery of Sweden’s comprehensive development cooperation and humanitarian assistance. The Government of Sweden recognize the importance of the Peer Review process to donor accountability and to improve the quality and effectiveness of development co-operation policies and systems. Sweden is pleased to submit this Memorandum, and hopes the review provides valuable insights and lessons to share with other OECD DAC donor countries. We are also looking forward to a constructive dialogue on how we can improve and make Swedish development more effective and efficient. 2 Table of contents Executive summary ............................................................................................................................... 1 Abbreviations and acronyms ................................................................................................................ 4 1. Sweden’s global efforts for sustainable development ..................................................................... 5 1.1 Efforts to support global sustainable development ..........................................................................