Development cooperation needs more skin in the game

I consider myself a mission-driven person. I work in international cooperation because I want to contribute to meaningful change. And I want to work in an environment where everyone involved is genuinely committed to achieving results. This is precisely why I welcome the shift from traditional development cooperation towards mutual interest partnerships.

Author: Julius MURKE

My central hypothesis is simple: When countries have a genuine interest in a partnership, they also have a stronger interest in making it succeed. And that could ultimately deliver better results for partner countries than traditional development cooperation.

We measure results, but do we really pursue them?

Development cooperation has elaborate systems for monitoring and evaluating results. Yet in my experience, we often devote more attention to procedures and ensuring the proper use of funds than to actually achieving impact. We programme interventions around thematic priorities, implement activities and document their contributions to broad objectives. But are we equally demanding when it comes to identifying the most effective interventions and ensuring that they deliver?

This has always been a personal frustration. I want to work in a system where there is real demand for results, not just for compliant implementation. Where funding institutions are as invested in overcoming obstacles and achieving outcomes as the people implementing their projects.

Mutual interest partnerships could strengthen precisely this incentive. When both countries have something meaningful at stake, results become a shared concern rather than primarily a reporting obligation. Even if the objectives benefit a high-income country, the stronger commitment to success could ultimately produce greater benefits for a low-income country.

Partnerships should change how we cooperate

Mutual interests could also fundamentally change the way we design projects. Traditional development cooperation often follows a familiar model: one country provides financing, an intermediary development organisation implements a project, and most activities take place in the partner country. Beyond the funding relationship, institutions and businesses from the financing country may have relatively little involvement.

But if we take partnership seriously, why should this remain our default model? We could see more joint ventures between companies, direct partnerships between public administrations, cooperation between research and technology institutions, or trilateral initiatives bringing together complementary capabilities.

Rather than primarily financing interventions in one country, we would increasingly bring together institutions, expertise and resources from different countries to pursue common objectives. This could create more sustainable relationships, stronger incentives for continued cooperation and opportunities that conventional development projects might never identify.

Development is not a neutral starting point

I also have reservations about the concept of development itself. It carries considerable postcolonial baggage and often comes with implicit assumptions about what poorer countries need. By defining countries primarily through poverty, weak governance or limited capacities, we risk predetermining which strategies we consider appropriate. Instead of openly asking what would create the greatest opportunities for a country, we often fall back on familiar development approaches. Mutual interest partnerships offer an opportunity to approach countries differently: as strategic partners with capabilities, ambitions and interests of their own.

And I find the supposed opposition between development and mutual interests rather unconvincing. What does partnership actually mean if one party has no interest in its success? We have long justified development cooperation partly through its benefits for Europe. Mutual interests are hardly a new reality.

There is, of course, a legitimate concern about financing global public goods such as peace, pandemic preparedness or climate stability, where benefits are shared and less directly attributable. But perhaps we should distinguish more clearly between investments in global public goods and partnerships built around specific mutual interests, rather than subsuming both under development cooperation.

Shared interests can create greater coherence

Finally, mutual interest partnerships could help overcome another persistent weakness of international cooperation: fragmentation. We frequently attribute fragmentation to the number of organisations and instruments involved. Yet a polycentric system can work coherently if its actors pursue clear, shared objectives.

The deeper problem is often that development, trade, security, climate and foreign policy operate according to different priorities. Mutual interest partnerships could encourage us to identify opportunities where these objectives reinforce one another and then mobilise the relevant institutions around them. Of course, this requires identifying genuinely mutual interests, not simply repackaging short-term European economic ambitions.

A more ambitious approach to international cooperation

Mutual interest partnerships are no guarantee of better cooperation. Poorly conceived, they could simply subordinate partner countries' priorities to European interests. But I believe they offer an opportunity to fundamentally improve how we cooperate: by creating stronger incentives for results, enabling more direct partnerships between institutions and businesses, and aligning different policy instruments around shared objectives.

And if mutual interest partnerships help create that commitment, they may ultimately do more for low-income countries than an approach that puts their development at the centre of its rhetoric, but not always its incentives.