The 2025 Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) will take place on March 12–13, 2025, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. The concept note and programme will be available online soon—stay tuned to our website for updates!
Why this meeting matters:
The 2025 Development Cooperation Forum comes at a crucial moment: nearly 600 million people face extreme poverty by 2030 and developing countries grapple with annual SDG financing gaps of up to $4 trillion. The international development cooperation system is faltering precisely when needs are greatest and priorities urgent.
The landscape of international development cooperation has transformed dramatically since the adoption of the 2030 and the Addis Ababa Action Agendas in 2015, becoming more complex with new actors, modalities and instruments. While this diversity brings opportunities, it has also increased the coordination burden and transaction costs for developing countries. The growing focus on global public goods and humanitarian emergencies, while crucial, has reduced support for countries’ long-term sustainable development priorities, including those of the most vulnerable.
Making development cooperation fit for purpose through fundamental reforms to ensure true country leadership and policy coherence is not just a technical challenge – it is imperative to ensure limited resources reach those most in need and drive real sustainable development impact.
This milestone meeting is happening in the run-up to the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development on 30 June - 3 July 2025, in which Member States are considering reforms to the development cooperation architecture. The Forum’s recommendations will serve as inputs to FFD4 discussions.
2025 DCF Core Objectives:
- Sharpen understanding of what international development cooperation must deliver in a world with rapidly evolving needs, priorities and vulnerabilities
- Promote better alignment between international development cooperation with nationally identified sustainable development needs and objectives
- Update and strengthen through universal participation the principles for effective, high quality and high impact international development cooperation based on lessons learned since the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda
- Share practical approaches and successful experiences in applying these principles
- Identify reforms needed at country, regional and global levels to create a more coherent and responsive development cooperation system
- Generate concrete recommendations for action at country, regional and global levels
Who should join:
The Forum thrives on diverse perspectives. We welcome government ministers and officials, development cooperation and agency leaders, civil society organizations, private sector and philanthropic representatives, local government leaders, parliamentarians, and international organizations, multilateral development banks and national development finance institutions. This diversity of voices and experience is essential for developing practical and innovative solutions.
