The changing face and nature of development financing

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their country to beneficiary countries. It helps to expand market reach for their products and access to international jobs for their skilled human resources. This strategy does not favour capacitybuilding and technology transfer.

Face of development financing

It is not surprising that the face of development financing has changed over the years.

More developing countries are offering technical assistance to each other through south-south cooperation. Countries like Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico to mention a few, have increased official assistance to countries like Guyana in order to help address its development needs. China has also emerged as a major donor of development assistance.

The areas of focus are not only infrastructure development.

They include also capacity-building, human development, protection of revenue and improvement in public safety and security. The need to accelerate robust, resilient and sustainable development has forced the international community to reconsider development financing.

Intensity diminished

The topic of Financing for Development (FFD) is nothing new, but has been under the spotlight more today, following the rise of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 and the call for its incorporation into national development policies and plans to achieve the 17 agreed targets by 2030. The issues of poverty, hunger, education, health, access to potable water and sanitation have not gone away, even though their intensity might have diminished.

It has become clear that after 56 years of development financing using official flows, the problems of the poor and undeveloped have not been solved and a new approach to financing development is required.

This is being looked at but the early signs for change are not good.