International development cooperation in 2025: Common ground, emerging tensions and ways forward

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Commissioned by UN DESA to support discussions on the future of international development cooperation, this paper offers a set of questions to guide debate rather than a set of answers.

It groups the inquiry into five areas: purpose (what development cooperation is for), beneficiaries (who should benefit and how need is defined), financing, governance and effectiveness. For each, it sets out the shared starting point where one is emerging, then the tensions and trade-offs that remain unresolved, from global public goods and reparations to the role of private finance.

The aim is to support an inclusive debate across governments, multilateral institutions and civil society on how cooperation should evolve amid deep interdependence, widening inequalities, fiscal constraints and contested legitimacy.