Two of the members of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development underwent institutional changes in response to the new challenges of development cooperation. Both new establishments aim to strengthen policy coherence and coordination of all related development cooperation activities. The change of government in Canada was followed by a change in Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development. The new department of Global Affairs will still be headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The renamed institution will aim to ease the coordination amongst departments and lift the communication limitations of the past, when responding to multi-sectoral international developments.
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In Italy, new Italian Development Cooperation Agency was established, based on a law which we reported on in 2015, aiming to reorganize development national actors, instruments and modes of action and to better facilitate cooperation with other EU partners. Laura Frigenti was appointed to lead the newly established Italian Development Cooperation Agency (IDCA). The legal framework for this decision was set out back in 1987 and it foresaw the establishment of the development agency and a development financial institution. Ms. Frigenti stressed that in the changing international development framework, a stronger focus on private financial flows will be required, while ODA will play a rather leveraging role. The new development financing institution will help guide Italy’s financial development commitments through these changes. The new agency will inherit the programmes and topics from the former Directorate General of Development Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Italy, but will have stronger focus on cooperation. With this new development architecture Italy follows the successful examples from other European countries, such as Germany with the German Bank for Reconstruction (KFW) and German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and hopes to enhance the inter-European communication on development.
Thematically the new agency will remain focused on creating job opportunities for the youth and geographically on the Mediterranean region and Africa and. With the reform, the new director hopes that the newly established technical bodies will be able to gather international best practices and adapt them to the specific national and international goals and targets of partner countries.
