Let us define the notion of international development. In its current form, the term arises from the spoils of the Second World War and the attempts to promote a human, sustainable, economic and social development of nations through both bilateral and multilateral aid. This aid can manifest in many ways, including growing technical capacities in public governance, reforming economic system, and lending, or at least granting financial resources for development. The modern notion of the humane development includes competitiveness, quality of life, and well-being, and carries with the notion of self-determination of nations, strong democratic institutions, and civil society participation. Since the early 2000s, aid effectiveness has been high on the political agenda of both donor and beneficiary countries. A campaign by the rejection of a donor-led approach, as a matter of principle. The 2005 Paris Declaration is still considered a milestone of this political agenda, establishing the principles of ownership, alignment, and harmonization. Ownership by the beneficiary countries that are at the driving seat of their aid. Alignment between donors and partners relying on national systems, and harmonization between donors, both bilateral and multilateral. The Paris Declaration was followed by several other high-level fora on aid effectiveness, as Accra in 2008 and Busan in 2011, which progressively fine-tuned and qualified these principles with a focus on civil society and private sector participation, South-South and triangular cooperation, and many other topics. The main rationale of these efforts is that effective aid enables developing countries to sustainably break away from aid dependency, to robust growth of national capacities, more transparent and effective public governance processes and tools and accountability for the aid activities results in terms of economic and social impacts. In this context, international organizations are required to evolve their role from implementers to facilitators and capacity building actors. This is a generational leap that requires time and effort and a pivotal change in the managerial culture that characterizes traditional multilateral organizations. It also requires a different partnership mindset towards national actors, both beneficiary governments and the so-called implementing partners, and the ability to give up excessive input base and top-down control, entering in a peer-to-peer partnership oriented towards mutual accountability for results. As it emerges, international development activities are extremely varied, as well as the players of this sector. It is therefore crucial to briefly explain the main functions of international aid, even if it might be challenging to reduce the complexity and variety of the international development activities to a discrete list. A good attempt was made by the United Nations Chief Executive Board for Coordination that has the mission to promote a coherent and coordinated approach to multilateral activities within the United Nations family. This board categorizes international development activities based on the type of functional intervention or approach to support development in beneficiary countries. A first type of intervention relates to normative support. It relates to national and international regulations, and it is about norms, standards, often of technical nature in different industries, from telecommunication by ITU, to labor standards by the ILO, to intellectual property rights by WIPO, civil aviation (ICAO) maritime commerce (WMO), fishery and forestry production (FAO). In many areas, the harmonization across national borders and the set-up of minimal standards are fundamental to enable development and elevate social well-being, trade safety, and other intangibles. A second cluster of interventions relates to providing policy advice on specific technical areas related to public governance and public services and goods, as health care, education, justice, energy production, and utility management. Here, developmental agencies offer technical advice, typically to ministries and other domestic players with the aim to strengthen the capacity of the public sector at large to operate and deliver. A third function of development is to provide data, information, and evidence to inform public policies and developmental plans. For example, UNFPA supports the implementation of population censuses that are fundamental for the design of any social and economic policy. Similarly, UNEP and other multilaterals produce data on causes and effects of climate change to inform policymaking and multilateral environmental agreements. A distinctive function of international development actors is the ability to hold multi-layered stakeholder engagements, facilitating cross-sectoral partnership between public, private, and non-governmental organizations and tackling transnational and cross-boundary problems. Not only this conveying and engagement function is fundamental, but also constantly evolving from formal, governmental-centric fora as the World Trade Organization, to more flexible multi-party and loosely-knit formats as the World Economic Forum. This reflects the rapid shift of relative power between nation states and non-state actors, in particular companies and transnational social movements. Finally, a fundamental function of international institutions concerns the provision of essential public services and goods, especially in emergency situations and in least developed countries. This type of intervention must be extremely selective and be phased out and passed on to domestic institutions and organizations as soon as there are the conditions to do that. International organizations, such as UNHCR and WFP, are fundamental service providers of essential commodities which save lives and reduce the impact of crisis and extreme poverty.
