International development-policy goals have changed radically over the past two years with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change. In turn, France now aims for its official development assistance (ODA) to reach 0.55% of gross national income (GNI) by 2022.
AFD Group, the principal player in French development policy, designed its 2018-2022 (extended to 2023) strategy to meet these new challenges and goals, as summarized in this document. These strategic guidelines draw on a year of deep thinking and extensive consultation with French citizens and with AFD Group partners and civil society in France and in developing and emerging countries.
The AFD Group 2018-2022 Strategy rests on a vision of “a world in common” and five foundational commitments that underpin all actions:
- 100% Paris Agreement
- 100% social link
- 3D development thinking
- Non-sovereign first
- Partnership by design
Meeting these five commitments requires that AFD Group reposition itself and reorganize its activities into a new action matrix, in order to do more and better in areas where the Group has recognized expertise and legitimacy. The Agency thus aims to make development policy into a genuinely solidarity-based investment policy.
Initially planned to last until 2022, the Group's strategy was extended until 2023. This extension allows the AFD Group to postpone the development of its new strategy by one year, in order to take into account the institutional sequence of the year 2023 (Presidential Council for Development, Paris Summit for financing development, Interministerial Committee for International Cooperation and Development) and to remain fully aligned with the new priorities of French development policy.