May 2026
It has been an extremely rewarding and fruitful period for the Coalition. And while we still have a considerable journey ahead of us to our final findings and products, the month since our last newsletter brought frenetic activity, allowing us to deepen and expand Coalition partners across multiple fronts. Most importantly, we held our first commissioners meeting in Washington, D.C. (more on that below.)
Given the composition of the commissioners, I was prepared for the level of insight, commitment, and energy they brought to the table. What came as a surprise was how lovely and collegial they are as a group. Not only were they eager to listen and learn from each other, they took up their work with no handwringing about the historical moment in which we find ourselves, but instead displayed a quiet resolve to be future oriented and put practical, actionable, recommendations on the table.
In addition, commissioners and members of the secretariat participated in a series of events also discussed below, and the first wave of our research papers and first Coalition report are advancing well, with amazing input and feedback from our Circle of Academic Advisors. It’s a lot!
Across event after event and meeting after meeting, there was strong and growing interest in the Coalition’s work across governments, multilateral institutions, the private sector, civil society, and philanthropy. It was great to see many of our supporting countries, funders, and “friends of the Coalition” in an informal setting one evening as well. There is clear demand for a more practical, country-led approach to development cooperation that meets the needs of today and tomorrow. This enthusiasm is both hugely encouraging and somewhat intimidating – we know we have to deliver.
We want to continue to nurture partnerships, pressure test bold ideas, and build real momentum for change, and we look forward to your engagement and support in doing so. And on a more personal note, since I believe deeply in the power of courageous leadership, it was moving to be part of celebrating Deputy Secretary General Amina J. Mohammed, at the now customary Annual Ladies Breakfast at the World Bank. Onward.
Warm regards,
Alexia
Our First Commissioners Meeting
On April 13, the Coalition’s commissioners met as a group for the first time, joined by the Coalition’s secretariat and our co-host organizations, the African Center for Economic Transformation and the Center for Global Development. The group’s co-chairs set the tone for the session. As former Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo noted, “This is a moment to rethink development cooperation from the ground up. Countries are no longer just participants in the system—they are shaping it. Our task is to ensure that cooperation supports that reality and delivers real opportunity for people.”
Former Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya agreed, and put a clear charge to her fellow commissioners, “We are not here to produce another report—we are here to help reshape how the system works in practice. That requires bringing together different perspectives, confronting trade-offs honestly, and focusing on where cooperation can truly make a difference.”
While it is obviously challenging to capture the richness of the conversations in a brief summary, the commissioners did converge around further examining six core areas, with country leadership at the center of all of them:
Clarifying what development cooperation means today
Prioritizing improving capacity at the state, private, and civil society levels
Leveraging countries’ diverse assets, both financial and nonfinancial, including domestic capital, trade flows, natural capital, and beyond to drive development
Focusing on new frontiers and innovation, including how to leverage digital ID, artificial intelligence, and infrastructure that enables innovation ecosystems and individual empowerment
Finding solutions for communities and countries where governments and/or markets have failed
Exploring what international governance looks like amid an era of fragmentation and plurality.
Commissioners were unified in agreeing that development cooperation is a much larger issue than traditional debates about aid flows and effectiveness. There was a real thirst to talk about how countries can make more diverse streams of capital more effective—through better risk allocation, stronger institutions, more effective partnerships, and deeper knowledge exchange. There was also a strong consensus that progress depends on how effectively state capacity, markets, innovation, and civil society work together—with trust as a foundational asset—and that development cooperation must reflect a world in which countries and their societies are partners and innovators in shaping their own development pathways.
Engagement, Engagement, Engagement
We have something of an embarrassment of riches on this front over the last month, and we encourage you to catch up some of these terrific conversations.
Arancha González Laya spoke at the Bretton Woods Committee. And Daouda Sembene spoke on a CGD panel on Shock Absorbers in Debt Contracts for Poor Countries.
Arancha González Laya, Yemi Osinbajo, and Alexia Latortue had a lively conversation with Devex looking at “A Reset for Development Cooperation: What Comes After the Aid Era?”
Rania Al-Mashat and Alexia Latortue talked about what it would look like if we move “Toward a Modern Era of Development Cooperation” at the Atlantic Council Global Prosperity Forum Panel.
Yemi Osinbajo spoke at the AfricaXchange 2026 Summit in Nairobi where he joined a conversation on the Future of Development Cooperation and how Africa shapes the next era of partnership.
CGD and the Coalition co-hosted a great event with our co-chairs and others on domestic private capital mobilization, “How Can Africa Finance Its Own Transformation?”
Here is Alexia Latortue at the Atlantic Council discussing the Accra Reset and country leadership in practice, as well as at the World Bank Knowledge Café Panel on “Mission in Practice: Turning Ambition into Delivery.”
Lastly, Rania Al-Mashat and Daouda Sembene appeared at Rockefeller Foundation Finance Forum and discussed “Navigating Through Shocks: Developing and Emerging Economies in the Current Crisis.”
Rabat consultation
As the commissioners stressed in their first meeting, much of the Coalition’s impact will depend as much on its process as its outputs—making engaging those who implement change all the more vital. In Rabat, Coalition leaders held a listening consultation and heard from a diverse set of voices that brought incredible energy to the table. As Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, the President of ACET, so nicely summarized the discussion, “In Rabat this week, one message came through clearly: Africa doesn’t need more ‘projects’ - it needs smarter and fairer systems that deliver.”
In language strikingly similar to what we heard during the commissioners’ meeting, participants agreed that development isn’t just about finance, it is whether that financing is designed and used to create real impact. And if we are talking about results, we must put issues of accountability, power, agency, and priority front and center.
Participants highlighted two specific capabilities as essential: African institutions that produce the data and knowledge needed to shape Africa’s future, and leadership that builds trust and channels’ shared purpose to overcome political, economic, and structural barriers.
And a few interesting reads
The OECD released its initial findings on 2025 Donor Assistance Committee international aid levels, and its findings were stark: In 2025 ODA fell by 23.1% in real terms compared to 2024, the largest annual drop in the history of Official Development Assistance.An interesting read on the terrific conversation among more than 50 countries at Santa Marta tackling the shared question of how to better marry energy transitions and development. One of our co-hosts, the Center for Global Development, has a new chair, Mohamed A. El-Erian. ONE has an interesting paper out on the importance of getting timelier data, ‘nowcasting,’ to make effective development decisions. ONE also announced their new CEO, Mark Green, with Dr. Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli staying on as a Board member.