Engaging with development experts at Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Researchers from the “Governing SDG interactions in East-Africa” project travelled to Paris from 4-6^th February for a mutually inspiring visit at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) office in Boulogne-Billancourt. OECD is a cooperation partner in the project and the visit was made possible thanks to Dr. Thomas Boehler and the Development Co-operation Directorate.

The WUR Team was keeping abreast of rapid trends and challenges in development co-operation and the OECD team was interested in the fresh insights and preliminary findings from context-rich research in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia.

We held a series of 10 bilateral meetings with OECD experts interspersed by a well-received lunch presentation hosted by Dr Thomas Boehler, with the technical and logistical support of his colleague Laetitia Muanza-Nkouka.

The presentations began with an introduction of the project by Prof. Dr Art Dewulf. Dr Nowella Anyango-van Zwieten then introduced and moderated the presentations by the PhD researchers, and briefly introduced the recently release policy briefs on SDG alignment mechanisms written by postdoc researchers of the project.

The preliminary findings were presented as follows:

• Charles Tonui presented Policy coherence​ within and between​ international donor organisations
• Dereje Amene Yimam presented Governing SDGs in times of institutional fragility: The Kunzila WASH (water-sanitation-hygiene) project story, Ethiopia
• Tonny Ssekamatte presented Water-Energy-Food-Health related SDG governance in Kampala slums, Uganda
• Annita Kirwa presented SDG interactions between Policy Programmes in Kenya

In the bilateral meetings, the WUR team met OECD experts on specific themes and discussed a range of topics including development effectiveness, multilateral effectiveness, climate and environment, private finance, locally-led development, donor institutional arrangements, triangular cooperation, fragility, and poverty and inequalities.

The OECD experts that we spoke to really appreciated the evidence that our research work brought to policy advice. In the words of Thomas Boehler, our key contact person at OECD:

“We were all very impressed by the diverse topics the students are addressing, topics we grapple with at the OECD, and how the polycentric governance framework helps to bring them all together…”

The role of the private sector was a key topic of discussion in our first two days when we joined the Community of Practice on Private Finance for Sustainable Development (CoP-PF4SD) Conference 2025, hosted by OECD. The theme of the conference was “Mobilising Private Finance Toward 2030 and Beyond.” We discussed and networked with a wide range of participants from both the public and private sector. We heard about the increasing potential and challenges of involving the private sector in development, particularly through blended finance arrangements.