Initiative for Development and Global Governance (IDGM)
In 2007, IDDRI and FERDI decided to combine their think tank activities within the framework of the “Initiative for Development and Global Governance” (IDGM in French). This initiative, which is supported by the French public powers (the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the French Development Agency), is aimed at building capacities for debate and analysis on economic development and global public goods, supporting research on the practical problems and issues of development that are often overlapping and/ or contradictory, and encouraging the renewal of scientific thinking in this field, leading to policy recommendations.
This initiative has been launched on 6 November 2009 with a special conference on methods for reconciling poverty reduction and climate change mitigation objectives in the context of the global financial and economic crisis: "The 'Bottom Billion' and Climate Change in the context of the Global Crisis".
WHAT IS IDGM?
The challenges raised by the provision of global public goods and extreme poverty reduction require a worldwide response, which is currently unsatisfactory, incomplete and unfinished. Criticised for its performance and much debated for its methods, global governance is developed and transformed without any clear conceptual references or historical antecedents that could guide its reforms towards greater justice and effectiveness.
In order to meet the challenges facing humankind, global governance now calls for a better understanding of the facts and a greater mobilisation of ideas. This dual objective was behind the creation of the Initiative for Development and Global Governance (IDGM in French). The aim of the IDGM is to provide France with an independent think tank at the interface between public and private decision-makers and the academic world. Its main objectives are to observe and evaluate public policy and international cooperation mechanisms, and to organise and lead public debates and political discussions, all with the aim of generating new ideas.
Its creation has received State support and specific financial backing from the French Development Agency. The IDGM is backed by two internationally recognised structures that carry out complementary missions, IDDRI and the FERDI.
Its activities are divided into three broad fields:
- sustainable development;
- economic development and development policies;
- regulation and global governance.
It focuses on the following subjects:
- strategic foresight (identifying change, anticipating emerging issues);
- producing new ideas, which are developed in a targeted, reactive manner (international agenda);
- policy dialogue (seminars, conferences, etc., associating researchers and civil society);
- knowledge dissemination (papers, publications, workshops, etc.).
RETURN TO TOP
AREAS OF INTERVENTION Featuring on the international agenda since the early 1990s, the concept of sustainable development has swept through discussions and become the watchword of the international institutions, without being satisfactorily translated into action. Today it has lost its critical function in terms of the international community’s development models and methods of action.
The aim of the IDGM is to contribute to renewing analysis of changes in growth and development trajectories, by researching their determinants and obstacles, whether these belong to physical, political or cognitive economics.
More specifically, the following issues will be addressed:
- global warming and its impact on development policies;
- energy security, energy policies and development patterns;
- the sustainable management of natural resources;
- environmental protection in Southern countries: tools and financing;
- the management and transformation of urban models.
- Economic development and development policy
The analysis and evaluation of development assistance policies will be among the priority research areas of the Initiative, along with contributions to the debate on the measurement, effectiveness, selectivity and conditionality of international aid.
The main subjects analysed will include:
- re-examining the measurement of aid: changes in the real cost of capital, the structure of its components, efforts by OECD countries;
- measuring aid effectiveness: better understanding the factors that condition it (crises and vulnerability, governance, human capital, etc.), better adapting the evaluation of effectiveness to suit the diversity of aid objectives, identifying best practice and lessons from impact analyses, evaluating the effectiveness of the different aid agencies and NGOs, etc.;
- measuring the selectivity of the different forms of aid, as well as the models for allocating aid between countries at both the macro- and micro-economic levels, analysing the respective role of bilateral aid in relation to multilateral aid;
- the current conditionality of budgetary aid and to the balance of payments: analysis of effectiveness and limits on appropriation.
- Regulation and global governance
The initiative aims to inform the international debates on the global governance of sustainable development and development assistance.
The main issues addressed will particularly concern:
- prospects for changes in the global economic and financial governance framework, based particularly on the analysis of needs and financing capacities in developing countries in general and emerging countries in particular;
- the conditions under which development assistance policies are coordinated within a context marked by the arrival of new actors (new donor countries, private funds, global funds) and by a certain kind of re-politicisation of bilateral aid policies;
- the interactions between the different facets of global governance, especially the growing linkages between objectives concerning climate commitments, trade liberalisation negotiations and issues relating to intellectual property rights for developed and emerging countries.
RETURN TO TOP
