G7: A new approach to development

This new approach to development is based on four main principles: resilience, sovereignty, effectiveness and coherence. 

The priorities are:

• Reaffirming solidarity with the most vulnerable countries to strengthen their resilience and help them anticipate food and public health crises and natural disasters to prevent them from developing;
• Strengthening the capacities of partner countries to finance essential sectors for sustainable development such as childhood, education, health, food security and nutrition;
• Improving the effectiveness of development assistance and promoting a new approach to development;

• Developing and updating the framework for international partnerships, to better take into account all of the flows contributing to development and include new partners.

   

THREE QUESTIONS FOR ÉLÉONORE CAROIT, MINISTER DELEGATE FOR FRANCOPHONIE, INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS AND FRENCH NATIONALS ABROAD

1. How can the effects of the war in the Middle East on the most vulnerable countries be mitigated?

The supply crisis caused by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and the substantial, lasting damage to oil and gas infrastructure are posing major risks for the most vulnerable countries. These include the risk of an oil crisis, a food and humanitarian crisis, and worsening financial difficulties for partner countries.

Along with our partners, we are working to identify solutions to help the most vulnerable countries faced with these crises, in particular food crises. We will also discuss the reconstruction of infrastructures in countries affected by conflict, as we wish to promote new methods of financing cooperation.

2. How can we reaffirm the need for solidarity with the most vulnerable countries?

International solidarity must prioritize early childhood development, education, food security, nutrition, health and the fight against extreme poverty.

France wants to support partner countries faced with the risk of health crises by proposing a new approach to health funding. This new approach aims to support domestic resource mobilization, the activities of national development banks and the coordination of health funding with the strategies established between partners countries and the World Bank.

France also wants to strengthen the support of the G7 and its partners for the Global School Meals Coalition, an initiative launched by France and Finland in 2021 to ensure that every child worldwide has access to meals at school to allow them to properly learn and grow.

France also wants to help increase the resilience of the most vulnerable countries to natural disasters by strengthening early warning systems. With this aim, France will announce a commitment of €3 million and will seek to mobilize its partners through the CREWS initiative. For more than a decade, the CREWS initiative has contributed to strengthening the resilience of 77 countries, including 80% of the least developed countries and small island developing States.  Today, it has the capacity to support all of these countries with basic early warning systems.

3. How can the fall in development budgets be addressed?

We wish to strengthen our partners’ funding capacities, key to their independence and sovereignty. We are working to support domestic resource mobilization as well as private capital and blended finance, and innovative mechanisms such as remittances and diaspora investments. We are supporting this approach in essential sectors advancing the sustainable development, sovereignty and resilience of partner countries, such as health, education and rural development.

We are also stepping up dialogue with public development banks, which will come together on 29 April at an event convened by the Finance in Common (FiCS) network, as well as with the main foundations. The French G7 Presidency is the first to support the creation of a dedicated engagement group, the F7.

Photo: Judith Litvine/MEAE

Find below the ministerial communiqué from the G7 Development Council:

Find below the deliverables of the G7 ministerial development meeting: