The immediate past Vice President of Nigeria Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, and former Spanish Foreign Minister, Arancha González Laya, have been named co-chairs of a new, independent global coalition.
The group aims to rethink development cooperation amid shrinking aid budgets and rising challenges that expose flaws in current models.
The Future of Development Cooperation Coalition was unveiled on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where González announced the initiative as a time-bound effort to build a bold, shared vision for how countries cooperate, finance responsibly, and deliver sustainable development in an increasingly fragmented world.
A lawyer and academic, Osinbajo, who served as Vice President of Nigeria from 2015 to 2023, played a central role in Nigeria’s economic governance during a period marked by recession, recovery, and global shocks, with a focus on inclusive growth, social investment, and economic reform.
The Future of Development Cooperation Coalition was unveiled on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where González announced the initiative as an independent platform mandated to rethink how countries cooperate, finance responsibly, and support sustainable development in a world where the existing aid-centric model is increasingly under strain.
The Coalition grew out of high-level discussions at the June 2025 Financing for Development Conference in Sevilla, Spain. It aims to facilitate a global process through which countries at all stages of development can co-create a more effective, trusted, and future-ready model of development cooperation.
The Coalition emerges against a backdrop of declining foreign aid, a fragmented multilateral system, and growing consensus that current development frameworks are no longer fit for purpose—despite little agreement on what should replace them. Osinbajo and González will jointly steer the effort, drawing on experience from both advanced and emerging economies, and from leadership roles within and beyond multilateral institutions.
Supported by a diverse group of commissioners from government, the private sector, and civil society, the Coalition will operate over the next 12 months to build a bold, shared vision for development cooperation that moves beyond incremental reform. Rather than proposing technical fixes, the group will step back to interrogate fundamental questions: what development cooperation should achieve today, who it should serve, and how it can deliver impact at scale.
“2025 has been a year of contraction and hard choices. But 2026 must be about something more ambitious: a credible vision for how development cooperation can work better across public, private, and civil society sectors in an increasingly uncertain world,” said González, who was former Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain.
She added that the Coalition would be guided by a central test: “Is development cooperation working in a way that puts countries—their ambitions and priorities—at the centre so transformation happens at scale? If not, we have a responsibility to rethink how the system works.”
The initiative reflects a growing recognition that development cooperation now extends far beyond traditional aid. While Official Development Assistance exceeds $200 billion annually, it accounts for less than 10 percent of total financial flows to developing countries, as nations increasingly act simultaneously as recipients, investors, innovators, and providers of finance.
This increasingly interconnected ecosystem—shaped by public policy, private capital, civil society action, and global public goods—requires new models of cooperation, the Coalition said. Its work will focus on how these elements can be aligned more effectively to support sustainable development outcomes.
“For many countries, development cooperation is not a theoretical debate—it shapes daily realities,” said Osinbajo, an international statesman, and advisor on governance and global development. “It determines whether economies can create jobs, children remain in school, and communities can rebuild after disasters. This moment demands cooperation that breaks free from a narrow assistance mindset and instead mobilises partnerships across investment, trade, and economic transformation.”
Over the past six decades, international assistance has helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty and delivered significant gains in health, education, and well-being. However, these gains are increasingly under pressure. More than 50 countries now face serious debt challenges, climate shocks are intensifying, conflict and fragility are rising, and geopolitical tensions are complicating cooperation just as collective action is most needed.
Over the coming year, the Coalition will engage governments, international organisations, private-sector leaders, technology innovators, civil society groups, and young people across regions to assess current cooperation flows, identify misalignments, and develop practical, actionable recommendations. Initial regional and sectoral engagements are expected to begin in early 2026.
