Strengthening cooperation in Côte d’Ivoire
Each year, millions of dollars flow into international cooperation initiatives, but their impact isn’t always clear. How effective are these initiatives? How do they contribute to achieving national development plans and goals? In Côte d’Ivoire, these questions are being addressed through a new approach to collaboration between Côte d’Ivoire and Canada.
In October 2023, Nexus Cooperation Inc. (Nexus) was hired by the Technical Assistance Partnership – Expert Deployment Mechanism (TAP-EDM), funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and implemented by Alinea International, to support the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development (MEPD) in Côte d’Ivoire, which is responsible in particular for coordinating the interventions of Development Partners to ensure proper alignment with national priorities. Within the MEPD, the General Directorate for Development Cooperation (Direction Générale de la Coopération au Développement - DGCOD) is tasked with developing strategies to optimize the impact of international cooperation in line with Côte d’Ivoire’s National Development Plan, PND 2021-2025.
Following a new government decree in December 2023 that expands DGCOD’S responsibilities, this important directorate seeks to utilize its resources optimally to enhance Côte D’Ivoire’s coordination with its international technical and financial partners and to meet the country’s national development objectives aligned with the United Nation's Development Agendas (SDGs) and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
Nexus will support the DGCOD over a twelve-month period to help achieve this goal. To do so, Nexus is working closely with the DGCOD to:
Assess operational and technical capacities and propose priority areas for intervention ;
Conduct comparative research on how similar departments to the DGCOD in other African countries successfully coordinate their relations with international and technical partners and ;
Contribute to the planning and organization of monitoring the Canadian cooperation program in Côte d’Ivoire.
Since the implementation of the project, Nexus has carried out two missions in support of the DGCOD in Abidjan. Supported by Ivorian experts who are part of the Nexus team, these missions aimed to deepen online exchanges, meet key officials from structures responsible for coordinating development cooperation, and discuss issues related to partnership coordination in Côte d’Ivoire with DGCOD’s partners.
The first mission, conducted in January 2024, identified the main challenges for coordinating international development cooperation in Côte d’Ivoire. The second mission, in April 2024, focused on developing a strategic operational plan for the DGCOD and strengthening Canadian cooperation. During this visit, Nexus had the privilege of participating in the first Annual Review of the Cooperation Program between Côte d’Ivoire and Canada, an important step in operationalizing the recent memorandum of understanding signed in April 2023 between the Canadian Embassy and the MEPD.
Going forward, the Nexus and DGCOD teams are finalizing the diagnostic, which will serve as the basis for DGCOD’s new Operational Strategic Plan. A new in-person meeting is scheduled for the second half of 2024 to validate and finalize the development of this plan, which will guide DGCOD’s work for the next three years. Stay tuned for further updates!
Through this initiative, leaders from diverse sectors, background, genders, cultural identities and regions of Canada are brought together to share their expertise with partner countries around the world. TAP is designed to support poverty reduction in countries around the world, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. The TAP project addresses need identified by countries eligible for official development assistance, ranging from gender equality and vocational training to governance and natural resource management. For more information on this TAP-EDM project, please click here.
