Over its 60 year history of development co-operation, the Netherlands has earned itself a well deserved reputation for responding positively and creatively to challenges and setting trends for new approaches. It is one of only five DAC members to have achieved the United Nations (UN) target of allocating 0.7% of its national income as official development assistance (ODA). Since 1975 it has surpassed this target every year. The Netherlands is now revising its approach to development co-operation, formulating new policies and strategies to respond better to a rapidly-changing world. While retaining its emphasis on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the focus of Dutch aid is shifting away from social development towards economic sectors, supporting the self-reliance of developing countries and promoting the relationships among development objectives, global public goods, such as climate policy or protecting biodiversity and Dutch national interests. The Netherlands has made some bold choices for its development co-operation. These include reducing the number of its partner countries from 33 to 15, and narrowing its thematic focus to just four areas: (i) security and the legal order; (ii) water; (iii) food security; and (iv) sexual and reproductive health and rights, targeting women in particular (Box 1). While it is important for the Netherlands to concentrate its development co-operation on fewer countries and sectors, this should be achieved in ways that respect the principles of ownership, alignment and harmonisation embodied in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. The change in policy is an opportunity for the Netherlands to demonstrate good practice by ensuring that the thematic focus of Dutch development co-operation in each partner country is selected in full consultation with the partner country government and other development partners. There is also scope for the Netherlands to reform its aid delivery channels, to build on their strengths and to ensure that they are aligned to the new policy. In the humanitarian area, the Netherlands has taken up the challenge of improving the global humanitarian aid system – important work that now needs to be anchored in a cross-government humanitarian policy.
