OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews: Iceland 2023
The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts peer reviews of individual members once every five to six years. Reviews seek to improve the quality and effectiveness of members’ development co-operation, highlighting good practices and recommending improvements. Iceland adopts a partner-led, poverty-focused and long-term approach with its three partner countries and relies on multilateral partners to complement its bilateral portfolio. Iceland successfully advances gender equality and new framework agreements with civil society have strengthened partnerships. This peer review provides a set of recommendations for Iceland to remain focused in its 2024-28 development co-operation policy and forthcoming environment and climate strategy, build on recent official development assistance (ODA) volume increases to develop a concrete roadmap towards 0.7% GNI as ODA, and adopt a strategic workforce plan to address human resource constraints. It recommends that GRÓ training programmes prioritise strengthening partner institutions’ capacity and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs works to ensure additionality and sustainability when engaging with the private sector.