Transformation of a policy area: development policy is in a systemic crisis and faces the challenge of a more complex system environment

Since the 2000s, the international community has increasingly recognised two basic aspects of development cooperation. First, international development cooperation faces a systemic crisis. Because of the way it is organised and implemented, it is part of the problem it wants solve. As a response, there has been an attempt at system reform that, in terms of ambition and recognition, is unprecedented in the history of development cooperation. Second, the environment of development cooperation has changed considerably. This goes for both the development problematique to which development cooperation reacts and the global context in which it operates.