The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts periodic reviews of the individual development co-operation efforts of DAC members. The policies and programmes of each member are critically examined approximately once every four or five years. Five members are examined annually. The OECD Development Co-operation Directorate provides analytical support, and develops and maintains, in close consultation with the Committee, the methodology and analytical framework – known as the Reference Guide – within which the peer reviews are undertaken.

From 2011-15, Denmark was governed by a centre-left coalition led by the Social Democrats alongside the Social Liberal Party and the Socialist People’s Party. The June 2015 general election brought back the previous Liberal Prime Minister, Mr Lars Løkke Rasmussen, as the leader of a minority one-party Liberal government, with the support of three centre-right parties – the Danish People’s Party, the Liberal Alliance and the Conservative People’s Party. This election was the tightest contest in decades and produced Denmark’s smallest single party minority government since the mid-1970s.

Denmark has played a strong leadership role on the development of Agenda 2030, particularly on the promotion of human rights and support for peacebuilding and stabilisation. However, it is not yet addressing how it will respond to Agenda 2030 at both domestic and international levels, or the role that development co-operation will play within this.

Denmark’s development co-operation strategy, The Right to a Better Life, is a widely owned strategy setting out the overall purpose and priorities of Denmark’s development co-operation. However, its broad definition has meant many sub-strategies and extensive management guidelines were needed to facilitate implementation. As Denmark drafts a new strategy for development co-operation, more operationally oriented language would help it position the strategy within the Sustainable Development Goals, prioritise, limit the number of the sub-strategies and select the right instruments to achieve its development objectives.

Over the past five years, and indeed since the 1970’s, Denmark has exceeded its international commitment of providing 0.7% of its gross national income (GNI) as official development assistance (ODA). However, the decision to cut the overall ODA budget, followed by the rising and unpredictable costs of helping refugees within Denmark, has halved funding available for spending overseas on bilateral and multilateral programmes. These shifts in ODA volume and composition will likely affect Denmark’s reputation as a generous and predictable donor.

Danish development co-operation is increasingly integrated with foreign and trade policy within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with new links across government. However, recent budget cuts have heavily affected organisational capacity, putting Denmark’s highly decentralised business model for development co-operation at risk.

In a context of decreasing attention to aid effectiveness, Denmark is a strong advocate for, and adherent to, the Busan Principles for effective development co-operation. Commitment-based budgeting allows Denmark to provide its priority countries and territories with predictable, multi-year funding. Meanwhile, detailed risk assessments and budgetary flexibility within the results framework give embassies the capacity to adjust as contexts change, and seize opportunities as they arise. However, the highly labour intensive two-year programming cycle affects timely implementation. Further efforts to anticipate the impact of risks on development outcomes would also increase the quality of programming.

Denmark is strengthening its results-based management. It is stepping up efforts to measure results at outcome and country level and support its partners’ monitoring capacities. New performance-based funding for framework agreements with civil society organisations (CSOs) demonstrates Denmark’s attempts to link results and budget decisions. Its results monitoring is also sensitive to conflict and fragility. However, because Denmark relies on partners’ results monitoring, it needs to consolidate and check the quality of the information it receives to ensure that results can inform decisions at policy and strategy levels.

Denmark is updating its humanitarian strategy. This provides a good opportunity to consolidate progress towards coherent humanitarian and development approaches and to integrate the new thinking to emerge from the World Humanitarian Summit in policy work. Denmark will need to make sure that humanitarian principles are respected in the new approach, especially as it expands its programming to tackle the root causes of crises. So far, the humanitarian budget has been protected from overall official development assistance (ODA) cuts; if it is to remain a predictable partner and influential donor on the global stage, Denmark will need to ensure that its budget at least remains stable in the future.