The Development Leaders Conference
A premier forum bringing together development agency heads to discuss common challenges, solutions, and opportunities in supporting sustainable development.
About the Conference
CGD’s Development Leaders Conference (DLC) brings together a network of senior policymakers in a safe and independent space for critical learning based on practical experience and underpinned by robust evidence, ideas, and tools. Our objective is to convene leaders from new and established development agencies to share experiences and learning and promote aid and organisational effectiveness as well as stimulate debate on the future of development agencies.

Development agencies are facing unprecedented changes, necessitating a rethink in how they organise themselves, who they work with, and how they work with partners. With the intended goal of strengthening cross-agency relationships and inspiring conversations, CGD convenes heads of official development agencies and multilateral organisations, and introduces key topics for leaders to discuss and share their thoughts for future actions. By discussing contemporary issues in light of long-term challenges outside traditional multilateral fora, the DLC helps enable traditional, emerging, and new development cooperation providers to find a more collaborative and more sustainable development approach. Our objective is to empower governments and official development agencies with comparative information and evidence on what is working and what is not in a rapidly changing world. 

The 2024 conference, co-hosted with the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), will be held in Indonesia in June.

Blogs

  • Development Leaders Conference 2023 Podcast
    CGD's Masood Ahmed speaks with Development Leaders Conference cohosts Siti Nugraha Mauludiah from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ...
  • The Changing Development Paradigm: AFD’s Rémy Rioux on the CGD Podcast
    CGD's Masood Ahmed speaks with Rémy Rioux of Agence Française de Développement about the fifth annual Development Leaders Conferen...
  • What Is a Resilient Development Agency?
    Development agencies are operating in an increasingly complex development landscape, defined by a “perfect long storm” of intercon...
  • Development Leaders on Weathering the Long Storm
    Development leaders met this month against a backdrop of a world facing down geopolitical, economic, and existential insecurity. W...
  • The Development Leaders Conference 2022
    It’s clear that development agencies will be faced with hard choices in the years to come. CGD’s 2022 Development Leaders Confere...
  • The Need for a Bold, New Approach to Development Cooperation
    In 2021, the ongoing grip of COVID-19 served as a stark reminder of the fragility of our progress in fighting poverty and COP26 hi...
  • Development Agencies and the “New Normal”
    In this blog, we map key trends and changes in the development landscape and highlight the implications of these changes for the f...
  • Inside the Development Leader's Conference 2021: CGD Podcast
    CGD's Masood Ahmed speaks with Sida's Carin Jämtin and MCC's Alexia Latortue about their takeaways from the 2021 Development Leade...
  • What Aid Agency Leaders Should Worry About on Climate Finance
    One of my overwhelming preoccupations over the last 10 years as a chief executive of international aid organisations, first as per...
  • The Development Leaders Conference 2021 Preview
    With the world still in the tight grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, development cooperation partners are facing unprecedented challen...
  • Development Leaders Conference 2020
    As development agencies transition from their immediate COVID-19 response towards a medium-term strategy, their leaders see a clea...
  • The Development Leaders Conference 2020
    In the build up to the 2020 Development Leaders Conference, the organizers outline the key themes that will be discussed and give ...
  • Fostering Development Cooperation: A Development Leaders Conference
    How can the development community truly harness the power of this cooperation and come together to achieve the Sustainable Develop...
  • CGD Development Leaders Conference 2019
    The big takeaway from the 2018 CGD Development Leaders conference was that all agencies, new and old, face similar oppor...
  • Development Agencies: Fit for the Future?
    Official bilateral and multilateral development agencies are under strain from opposing forces: on the one hand, they are confront...

Contact

For more information, contact Catarina Afonso dos Santos.

Contact

For more information, contact Catarina Afonso dos Santos.

Experts

Anita Käppeli
Anita Käppeli is director of Policy Outreach, Europe at CGD. Prior to that, she led the Commitment to Development Index (CDI). Before joining CGD, Käppeli spent several years worki...
Masood Ahmed
Masood Ahmed is president of the Center for Global Development. He joined the Center in January 2017, capping a 35-year career driving economic development policy initiatives relat...
Mikaela Gavas
Mikaela Gavas is the Managing Director, CGD Europe and a Senior Policy Fellow.  In addition, she serves as a member of the Standing Advisory Group on Technical Assista...
Rachael Calleja
Rachael Calleja is a Research Fellow in CGD’s UK and European Development Leadership programme. Prior to joining CGD, she gained several years of experience conducting policy-relev...

Experts

  • Anita Käppeli
    Anita Käppeli is director of Policy Outreach, Europe at CGD. Prior to that, she led the Commitment to Development Index (CDI). Before joining CGD, Käppeli spent several years worki...
  • Masood Ahmed
    Masood Ahmed is president of the Center for Global Development. He joined the Center in January 2017, capping a 35-year career driving economic development policy initiatives relat...
  • Mikaela Gavas
    Mikaela Gavas is the Managing Director, CGD Europe and a Senior Policy Fellow.  In addition, she serves as a member of the Standing Advisory Group on Technical Assista...
  • Rachael Calleja
    Rachael Calleja is a Research Fellow in CGD’s UK and European Development Leadership programme. Prior to joining CGD, she gained several years of experience conducting policy-relev...

Acknowledgments

For more information, visit CGD's How We're Funded page.