Today, this partnership with non governmental cooperation actors (NGCAs) remains a key pillar of Belgium’s development cooperation policy.
A changing world, an evolving cooperation
The international context is evolving rapidly: multiple crises, geopolitical tensions, climate urgency and budgetary pressure. These transformations require all public actors to make clearer choices about how they act, in order to preserve the impact and credibility of public action.
For the period 2027–2031, Belgium has therefore chosen to continue its cooperation with NGCAs, while adapting it to this new reality. The objective is straightforward: to further focus efforts in order to achieve sustainable results, building on the expertise, commitment and local anchoring of partner organisations.
Investing in quality and professionalisation
A first major development concerns higher professional quality requirements. Public funds must be managed in a rigorous, transparent and results‑oriented manner. Accreditation therefore plays a central role: it acts as a quality label, confirming that organisations have sound and reliable management systems in place.
The focus is on the quality of internal structures, management capacity and results monitoring — rather than on thematic content or specific expertise. This approach strengthens the impact of interventions, legal certainty, and public trust in development cooperation.
Less fragmentation, greater impact
Belgium is also choosing to make its cooperation more geographically and thematically focused. Instead of intervening in a very large number of countries and sectors at the same time, efforts are concentrated on a more limited number of partner countries and clearly defined priorities.
This concentration makes it possible to:
- pool strengths,
- create and reinforce synergies between actors,
- ensure a more coherent and sustainable presence where needs are greatest and where Belgium has recognised added value.
In practice, this approach is implemented through Joint Strategic Frameworks (JSFs). Within these frameworks, NGCAs jointly define how they wish to cooperate in a country or around a theme. The public authorities approve these frameworks to ensure overall coherence, while leaving ample space for the dynamism and creativity of civil society.
On 15 March, the Minister decided to approve 28 geographical JSFs, covering 28 countries that will together account for at least 90% of the budget for non‑governmental cooperation. In addition, two thematic JSFs will be developed, focusing respectively on Decent Work and Higher Education and Research.
More structured funding rules
As funding requests exceed available resources, the rules governing programme subsidies are also evolving. Funding will increasingly depend on:
- the quality of the proposed programmes;
- their alignment with the priorities of Belgian development cooperation.
Programmes that do not meet a sufficient level of quality will not be eligible for funding. A prior budgetary framework is also being introduced: organisations will be informed from the outset of the financial margins available for developing their proposals.
In a context of significant budgetary constraints affecting the entire sector, this approach aims to reduce the administrative burden and to avoid unrealistic expectations or disappointment at the end of the process.
Making choices, while respecting partners
These evolutions do not call into question the essential role of NGCAs — on the contrary. They are intended to strengthen the partnership in an environment characterised by limited resources and increasingly complex international challenges.
The message is therefore not “fewer NGCAs”, but better cooperation: with clearer priorities, greater focus and high quality requirements. This is the condition under which Belgian and local partners can continue to work together to build sustainable change, with maximum societal added value, in Belgium and around the world.