By Andy Sumner, Stephan Klingebiel and Arief Anshory Yusuf
The global landscape of development cooperation is fracturing. The promise of the 2030 Agenda and the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals is giving way to geopolitical tensions. The international order is no longer merely under strain; it is in disarray. Amid this uncertainty, the idea of convening a new Independent North–South Commission (INSC) has re-emerged in the German government’s coalition agreement and potentially in the UK’s proposal for a ‘global conference’. We argue that the time has come to imagine a new independent commission. A new INSC could offer a credible response to today’s fragmentation by providing a structured space for international dialogue grounded in fairness, feasibility, and forward-thinking. But such a commission must be different in tone, structure, and ambition from the high-level panels of the past.
A new compact for a fractured world
The 1980 Brandt Commission—formally the Independent Commission on International Development Issues—was launched during a period of upheaval: oil shocks, debt crises, and East–West tension. This was a time when Southern countries were not recognized as significant actors in shaping global affairs.
The socio-economic progress of countries marks an important shift. As does the significantly growing share of Southern countries in the world output does.
Willy Brandt, brought together global statesmen and women from across ideological and geographical divides—Shahid Husain from Pakistan, Edward Seaga from Jamaica, and Katharine Graham from the US, among others.
The Commission’s 1980 report, North–South: A Programme for Survival, called for a “new international economic order” based on interdependence, solidarity, and mutual benefit. It advocated sweeping reforms in trade, finance, energy, and global governance.
What mattered most, however, was not the volume of policy detail but the Commission’s legitimacy. It wasn’t owned by one bloc or another. It listened. It projected a sense of shared purpose grounded in realism.
Today’s context is more complex, but the basic lesson remains: legitimacy comes from independence, diversity, and the courage to speak plainly. A new Independent North–South Commission can learn from both the ambition and the limits of Brandt’s legacy—by focusing on political feasibility and new forms of participation.
Three building blocks for a New Independent Commission
i. Whose Voices?
Legitimacy requires geopolitical breadth and political imagination. A new INSC should not be seen as a national (for example, German or British) project but as a diverse coalition of the willing or ‘likeminded internationalism’ across traditional boundaries. This means drawing in ‘second-tier’ powers—countries with credible internationalist records but without hegemonic baggage. These could include such countries as Indonesia, Morocco, Colombia, South Korea, South Africa, Barbados, and Japan. Strategic inclusion of small states—such as one or more Caribbean countries—would ensure perspectives from climate-vulnerable nations are heard. The INSC should also include youth leaders, civil society, and think tankers and scholars from across the spectrum—not just governments. The German government should co-organize the process with one or two partner countries from the Global South in a non-hierarchical way.
ii. What to Talk About?
The global agenda is overcrowded, but under-focused. The SDGs could simply be renewed in 2030 or reframed. A possible new INSC could focus on one defining idea: addressing the global equality of opportunity. By global equality of opportunity, we mean reducing disparities both between countries and within them—addressing systemic barriers that limit people’s chances to improve their livelihoods. This includes equitable access to quality education, healthcare, and—critically—new technologies such as AI, as well as those essential for energy transition and climate adaptation. This would respond to one driver of populism, namely a perception that opportunities are not distributed fairly.
This framing also resonates across political lines—appealing to conservative ideas of merit and progressive notions of justice. It also allows space to reframe parts of the 2030 Agenda without abandoning it.
The future of development cooperation—including OECD Official Development Assistance (ODA) as well as South-South cooperation—should be part of the agenda. However, the focus should go beyond conventional development and sustainability discourses. The commission’s mandate should also be used to reflect on necessary reforms to the global governance architecture too.
iii. How to Talk About It?
Tone matters. The INSC must eschew the index finger waving—no prescriptions from the North to the South, or vice versa. Instead, it should offer a safe space for political imagination and honest disagreement. It should encourage new narratives—of shared risk, mutual interest, and pragmatic idealism.
The style of the Commission matters as much as the substance. It should model participatory diplomacy—serious, inclusive, and slightly unconventional. Think not of “roundtables of the past” but of non-traditional and imaginative formats such as curated dialogues, hybrid consultations, and even storytelling type-formats of imagined futures, that can bring together young people and high-level policy makers in the same space. In short, the INSC should break with the conventional choreography of high-level panels. It could also examine whether the North–South framing remains appropriate in today’s context.
A Modest Proposal for a Bold Beginning
We propose a two-step approach. First, a preparatory “commission on the commission” could be launched. This small working group would be tasked with scoping the agenda, identifying co-conveners, and designing an inclusive consultation process. It could operate over 12–18 months, aiming to launch the full commission in 2026 with a final report due by 2028.
The aim is not to produce another glossy report for the bookshelf. The INSC should be a living process that shapes the future of international cooperation beyond 2030. It should feed into the G7, G20, COP, UN, and EU agendas. It should provide a platform for new coalitions. And it should offer a vision—grounded not in power politics, but in political possibility. It could give rise to new and diverse coalitions of countries and actors.
In sum, the idea of a new independent North–South Commission is not just a call for reform—it is a call for realism and reinvention. In an age of disorder, convening legitimacy is power. If done right, a new independent North-South Commission could be the way forward the world badly needs.
Title image: shows the Unisphere in NY, constructed to represent global interdependence. Photo by the travelnook on Pixabay
Andy Sumner is Professor of International Development at King’s College, London, and President of European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes. He is also a Senior Non-Resident Research Fellow at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research and the Center for Global Development; and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Royal Society of Arts.
Stephan Klingebiel heads the research program “Inter- and Transnational Cooperation” at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). He previously led the UNDP Global Policy Centre in Seoul (2019–2021) and the KfW Development Bank’s office in Kigali, Rwanda (2007–2011). He is also a guest professor at the University of Turin, Italy, a senior lecturer at the University of Bonn, and an Honorary Distinguished Fellow at Jindal University, India.
Arief Anshory Yusuf is Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University, Indonesia, Visiting Professor at Department of International Development of King’s College London, Honorary Senior Lecturer at Crawford School of Public Policy of the Australian National University and a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research.
This article was first published in the Global Policy Journal
A very interesting piece this, offering many topics for discussion. There is one comment I would like to make right away.
In the section “What to talk about?”, the emphasis is on the equality of opportunities and the reduction of disparities, both between and within countries. Restricting myself to the inequalities between countries, I couldn’t agree more, but we (well, the proposed Commission) have to be careful not to be unclear about the degree of reduction of those disparities that one aspires to. It is one thing to say that you want to reduce them, and quite another to be SMART about it. That is, in my opinion, the main problem with the SDGs, and also with SDG 10, which is, precisely, about reducing inequalities. No tangible final objective or target has been formulated, so that no one can say if the work on SDG 10 has been successful or not.
A good point of entry might be Milanovic’ concept of the ‘citizenship premium’, that shows how much difference for your future opportunities in life it makes whether you are, say, a Dutch citizen or one from Burundi. And needless to say, that difference resides mainly in the divergent income per capita in both countries – although one could also use another indicator, like the IDH or the Prosperity Index. Anyway, regardless of the indicator one chooses, in my opinion the final goal should be that the citizenship premium no longer exists. Of course, the Commission-to-be can choose other goals, but the point here is also that it should have a specific and measurable vision on how the world should look like in terms of international (in)equality, that is: between countries.