No.21 A Proposal for Knowledge Co-Creation toward an Inclusive Global Development Architecture: The Roles of Emerging Development Partners and Japan

  • #Policy Notes
  • The international order is undergoing significant transformation, shifting toward a “multiplex” world characterized by increasing multipolarity and multilayered structures. The range of actors engaged in international development cooperation is becoming increasingly diverse. In this context, traditional development partners should work together with emerging development partners　to build a pluralistic and inclusive global development architecture by drawing on their respective knowledge and experience. Addressing increasingly complex development challenges requires reconceptualizing development as a process of learning and adaptation. This entails moving beyond one-way and asymmetric “knowledge sharing” toward “knowledge co-creation,” in which diverse actors participate equally in mutual and interactive learning, generating new knowledge through processes of adaptation and internalization.
  • To promote knowledge co-creation with emerging development partners, this paper proposes the following three approaches:
    1. Deepening understanding of the diversity, dynamism and regional contexts of emerging development partners, as well as the motivations of both providers and recipients of development cooperation.
    2. Strengthening the implementation capacities and institutional frameworks of emerging development partners, thereby enhancing broader partnerships for knowledge co-creation.
    3. Creating intra- and interregional platforms for dialogue, joint research, and knowledge dissemination through which diverse actors can bring together their experiences and expertise, engage in mutual learning, and undertake comparative analysis.
  • Japan is a long-standing development partner with the experience as both a recipient and a provider of development cooperation, along with accumulated institutional capacity and practical knowledge. It also has extensive engagement in South-South and triangular cooperation. Building on these strengths, Japan should act as a bridge across diverse values and norms, working closely with emerging development partners to play a leading role in fostering networks for practical knowledge co-creation.

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Authors
OHNO Izumi, KAMEI Haruko, AKUTSU Kentaro, ENDO Kei, HOMMA Toru , NARUMI Yukino, SAITO Yukari, TAKEUCHI Kaito, WATANABE Rin
Date of issuance
September 2026
Number of pages
11
Topics
  • #Emerging Donors
Research area
Development Cooperation Strategies
Research project