Netherlands

The objectives and priorities of Dutch development policy are laid out in the policy document of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Minister Sigrid Kaag: ‘Investing in Global Prospects: For the World, For the Netherlands’ (also referred to as the ‘BHOS policy’) released in May 2018.

It stresses that development cooperation, as an integral part of foreign policy, aims to combat the root causes of poverty, migration, terrorism and climate change within the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

With this new policy, the government is working on four overarching, closely linked main objectives:

• preventing conflict and instability
• reducing poverty and social inequality
• promoting sustainable inclusive growth and climate action worldwide
• strengthening the international earning capacity of the Netherlands.

Gender equality, and strengthening the position of women and girls, is a cross-cutting objective of the policy. Education, although not a development priority, is viewed as a cross-cutting theme.

In 2017, the top recipients of basic education ODA disbursement were: Lebanon, Burundi, South Africa.

The Netherlands was one of the donors that helped create GPE (formerly Education for All – Fast Track Initiative) in 2002.

The Netherlands pledged €50 million towards GPE's replenishment campaign "Raise Your Hand" on International Women's Day in 2021. This was the second contribution towards GPE's 2021 replenishment.