40 TIKA carries out bilateral cooperation projects and programs through its more than 50 world -wide program coordination offices. As a result of the positive developments in Turkish economy, Turkey has increased its ODA figures and has reinforced its development cooperation in recent years , leading to being denominated as an emerging donor. In 2014, Turkey’s net ODA amounted to USD 3.6 billion, representing an increase of 15% in real terms over 2013. The ratio of ODA as a share of GNI rose from 0.40% in 2013 to 0.45% i n 2014. Preliminary data show that ODA reached USD 3.9 billion in 2015 (0.54% of GNI). Turkish ODA by major ca tegory focus on the sectors of social infrastructure and services (62.4%), economic infrastructures and services (7.8%), production (1.4%) and cross-cutting issues (28.4%). In accordance with the commitments made in the 4 th United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Istanbul, Turkey has implemented cooperation projects within those countries with over 200 million USD aid flows originating from the country. Since 2011, excluding humanitarian aid, almost 20% of the Turkish total ODA was delivered to LDCs. Turkey will continue to share its sustainable development experiences with the rest of the world in the context of development cooperation activities. There is no doubt that international development agenda is rather intense and billions of people live in difficult condit ions devoid of even basic needs. Turkey has started to take more resp onsibility than ever in international development agenda. To facilitate development cooperation activities in a more systematic way , there is a priority transformation program in the 10 th Development Plan . Program for Improving the Infrastructure of International Cooperation For Development is designed to establish a strategic framework for the development cooperation policy; strengthen ing the legal basis together with financial, institutional and human capacity for development cooperation; using development cooperation opportunities for improving the social welfare of Turkey and partner countries;increasing the awareness about 41 international cooperation and strengthening cultural cooperation between Turkey and partner countries. Turkey is ready to make every effort to contribute to the achievement of SDGs all around the world. SDG-17 on means of implementation and the remaining goal -specific means of implementation targets will provide guidance in TIKA’s operational activities. To this end, Turkey sees both North - South and South -South Cooperation as valuable instruments for international development cooperation; therefore it works for comprising its own policies in accordance with these modalities. On the other hand, Turkey’s figures over ODA/GNI have recently been quite positive. It is highly expected that this upward trend will continue in the following years. Turkey, as an emerging donor country, would like to continue to increase its contributions to global sustainable development and diversify its activities. The process of Turkey to become an emerging donor country was in parallel with the adoption of MDGs. In this regard, there is no doubt that this process will continue within the scope of SDGs. Turkey will continue to geographically widen its technical cooperation activities and diversify the sectors. Also, within the framewor k of South -South Cooperation, Turkey will continue to establish new partnerships. In addition, of the increase in triangular cooperation projects (another ODA modality) is likely to take place in Turkey’s future partnership activities. Turkey also recognizes the importance of bilateral and multilateral cooperation for sustainable development in terms of mobilizing finance, partnerships and assistance. Turkey, being a ca ndidate country pursuing accession negotiations with the EU, a member of G-20, OECD and the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC), prioritizes sustainable development in the bilateral and multilateral cooperation activities. For example, under the presidency of G-20, Turkey moved the emphasis from growth to development and highlighted inclusiveness. Moreover at the G -20 Summit, an action plan is 42 decided to be prepared for the imple mentation of 2030 Agenda. Following this decision, Turkey submitted her national actions to G-20. In November 2015, MoD prepared a report titled “Turkey’s Sustainable Development Pathway towards Agenda 2030” which is submitted to COMCEC. In addition, sustainable development is one of the strategic goals in the partnership strategy formed with the World Bank and in the development cooperation strategy developed with United Nations (UN). Sustainable development is included as a component when international f inancial resources (GEF, World Bank, EBRD, FAO etc.) are utilized. Considering the significance of sharing information and widening our experiences, to ensure sustainable development at each level, particularly at regional level, Turkey contributes to sustainable development by raising awareness and advocacy via hosting international and regional activities. Second UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II Summit) in 1996, Regional Meeting of Millennium Development Goals in 2010, the Fourth United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries, 2 nd International Entrepreneurship Summit in 2011 and Global Human Development Forum in 2012, SDGs themed 31 st COMCEC Inter-ministerial Meeting in 2015 and World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 were all held in Istanbul. In 2013, as a result of Turkey’s increasing role on the international arena, the United Nations Development Programme’s Regional Service Centre for Europe and Commonwealth of Independent State (UNDP -RSC) was opened in Istanbul in 2013. Moreover in 2015, the 12th session of Conference of Parties (COP12) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was held in Ankara. In this conference, Turkey launched Ankara Initiative, a multilateral platform for actions that specifically combat desertification, drought and land degradation, committing 5 million dollars as its contribution, as well as capacity-building training. In addition, in Antalya, tenth G-20 Summit was held in 2015 and the High-level Midterm review of the implementation of the Istanbul Programme of Action (IPoA), which was adopted at the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries, was undertaken in 2016.Turkey 43 is also a candidate for hosting COP -26 for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in 2020. 44 9 Challenges and Experiences in the Implementation of the Agenda The planning paradigm is shifting as a result of dominant global trends that bring about economic systems with a more active and effective private sector and a public sector that increasingly focuses on regulatory activities, supervision and coordinative functions. Although open economies with free markets have become more common, ongoing impact of the global crisis reveals the importance of public sectors’ strategic moves about policy-making and preventive measures. In this context, national plans that are prepared with a strategic perspective and broad participation of all stakeholders have increasingly become more important. The increasing interaction between sectors, the impact of policy implementations in a variety of fields , thus the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to overcome the challenges, together reshape the scope and content of development plans. While this requires a comprehensive approach that covers all sectors, it also highlights programmatic approaches that handle sectors in relation to each other. Turkey offers an enabling environment for institutional structuring of the public administrati on, distribution of duties and responsibilities among public authorities and ownership at all levels. And in line with the global changes, there is a shift in the development paradigm of the country to the integrated development approach at NDPs since 9 th Development Plan of Turkey, covering the period between 2007-2013. In that Plan, thematic analysis was the main instrument for responding to the development challenges of the country. This plan aimed to avoid sectoral analysis and looked at the problems with an interdisciplinary manner. However, breaking down the silos at policy level is not an easy task and does not always bring an interdisciplinary perspective at operational levels. There are still various bottlenecks in the decision making 45 process for breaking down the silos that will create challenges in the implementation phase of the SDGs. Many institutions still have hierarchical, siloed, and fragmented processes and cultures and are working across institutional boundaries. Especially working on a task as comprehensive as SDGs is rather difficult under these circumstances and will take time and resources at all levels. The real challenges are to coordinate efforts across differentsectors and functions, keep all institutions and stakeholders focused on the delivery of the actions and gain political ownership on the process. For overcoming these challenges, new and innovative communication tools are urgently required. A series of structured and facilitated forums for bringing people together across levels, functions, and geographies to solve common problems are a prerequisite for the achievement of this ambitious global agenda by 2030. Turkey is ready to engage with all stakeholders at national level and international forums for having a mutual learning environment in that long and challenging journey. Another challenge of the implementation process of SDGs is so called “data revolution ”. Although 47 th session of UNSC ha s adapted a global indicator list to monitor sustainable development until 2030, there exists a large number of unclear issuesrelated to this monitoring process.Some of these issues may be listed as; uncertainty in indicator list itself (some of the indicators are subject to be revised), inadequacy of metadata and absence of data flow procedures. Another dimension of th at challenge is the funding of the data revolution. Fulfilling an effective monitoring process based on disaggregated data can only b e accomplished by making investments on data generation. And channeling financial resources on capacity building programs and projects will not be an easy task given the budget pressures. 46 10 Conclusions and Messages for the International Community In the context of new development agenda, Turkey believes that continuing its human centered development approach which has the main axis of equality and sustainability is crucial . Turkey’s utmost priority at the moment is fighting poverty for ensuring an honor able life quality for each and every citizen. Additionally, a peaceful society, ensuring rule of law and good governance are enablers of our goals and targets and support a level playing field for all. Turkeyviews rule of law, peace,governance and strong institutional capacity as the 4th pillar of sustainable development. Without these inevitable elements, it is almost impossible to realize goals and targets. Since speeding up sustainable development requires mobilization of financial resources, it is ne cessary to use existing financial resources in an effective and productive manner , as well as creating innovative cooperation for future collaborations. Considering the principle “Ensuring that no one is left behind”, Turkey will maintain its important mission to accomplish global sustainable development goals for offering its experience and knowledge on sustainable development through bilateral and multilateral cooperation and aid programs to the world, especially in its close region. But in t he field of development cooperation, it is not visible to reach SDGs by following an approach that solely maintans the idea“business as usual”. Since ODA can not be sufficient to implement Agenda 2030, not only the sources should be increased but also eff iciency should be improved. As stated in Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) there is a need for new sources of finance. In this respect, private sector investments could be employed , in addition to the advancements to be made in ODAs. www.surdurulebilirkalkinma.gov.tr