The Long Transition

Herfkens and Short left their cabinet positions in 2002–3, the former because of a government change, the latter over disagreement with the government’s policy in the Iraq War. But Johnson stayed in office until 2005 and Wieczorek-Zeul until 2009, pushing for implementation of the U4 agenda in different contexts and with different partners. They continued to collaborate with each other, the UK, and the Nordics, on specific issues. Thus, while a systemic and fully fledged U4 cooperation never re-emerged at the political and ministerial level, there was a transition over time. The U4 did not disappear from the international scene as much as they faded away as a ministerial group. This chapter reviews this transition roughly over the period 2003–8, discussing key aspects of international cooperation for development: the Rome–Paris–Accra accords on Aid Effectiveness, the UN 2005 Millennium Development Goals Review, the Doha Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations; changes in HIPC, the Doha Review Conference on Financing for Development, and other aspects of international cooperation over this period.