The past two years have felt like a marathon of summits. In particular, the United Nations (UN) Summit of the Future in September 2024 and the International Conference on Financing for Development in Sevilla in July 2025 placed international financial architecture reform firmly at the top of the global agenda. 

Looking ahead to 2026, policy debate and institutional development are likely to unfold in a more fragmented manner, across a range of forums within the multilateral system. Nevertheless, a significant number of important processes are due to take place next year.

Here is my selection of key developments to watch in 2026 in the different financing for development policy areas.

Tax justice and domestic resource mobilization

The most relevant process is the negotiations on the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (FCITC), which will be entering the second year of three years of negotiations in 2026. The aim is to adopt the main convention and the early protocols by the end of 2027. The International Negotiating Committee has scheduled three two-week sessions for the coming year – in February and August in New York, and in early December in Nairobi. Non-governmental actors’ participation is being coordinated primarily by the Global Alliance for Tax Justice.   

Progressive taxation, including wealth taxation, is likely to remain high on the international agenda, following the hype triggered by the Brazilian G20 agenda in 2024. However, the issue is not a dedicated protocol of the FCITC and needs to be included in the main convention. The US G20 presidency is not expected to feature the issue during its term in 2026. 

Much will happen in a decentralized manner, including at the country level. A main vehicle of support for this work, and other tax issues, could be the Addis Tax Initiative, the second phase of which was launched at the Sevilla conference. 

Private investment and trade 

Private finance is expected to fill the gap where official funding falls short of satisfying financing for development needs. In 2025, we saw a welcome shift from mobilizing greater quantities of climate finance to the cost of capital, thanks to the South African G20 presidency. 

Two new global policy formats were mandated by the Sevilla conference. The first is a special meeting of the UN Economic and Social Affairs Council (ECOSOC) on Financial Integrity, scheduled for 1 March 2026.  The second special meeting of ECOSOC is on Credit Rating Agencies, tentatively scheduled for 30 March. These inaugural meetings will give us some indication of how much commitment there is among governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. Both are due to become recurrent meetings.

Private finance for development is also likely to feature in the new edition of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference from 29-30 June next year. Last year, the SCALED Initiative was launched there (and eventually got recycled as part of the Sevilla Platform for Action).

Trade tensions are expected to remain severe in 2026 and unilateral actions are unpredictable. There are signs that France wants to prioritize macroeconomic balances – particularly trade imbalances – during their G7 presidency, which culminates in the Heads of State Summit in Evian on 14-16 June 2026.

International development cooperation 

After what was probably the worst year ever for international development cooperation marked by massive budget cuts in 2025 and the increasing subordination of development instruments to non-development policy targets – we are curious to see what 2026 will bring. The cuts also affected related finance flows that de facto count as ODA if originating in DAC member states, namely most climate finance, humanitarian aid and member state contributions to multilateral organizations, including the UN system.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) has launched the DAC review process that might lead to an agreement to reform the body substantially. The DAC has been the main standard-setter for defining what counts as official development assistance (ODA) for many decades. The process is structured along four thematic axes, which are: data, the role of ODA within the totality of flows, country eligibility and graduation, and the DAC’s way of working. 

The process is supposed to inform the new DAC mandate, which is due to be adopted in 2027. It remains to be seen to what extent the sharp downward trend of ODA provision can be turned around in 2026, it would require a lot of country-level work. If there is no turnaround, the DAC will have little to oversee by the time the review is over.   

Debt and borrowing

In 2025, we managed to avoid the severe debt crisis that some had predicted, as governance issues in the US drove investment flows to other countries and reduced the value of the US dollar vis-à-vis other currencies. The former alleviated liquidity problems in countries with dollar debts; the latter alleviated their solvency issues. However, debt service costs as a percentage of revenue remain very high and are squeezing fiscal space, which is why the issue remains high on the agenda. 

The Sevilla Summit resulted in a significant number of political agreements for new multilateral forums on debt, in 2026, we will learn whether they get off the ground and become relevant. Worth mentioning are: the Intergovernmental Process on Debt Architecture Reform at the UN; the Working Group on Responsible Lending and Borrowing to be convened by the UN Secretary-General (whose term is coming to an end in 2026); the Sevilla Forum on Debt that Spain wants to convene; and the new Borrower Platform, which is ostensibly a body for policy coordination and peer learning among heavily indebted countries of the Global South. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is also reviewing a number of tools and policies, worth mentioning are the surveillance review and the conditionality review, but also reform of its debt sustainability analysis for low-income countries. Governance reform will be high on the agenda for the Bretton Woods Institutions in the first half of the year, due to the ongoing World Bank shareholding review, and the IMF’s plans to agree on ‘principles’ for quota realignment. There are widely differing opinions among member states as to the extent to which issues such as climate or gender should be at the centre of their operations. Such topics promise to remain controversial throughout the year, but in particular at their Spring Meetings in April and the Annual Meetings in October, the latter hosted by Thailand in Bangkok. 

Systemic issues and financing for development follow-up

The UN Financing for Development Forum is going to reconvene on 20-24 April, for the first time since the FfD4 conference in Sevilla. The idea is to have a more focused policy debate by selecting just a few policy areas for each FfD Forum (this year, these are domestic and international private finance, international financial architecture and systemic issues, and data, monitoring and follow-up). 

A new dialogue with the World Trade Organization (WTO) will be included, which is designed to strengthen the link between trade and finance. The FfD Forum will be informed by the next Interagency Task Force Report on financing for development, with a draft expected by 28 February. This new report is likely to take on a stronger monitoring role, helping to fill the gap left by the lack of agreement on FfD indicators at FfD4 in 2025.  

Debate around the cost of capital has fuelled calls for new institutional innovations at both regional and global levels. The African Credit Rating Agency is expected to become operational in 2026, providing an opportunity to demonstrate its impact. At the same time, pressure is also mounting to review other areas of financial regulation that affect the cost of capital – particularly the Basel Accords designed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Many of the multilateral bodies that are responsible for financial regulation operate under mandates set by the G20, but there is significant policy uncertainty surrounding the G20 process in 2026. 

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