Development Finance & Tax Justice - Archive

*Watch the video of the report launch*

What to expect?

• Perspectives on international financial architecture reform.
• LAUNCH OF THE NEW CIVIL SOCIETY REPORT: Building new foundations: Reimagining the International Financial Architecture

With:

• Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky - Researcher at Argentina's National Scientific and [...]

The United Nations has concluded tough negotiations on the Pact for the Future. The comprehensive multilateral agreement was adopted on 22 September at the opening session of the Summit of the Future. Under the heading ‘Transforming Global Governance’, the Pact contains a list of policy measures to reform the international financial architecture. This area has been a priority for developing countries, which are marginalised in the current institutional framework for global economic governance. The UN Secretary-General has been a strong [...]

The Global People's Assembly 2024 will take place in person from 22-24 September at the UN Church Center in New York. In the PROGRAMME you will find event descriptions for everything happening over the three days. Because of technical challenges people will be able to follow online only the first day of the assembly.

Please click here to register to attend in New York in person

Please click here to register to attend the first day online

Tax dodging and harmful tax competition remain major challenges to mobilising sufficient resources for development and public services. A landmark agreement reached in New York on 16 August 2024 could finally provide the international community with an effective tool to tackle these problems. After three weeks of intense negotiations, an ad hoc committee of the UN General Assembly agreed on the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the new UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. The adopted ToR outline [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

From 22 to 26 June 2024, the international community gathered in Addis Ababa for the first session of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the UN's Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). The well-attended meeting took place against the backdrop that time is running out to close the financing gap for the SDGs. At the same time, high debt levels in many developing countries are making it increasingly difficult to find suitable financing instruments. 

Wrapping up [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

When the Bridgetown Initiative for the Reform of the International Financial Architecture (IFA) was released in autumn 2022, it caused quite a stir, especially in the climate finance community. Promoted by Mia Mottley, the strong-willed prime minister of Barbados, the initiative influenced the UN climate summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh and inspired the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact organised by French president Macron in Paris in June 2023. The second version, Bridgetown 2.0, was released in [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

As the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) celebrate their 80th anniversaries, the pressure is mounting to reform these two central pillars of the international financial architecture (IFA). In debates at the UN, such as the 2023 SDG Summit, emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) in particular have reiterated their calls for a major overhaul of the IFA. The G24, the body of EMDE´s at the Bretton Woods institutions, has presented a comprehensive list of [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

Debt, taxes and geopolitics took centre stage in this year´s UN Financing for Development (FfD) Forum. The debates and negotiations took place as the preparatory process for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) was already underway. They preceded the first negotiating session of the UN General Assembly´s new Ad Hoc Committee on International Tax Cooperation, which began immediately afterwards. Fiercely negotiated were the outcome document´s paragraphs on international tax cooperation and [...]

>> Join this session at the Civil Society Policy Forum (CSPF) during the 2024 Spring Meetings of IMF & World Bank in Washington D.C. <<

Location: IMF HQ2-03B-768B 

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The debt crisis is no longer a risk but a reality in many countries. It is therefore key to restore debt sustainability in a way that it ensures governments capacity to guarantee human rights, gender equality and climate action while also looking at the crisis from a structural perspective [...]

In December 2023, the United Nations General Assembly finally gave the mandate to convene the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). In a challenging economic and geopolitical environment, high expectations are placed on the conference. On the one hand, ways and means are to be found to mobilize additional funds in order to at least significantly reduce the enormous financing gaps in development and climate action. On the other hand, FfD4 is also intended to be a milestone [...]

By Bodo Ellmers, Global Policy Forum and Ute Straub, Brot für die Welt 

(Article first published on www.germanclimatefinance.de)

A new target for climate financing is to be agreed internationally before the end of the year. If it is to meet the challenges of climate change, it must be significantly higher than the previous USD 100 billion target for international climate finance. There are several relevant processes on the international political calendar for 2024 that deal with how more funds [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

International financial architecture (IFA) reform has been a hot topic lately. Numerous expert groups have made policy recommendations, and the developing countries among the UN member states in particular are calling for faster and more fundamental reforms. In the run-up to the Summit of the Future, scheduled for September this year, civil society organisations have been campaigning for a wide range of changes. The latest Spotlight on Global Multilateralism highlighted campaigns for more inclusive global tax [...]

Calls for reforms of the international financial architecture are becoming ever louder. Governments, UN institutions, expert groups and civil society organizations are criticizing the fact that the network of institutions and rules that currently determine global monetary and financial policy and control global financial flows are not up to the current crises. The international financial architecture is “outdated, dysfunctional and unfair”, according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

In view of these challenges, the UN Member States made the reform of [...]

The adequate mobilization of climate finance remains one of the greatest challenges of our time. Under the United Nations (UN) climate agreements, rich countries have pledged to support the global South in the fight against climate change and the associated human rights violations through financial transfers. However, the repeated failure to meet the corresponding target of providing US$ 100 billion per year has led to diplomatic tensions and is one of the main reasons for the lack of success in [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

The recent 2023 Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Marrakesh received a lot of attention. It was only the second time that the two Bretton Woods Institutions met in Africa – the continent that is most dependent on their loans. Africa is also perhaps the continent that has suffered most from the policy conditionality and structural adjustment programmes associated with these loans. It was fitting then that World Bank reform [...]

The World Bank is considered to be the most important multilateral development bank (MDB). Since it was founded in 1944 at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference to finance the reconstruction of war-torn Europe, it has reinvented itself several times. The most significant change was the transformation from a reconstruction bank to a development bank. Today, the World Bank finances exclusively in countries of the global South, while continuing to be controlled by the economic powers of the global [...]

This expert discussion takes place as part of the Civil Society Policy Forum at the joint Annual Meetings of International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group in Marrakesh (Morocco). 

The objective is to discuss debt architecture reforms that are needed to address the new wave of debt crises, and how to take these reforms forward at the major multilateral institution-building opportunities that are upcoming.

Global Policy Forum Europe is co-organizing with a large coalition of debt specialist organisations and CSO [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

Countries around the world continue to lose almost US$ 500 billion every year to tax dodging and global tax abuse. At the request of United Nations Member States, the UN Secretary-General has now presented his report on “Promotion of inclusive and effective international tax cooperation at the United Nations”. The report recommends a major upgrade of the international tax architecture. In the best case, the gaping governance hole created by the absence of fully inclusive [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

The mid-term review of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) implementation looks sobering. When heads of state meet at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York on 18 and 19 September for the SDG Summit, the central topic will be how to give the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development new impetus for the second half of the 15-year term. A key proposal for refocusing SDG implementation is the SDG Stimulus Package, which was unveiled by the [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

The much-hyped Summit for a New Global Financing Pact took place in Paris during the third week of June. Convened by French President Macron in loose cooperation with Mia Mottley – the Prime Minister of Barbados and the mother of the “Bridgetown Initiative to reform the International Financial Architecture” – the objective was to find new ways to fill the mounting gaps in cross-border development and climate finance.

In the run up to the Summit, two other [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

A fundamental reform of the international financial architecture is crucial for effective development financing and the fight against climate change. This is one of the greatest challenges of multilateralism.

Almost 80 years after the Bretton Woods system emerged from the catastrophe of World War II, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General has taken up the issue and made a wide range of reform proposals in a recent policy brief. These include the modernization of existing institutions, such [...]

The United Nations Financing for Development Forum 2023, which was recently held over four days in New York, was dominated by multiple crises. Setbacks to the 2030 Agenda have increased political pressure to make substan­tial progress on financing for development. The chapters in the outcome document on taxation and debt issues were particularly vigorously negotiated. African countries in particular want to further strengthen the UN’s work on taxation. With the escalating debt crisis, it is also becoming more important [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

In November 2023, the UN passed a landmark resolution on international tax cooperation. It opens an intergovernmental negotiation process that many hope will lead to a UN tax convention of universal application. The special session of the UN Economic and Social Council on March 31, 2023, was the first diplomatic probing of the negotiating groups.   

Tax cooperation is perhaps the most poorly regulated area of global economic governance. A specialized International Tax Organization is as non-existent as [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

In the first week of March, the international community will gather for the 5th UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) in Doha. The conference takes place in the context of multiple crises that have hit LDCs far harder than richer and more resilient countries. It coincides with the SDG midterm, and by definition, no group of countries is as far from SDG achievement as LDCs. The conference presents a significant opportunity to mobilize more [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, presented a comprehensive approach to development finance last summer. Developed in collaboration with the United Nations, the Bridgetown Initiative is a three-step plan to mobilize short-term liquidity for crisis response and long-term funding for sustainable development. Originally unveiled in the run-up to the UN climate summit in Sharm El Sheikh, it was not a flash in the pan, but is now being taken up by French President Macron as a [...]