Sustainable Development Finance comes in various forms: public and private, loans and equity, domestic and cross-border international finance. Financing sustainable development requires that all nations redirect their public finances and regulate private finance. The international financial architecture must be reformed to enable sustainable finance. The UN has a dedicated process for financing for development (FfD) which led to three major international agreements: the Monterrey Consensus (2002), the Doha Declaration (2008), and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (2015). The UN FfD process is ongoing and culminates in annual FfD Forums at UN headquarters in New York. Other international organizations play important roles for particular forms of finance, such as the IMF and the World Bank for international public lending programs, or the OECD for official development assistance (ODA).
The erosion of public finance in many countries has resulted in the growing inability of governments to provide the necessary public goods and services in support of people’s welfare and care systems, thus failing to respond effectively to the aggravated social and environmental problems. Therefore, there is an urgent need to strengthen and redirect public finance.
In this section, we post information, analyses, documents, and background material related to development finance and financial regulation. This includes the problem of curbing tax evasion and avoidance by transnational corporations, capital flight, money laundering, and illicit financial flows. On this issue, we collaborate closely with our partners in the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, the Civil Society Financing for Development Group and the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad).
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 [...]