Ensuring Sustainable Development through Fair Finance Systems
Sustainable development finance is essential for achieving global economic and social progress. It encompasses a variety of financing mechanisms, including public and private sources, loans and equity, and both domestic and cross-border international finance. To effectively finance sustainable development, all nations must redirect public finances and regulate private finance systems. This requires reforming the international financial architecture to support sustainable finance and ensure the global economy serves people and the planet.
The United Nations (UN) has a dedicated Financing for Development (FfD) process, which has resulted in three key international agreements: the Monterrey Consensus (2002), the Doha Declaration (2008), and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (2015). The FfD process continues to evolve, with annual FfD Forums hosted at UN headquarters in New York. Additionally, organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank play critical roles in international public lending programs, while the OECD focuses on official development assistance (ODA).
The erosion of public finance in many countries has led to governments' growing inability to provide essential public goods and services, exacerbating social and environmental challenges. To address this, there is an urgent need to strengthen and redirect public finance towards sustainable development goals and to improve social welfare and care systems.
In this section, we provide resources, analyses, documents, and background material related to development finance, tax justice and financial regulation. We work closely with partners in the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, the Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism and the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad).
