Publications

What can the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development achieve?

The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) will take place in Seville in June 2025. This is against the backdrop of massive delays in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, not least due to deficits in development financing. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) financing gap, which was estimated at US$ 2.5 trillion in 2015, has not been closed or reduced over the last decade. Instead, it has grown to over US$ 4 trillion annually. In addition, the decade [...]

Views and proposals from civil society

The international financial architecture is in urgent need of reform. In the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, it is "outdated, dysfunctional and unjust". The main institutions were created 80 years ago in a transatlantic agreement, at a time when many of the world's nation-states of today were still colonies. Moreover, the institutions have failed in their mission to prevent and mitigate crises and to mobilize sufficient financing for internationally agreed development goals.

The reform of the international financial architecture [...]

The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development and its main challenges

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 [...]

Proposals, conflicts and prospects on the way to the Summit of the Future 2024 and the Financing for Development Conference 2025

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 The international financial architecture is “outdated, dysfunctional and unfair”, according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres.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 [...]

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 [...]

GPW Round Up #7

A key theme for the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), 10-20 July 2023, was the issue of the current international financial architecture (IFA) that disproportionality disservices low and middle-income countries.

Reforms to IFA, tackling debt difficulties for vulnerable countries, the SDG Stimulus, and references to SDG Summit, Summit of the Future and Summit for a New Global Financing Pact were highlighted by various Member States and other stakeholders at the HLPF and at the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact [...]

United Nations score success

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 [...]

Why a fourth International Conference on Financing for Development is overdue

As Agenda 2030 passes its mid-way point, ambitious reforms will be required during its second phase if the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are still to be achieved. A lack of financial resources is one of the main reasons why their implementation has fallen so far behind. The UN’s latest Financing for Sustainable Development Report has identified the “financial divide”, i.e. the lack of access to funds at favourable interest rates for countries of the Global South, as a key problem [...]

A turning point for development finance?

Since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, development finance has operated under conditions of low interest rates and high liquidity in global financial markets. This has changed with the recent turnaround in interest rates. This briefing paper describes the current trends, analyzes the implications for financing sustainable development in the Global South, and formulates policy recommendations on how countries in the Global South and their financing partners in the North can respond to the interest rate increases.