Development finance and tax justice

From June 30 to July 3, 2025, the fourth International Conference on Development Finance (FfD4) will take place in Seville, Spain. Expectations are high, as the conference aims to mobilize the means to close the enormous financing gap in climate and sustainable development, and to advance the reforms in the international financial architecture.
However, current global developments counteract these goals. The U.S. administration fundamentally questions multilateralism. Several European governments are drastically cutting official development aid (ODA) due to economic pressure [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

The 2025 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank took place against the backdrop of two new and rather unexpected shocks. The first was the trade shock caused by the USA’s announcement of tariff hikes, which triggered similar actions by US trading partners. The second was the aid shock caused by massive cuts in official development assistance (ODA) made by donor countries on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Although the full impact [...]

Vom 30. Juni bis 3. Juli 2025 findet im spanischen Sevilla die 4. Internationale Konferenz über Entwicklungsfinanzierung (FfD4) statt. Sie soll nach den Worten der UN-Mitgliedsstaaten Fortschritte und Hindernisse bei der Umsetzung der Beschlüsse der drei Vorgängerkonferenzen von Monterrey (2002), Doha (2008) und Addis Abeba (2015) bewerten, Maßnahmen und Initiativen zur Überwindung der Hindernisse vereinbaren und sich mit neuen Herausforderungen angesichts der globalen Krisen befassen. Ziel ist es dabei vor allem, die Umsetzung der Agenda 2030 und ihrer Ziele für [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

On 10 March 2025, the UN circulated the new version of the draft global financing framework that the international community is due to adopt at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Sevilla in early July. The new version reflects interventions by Member States and other stakeholders made at the third session of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom3) at UN headquarters in February. It is the basis for the actual line-by-line text negotiations that are [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

From 26 to 28 February 2025, the first key events of the South African G20 presidency took place as Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors held their inaugural meeting in Cape Town, the country’s coastal metropolis. The fifth edition of the Finance in Common Summit, the world’s major gathering of public development banks, took place at the same time, attracting around 2,000 delegates. South Africa is trying to pursue several important streams of financial architecture reforms during [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

The third session of the Preparatory Committee for the International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) took place at the United Nations (UN) headquarters from 10-14 February 2025. It marked the first round of negotiations on the actual outcome, as the zero draft of the conference’s outcome document – intended as the world’s key multilateral agreement on development finance – was released in mid-January. 

UN Member States and other stakeholders made the most of the five-day session [...]

The international community has made significant strides on the road to the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). On 17 January 2025, the UN released the draft outcome document for the upcoming Sevilla Conference. The set of multilateral agreements included in the document will become the main global policy framework for development finance, complementing earlier agreements such as the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Monterrey Consensus. So what does the zero draft include? 

Debt takes centre [...]

Im Juni 2025 findet in Sevilla die Vierte Internationale Konferenz für Entwicklungsfinanzierung (FfD4) statt. Dies passiert vor dem Hintergrund massiver Rückstände bei der Umsetzung der Agenda 2030 für nachhaltige Entwicklung, die nicht zuletzt durch Defizite bei der Entwicklungsfinanzierung entstanden sind. Die SDG-Finanzierungslücke,
die 2015 noch auf 2,5 Billionen US-Dollar geschätzt wurde, ist im letzten Jahrzehnt nicht geschlossen oder verkleinert worden, sondern auf über 4 Billionen US-Dollar jährlich angewachsen. Darüber hinaus war das Jahrzehnt seit der Verabschiedung der Abschlusserklärung der Dritten [...]

The international community gathered at the United Nations (UN) headquarters from 3-6 December for the second Preparatory Committee meeting for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), which is set to take place in Sevilla, Spain, in late June 2025. Discussions in New York clarified country priorities and positions on FfD, building on concrete proposals outlined in a previously circulated Elements Paper. The meeting also served as a test of the level of ambition.

The New York [...]

The event is hosted by: Abong, CCRDA, VANTI, VENRO, Forum Umwelt & Entwicklung, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, GPF Europe, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Netzwerk Steuergerechtigkeit, WEED

The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) will take place in Sevilla, Spain from June 30 to July 3, 2025. FfD4 is expected to catalyse the urgently needed policy change to mobilize the necessary funds for sustainable development and climate action. Therefore, it is expected to also set milestones in terms of reforming the international financial architecture.

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