Feminist Perspectives and Recommendations on the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development

During the 2025 ECOSOC Forum, this dedicated side event highlighted how gender justice and women’s human rights are essential to shaping the outcomes of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4).

The discussion underscored the urgency and feminist foundations of proposals such as a Sovereign Debt Convention and an International Development Cooperation (IDC) Convention. Speakers presented actionable steps, grounded in feminist principles, to embed social reproduction, ecological integrity, and women’s rights into international financing frameworks.

The event also served as a platform to strengthen alliances, encouraging collaboration among feminist groups, intersectional movements, supportive member states, and UN entities. Together, they advanced a shared commitment to a transformative financing agenda for FFD4.

The 4th Financing for Development (FfD) Conference presents a unique opportunity to promote a feminist justice agenda that addresses the systemic barriers contributing to gender inequality, ecological degradation, and economic injustice. The CS FfD Feminist Workstreams’ position statement emphasises that this agenda is rooted in recognising the human rights of women and girls, prioritising the sustainability of life over capital, safeguarding and enhancing public services, and pursuing comprehensive ecological integrity. In particular, these elements include, first, the recognition of Human Rights and Gender Equality: Upholding and reinforcing existing commitments in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the Beijing Platform for Action, and CEDAW to ensure that the human rights and empowerment of women and girls remain central to financing policies. Second, the importance of care and social reproduction: Women's unpaid domestic and care work must be valued, acknowledged, and supported through public services and infrastructure. Feminist approaches advocate for redistributing and reducing unpaid care work in line with SDG 5.4. Third, the excessive reliance on exploitative growth models and privatisation contributes to ecological crises that disproportionately affect women. A transition towards well-being indicators beyond GDP is essential. Fourth, it is critical to strengthen domestic resource mobilisation, ensure fair taxation, and eliminate illicit financial flows, vital for financing robust social protection systems.

On the other hand, unsustainable debt burdens often impose austerity measures that disproportionately affect women and other marginalised communities, making debt relief and cancellation a feminist priority. A Sovereign Debt Convention grounded in feminist economics would incorporate gender-impact assessments and ensure that debt solutions protect women’s economic and social rights. By freeing resources currently directed toward servicing onerous debts, states could allocate funds toward care systems, healthcare, and social infrastructure, the foundational elements of gender equality. Illicit financial flows, including tax evasion and corporate profit shifting, diminish the public purse, weakening social programs vital for women’s well-being. A globally recognised IDC Convention with binding commitments would disrupt these harmful practices, aiding in mobilising additional public resources for gender-transformative investments. Importantly, it would bolster transparent and equitable tax and trade regimes, hold corporations accountable, and require that funds be distributed in ways that support women’s rights and sustainability.

When contextualised through the lens of intersectional and structural feminism, these overarching principles reflect a transformative shift toward people-centered, rights-based, and ecologically sustainable financing strategies. This side event highlights the crucial need for feminist interventions in FfD, especially underscoring key demands and aspirations towards realization of human rights-based principles and approaches that recognizes peoples’ right to self-determination starting from one’s bodily autonomy and integrity and advance human rights to economic, social, cultural and political development without which sustainable development, peace and justice cannot be achieved.

Objectives

1.         Illustrate how gender justice and women’s human rights perspectives are fundamental to shaping the outcomes of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4).

2.         Specifically, emphasize the urgency and feminist foundations of a Sovereign Debt Convention and an IDC Convention, mobilising stakeholders to incorporate these solutions into formal negotiations.

3.         Offer actionable steps rooted in feminist principles to incorporate social reproduction, ecological integrity, and women’s human rights into transformative international financing frameworks.

4.         And finally, strengthen alliances by encouraging collaboration among feminist groups and intersectional movements together with allied member states and UN entities to unite around a transformative agenda in FfD4

Format: This side event held during the 2025 ECOSOC Forum began with opening remarks emphasizing the intersection of Financing for Development (FFD) with the feminist economic agenda. Speakers highlighted the need to address systemic barriers and reaffirmed the fundamental right to development.

Speakers presented compelling empirical evidence linking current economic structures to persistent gender inequality, ecological degradation, and intersecting global crises.

A discussion followed, focusing on the potential of a Sovereign Debt Convention by Mae Buenaventura from APMDD and an International Development Cooperation (IDC) Convention to serve as structural solutions to the economic challenges facing women and marginalized communities.

The event concluded with a Q&A session, offering space for interactive dialogue on movement-building, policy reform, and collective advocacy to advance feminist priorities within the FFD4 process.